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Artwork for Mother Play
Artwork for Mother Play
Artwork for Mother Play
Artwork for Mother Play
Artwork for Mother Play
Mother Play

30 JUN  —  9 AUG 2025

Southbank Theatre, The Sumner

Fresh from its 2024 Broadway triumph, where it earned four Tony nominations and won two Drama Desk Awards and an Outer Critics Circle Award, it’s time for Melbourne audiences to be treated to this captivating drama starring Sigrid Thornton.

1 hour and 50 minutes. No interval.

SEASON EXTENDED!

Mother Play has been extended until 9 August, with eight new performances available to book now.

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This is rated 4 out of 5 stars

‘Strips away the glamour in sweeping tragicomic vision.’

The Age
This is rated 4 out of 5 stars

‘Thoughtful, evocative interpretation.’

Limelight
This is rated 4 out of 5 stars

‘Sigrid Thornton is a revelation.’

Australian Book Review
This is rated 0 out of 5 stars

Nominated for Best Play in the 2024 Tony Awards

ABOUT THE SHOW

The bonds of love are tested in this expansive yet intimate drama rich with humour and wit, starring film, theatre and television legend Sigrid Thornton, alongside Yael Stone, Ash Flanders and directed by Lee Lewis. Careening through the twentieth century – from the Muzak-drenched 60s through the sexual revolution, disco era, and New Age movements that followed – Mother Play charts the personal upheavals of one family trying to find a place for themselves amid the slings and arrows of a changing world.

It’s 1962 and Martha and Carl are unpacking. Again. Since their deadbeat dad ditched them and stole the family’s savings, they’ve been following their fierce mother Phyllis from apartment to apartment. Cockroaches, landlords and snooty neighbours be damned. Phyllis is determined to live life on her terms. They’re moving on up.

Mother Play is a gift for actors, allowing them to muster the full range of human emotion in service of a story that cannot fail to stir the heart.

Its 2024 Broadway production earned four Tony nominations and won two Drama Desk Awards and an Outer Critics Circle Award. It’s time for Melbourne audiences to be treated to the Australian premiere of this lustrous gem of contemporary theatre.

 

Accessibility

  • Wheelchair Accessible

  • Hearing Assistance

  • Audio Described

  • Tactile Tour

  • Open Captioning

  • Closed Captioning

  • Auslan Interpreted

Performance Type Performance Date(s)
Audio Described
by Vision Australia 		Saturday 19 July at 2pm
Tuesday 22 July at 6.30pm
Tactile Tour
at venue 		Saturday 19 July at 2pm (Tactile tour commences at 1pm)
Open Captioning
via screen 		Saturday 26 July at 2pm
Closed Captioning
via GoTheatrical App 		Saturday 26 July at 2pm
Auslan Interpreted More information here
Ash Flanders

Ash Flanders

Carl Herman

Ash Flanders is a multi-award-winning actor, playwright, screenwriter and theatrical nuisance. He created queer theatre company Sisters Grimm with Declan Greene, co-writing and performing in Lilith: The Jungle Girl, The Sovereign Wife (Melbourne Theatre Company); Calpurnia Descending (Malthouse Theatre/Sydney Theatre Company); and Little Mercy (Sydney Theatre Company). He has been seen in Buyer & Cellar (Melbourne Theatre Company); Blackie Blackie Brown (Malthouse Theatre/Sydney Theatre Company); Hedda (Belvoir) and Psycho Beach Party (Little Ones Theatre). His solo shows include End Of. (Griffin Theatre Company); Meme Girls (Malthouse), Playing to Win (Arts Centre Melbourne) and A Brief Episode (Melbourne Fringe). His plays SS Metaphor and This Is Living were both commissioned by Malthouse Theatre. In 2024 he was playwright-in residence for the Athenaeum Group and recently adapted End Of. for television.

Artwork for Yael Stone

Yael Stone

Martha Herman

Yael Stone’s theatre credits include The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Honour, Elling and Frankenstein ;(Sydney Theatre Company); The Blind Giant is Dancing, The Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, As You Like It, The Book of Everything, and Scorched (Belvoir); Diary of a Madman (Brooklyn Academy of Music/Belvoir); Ladybird (Downstairs Belvoir); A Golem Story (Malthouse Theatre); Stoning Mary and The Kid (Griffin Theatre Company). Yael appeared in Orange is the New Black (Netflix) for 7 seasons as Lorna Morello, One Night (Paramount +), Bay of Fires (ABC), Wellmania (Netflix) Firebite (See-Saw Films/AMC), High Maintenance, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Childhood’s End, Deep Water and Spirited. Film credits include The Correspondent and BLAZE. She has been awarded three SAG awards, two Sydney Theatre Awards and her nominations include two Helpmann Awards, two Sydney Theatre Awards, a Green Room Award, an AACTA, an FCCA, a Logie and two Equity Ensemble Awards.

Sigrid Thornton

Sigrid Thornton

Phyllis Herman

Sigrid Thornton is one of Australia’s most celebrated actors. For Melbourne Theatre Company, she has appeared in The Effect, The Blue Room, and Betrayal. Other stage credits include The Lifespan of a Fact and The Seagull (Sydney Theatre Company); A Streetcar Named Desire (Black Swan); A Little Night Music (Opera Australia); and Fiddler on the Roof (The Works Entertainment Group). Her acclaimed screen career includes iconic roles in SeaChange, Wentworth, Peter Allen – Not the Boy Next Door, The Code, Underbelly: The Golden Mile, Great Expectations – The Untold Story, All the Rivers Run, The Far Country, Prisoner and international productions such as Paradise (CBS). Feature film credits include The Man From Snowy River 1 & 2, The Lighthorsemen, Face to Face, The Getting of Wisdom and Slant. Sigrid is a recipient of numerous accolades including Logie Awards, AACTA Awards, People’s Choice Awards and the US Cowboy Hall of Fame Award. In 2019, Sigrid received the Order of Australia for her contribution to the Entertainment industry.

Artwork for Paula Vogel

Paula Vogel

Writer

Paula Vogel is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright whose plays include Mother Play: A Play in Five Evictions, Indecent, How I Learned to Drive, The Long Christmas Ride Home, The Mineola Twins, The Baltimore Waltz, Hot ’n’ Throbbing, Desdemona, And Baby Makes Seven, The Oldest Profession and A Civil War Christmas. She served as Director of Playwriting at Brown University and as the O’Neill Chair of Playwriting at Yale School of Drama. Awards include two Tony nominations, the American Theatre Hall of Fame Award, two Obies, the Lily Award, the NY Drama Critics Circle Award, a Guggenheim and a Pew Charitable Trust Award. Her memoir, Travels Without Carl, will be published by Penguin Press.

Lee Lewis

Lee Lewis

Director

Lee Lewis is one of Australia's leading stage directors. She has created over eighty productions around the country. She was the Artistic Director of Griffin Theatre Company and Queensland Theatre. For Melbourne Theatre Company she directed Gloria, Hay Fever and Rupert. Recent national tours include Gaslight and Shirley Valentine. Selected productions include Prima Facie, The Bleeding Tree (Helpmann Award for Best Director, Green Room Awards for Best Director) First Casualty, Bernhardt/Hamlet (QT) Mary Stuart, Honour, Zebra, Love-Lies-Bleeding, Family Values, First Love Is The Revolution, The Almighty Sometimes, Kill Climate Deniers, The Homosexuals or ‘Faggots’, Masquerade, Emerald City, A Rabbit for Kim Jong Il, Silent Disco, Return to the Dirt, A Smurf in Wanderland, The Bull the Moon and the Coronet of Stars, The Nightwatchman, The Literati, That Face, Tiny Beautiful Things, A Number, This Heven, Half and Half, The Call and Twelfth Night. In 2024 she was awarded an OAM for services to Australian playwriting.

Christina Smith

Christina Smith

Set & Costume Designer

Christina Smith’s work has been seen at Melbourne Theatre Company for the last 20 years, as a set and costume designer on Seventeen, The Heartbreak Choir, Berlin, A View from the Bridge, The Architect, Gloria, The Odd Couple, Elling, National Interest, The Seed, Clybourne Park, Rising Water, A Behanding in Spokane, Boston Marriage, The Swimming Club, Blackbird, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Clean House, Dumb Show, Things We Do For Love, The Daylight Atheist, Honour and Cloud Nine; as Costume Designer on Realism, Humble Boy, Proof, Sweet Bird of Youth and Three Days of Rain; and as Set Designer on Jacky, Hayfever and Boy Gets Girl. Other companies she has designed for include Seattle Opera, NZ Opera, Victorian Opera, Sydney Theatre Company, Queensland Theatre, Black Swan State Theatre Company, Malthouse Theatre and Belvoir. She is a lecturer in Design for Live Performance at the Victorian College of the Arts.

Niklas Pajanti

Niklas Pajanti

Lighting Designer

Niklas Pajanti is an award-winning lighting designer whose practice ranges across theatre, dance, opera, circus, comedy, events, exhibitions and public spaces. His select design credits include The Removalists, A Streetcar Named Desire, Berlin, Così, A View from the Bridge, Astroman, A Doll’s House Part 2, Rupert, The Cherry Orchard (Melbourne Theatre Company); When the Rain Stops Falling, Spring Awakening, I Want to Dance Better At Parties (Sydney Theatre Company); The Birds, One Night the Moon, Not Like Beckett (Malthouse Theatre); My Urrwai, Angels in America, Wild Duck, Babyteeth (Belvoir); Much Ado About Nothing, The School for Wives (Bell Shakespeare) Sunday in the Park with George (Victorian Opera); Lucrezia Borgia, La Boheme (Melbourne Opera); Death of a Salesman (GWB Entertainment); Biographica (Lyric Opera/Theatre Works); In The Club (TheatreWorks). Exhibitions include Wonderland, Game Masters, Star Voyager: Exploring Space on Screen (ACMI); Tim Burton the Exhibition (MOMA); Hollywood Costume (V&A Museum). Niklas is the winner of three Green Room Awards.

Kelly Ryall

Kelly Ryall

Composer & Sound Designer

Kelly Ryall is an award-winning composer, musician and sound designer. Stage highlights include The Almighty Sometimes, My Sister Jill, Cyrano, Berlin, A View from the Bridge, Working with Children, Di and Viv and Rose, Hay Fever, Three Little Words, Double Indemnity, Rupert, The Crucible (Melbourne Theatre Company); Triple X (with Queensland Theatre), The Trial (with Malthouse Theatre), Boys Will Be Boys (Sydney Theatre Company); Truth, Nosferatu, Edward II, The Shadow King (Malthouse Theatre); Hedda, Scenes from a Marriage (Queensland Theatre); Romeo and Juliet, As You Like It, Tartuffe, Macbeth, Julius Caesar (Bell Shakespeare); The House on the Lake, Emerald City, The Boys, The Floating World, Dreams in White (Griffin Theatre Company); Opening Night, Title and Deed, Nora, Hedda Gabler (Belvoir); Switzerland, Suddenly Last Summer (Ensemble). Kelly has composed music for renowned choreographers such as Kyle Page, Danielle Micich, Daniel Riley, Lucy Guerin, Nicola Gunn, Sandra Parker, Paula Ley and KAGE. Kelly has received four Green Room Awards and a Melbourne International Arts Festival Award.

Artwork for Amy Hume

Amy Hume

Voice & Dialect Coach

Amy Hume is a voice and dialect coach for theatre and screen, and the Specialist in Voice at Victorian College of the Arts. Recent theatre credits include Happy Days, Bernhardt/Hamlet, Cyrano, The Sound Inside, Fun Home (Melbourne Theatre Company); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (GWB/Andrew Henry Presents), Blue, Blessed Union, Jungle and the Sea, Counting and Cracking (Belvoir), An American in Paris (Australian Ballet/GBS); Six the Musical Australia, Billy Elliot Australia (LWAA); White Pearl (Sydney Theatre Company); Merrily We Roll Along (Hayes) and Fangirls (Queensland Theatre/Belvoir). Recent coaching for screen includes Bad Behaviour (Stan); New Gold Mountain (SBS) and The Secrets She Keeps (Network 10). Amy previously taught at the National Institute of Dramatic Art. She is a Designated Linklater Teacher and recent Board member of the Voice and Speech Trainers Association (VASTA), the international organisation for voice and dialect practitioners.

Artwork for Bianca Pardo

Bianca Pardo

Associate Set & Costume Designer

Bianca is a passionate Melbourne/Naarm-based designer and maker. She has worked in set and costume roles on A Streetcar Named Desire (Melbourne Theatre Company); En Masse, Interior (Rawcus); One Day in September (Perryman Theatre Company); Guys and Dolls, Passing Strange (Antipodes Theatre Company); Hamilton (Michael Cassel Group); TakeBack! (Multicultural Arts Victoria), Ngarngk: Giver of Life (La Mama/YIRRAMBOI Festival); Fucking A, Mad Forest (Victorian College of the Arts); L’Oréal For Women in Science and Kenworth's Legacy (Moo Motion). She was awarded the Orloff Family Charitable Trust Scholarship in 2018 and was nominated for two Green Room Awards for her Guys and Dolls design. Throughout 2024, Bianca completed the Besen Family Artist Program at the Malthouse Theatre with placements on The Hate Race and Fuck Christmas. She is thrilled to be continuing in the Future Creatives Program at Melbourne Theatre Company in 2025.

Artwork for John Sharp

John Sharp

Assistant Composer & Sound Designer

John Sharp is a composer and sound designer who recently graduated with a Bachelor of Music in Interactive Composition at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music. He enjoys contributing to the Melbourne theatre scene, composing and co-writing for multiple shows and musicals, such as When Henry, which was workshopped with the Be You Group, and Destination Earth, which premiered at the 2023 Melbourne Fringe Festival. Beyond composition and sound design, John is a dedicated music educator and performer, trained in piano, clarinet and voice.

Artwork for Jonathan Homsey

Jonathan Homsey

Movement Consultant

Artwork for Nevin Howell

Nevin Howell

AV Designer

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140 Southbank Boulevard

Southbank, Victoria 3006