Sydney Theatre Company and La Boite Theatre Present
The Poison of Polygamy
A play by Anchuli Felicia King
Based on the novel by Wong Shee Ping, Translated by Ely Finch
Browse the program note:
A note from Artistic Director Kip Williams
Writer's Note
Director's Note
Rehearsal Photo Gallery
Cast & Creatives
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CHING / VILLAGER 1 |
DIRECTOR |
PRODUCTION MANAGER |
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MRS LUI / MRS CHING |
DESIGNER |
DEPUTY PRODUCTION MANAGER |
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CHAN / MA’S COUSIN / VILLAGER 2 |
LIGHTING DESIGNER |
STAGE MANAGER |
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THE PREACHER / SLEEP-SICK |
COMPOSER |
ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER |
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MA |
SOUND DESIGNER |
COSTUME COORDINATOR |
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TSIU HEI |
FIGHT & INTIMACY DIRECTOR |
BACKSTAGE WARDROBE SUPERVISOR |
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VILLAGER 3 / SLEEP-SICK’S MOTHER / MA’S MOTHER / MS LIN |
CHOREOGRAPHER |
HAIR, WIG & MAKE-UP SUPERVISOR |
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DOCTOR NG / PAN / SONG |
VOICE COACH |
LIGHTING SUPERVISOR |
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DANCE CAPTAIN |
LIGHTING PROGRAMMER Corinne Fish |
| SOUND REALISER Zac Saric |
LIGHTING OPERATOR Cameron Menzies |
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CULTURAL CONSULTANT |
SOUND SUPERVISOR |
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| DEPUTY SOUND SUPERVISOR Michael Hedges |
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STAGING SUPERVISOR |
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REHEARSAL PHOTOGRAPHER |
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WORKSHOP COORDINATOR |
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SET BUILDER |
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SCENIC ARTIST |
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PROPS MAKER |
Co-producer
2 HOURS, 50 MINUTES (INCLUDING INTERVAL)
THIS PLAY PREMIERED AT LA BOITE'S ROUNDHOUSE THEATRE, BRISBANE 11 MAY 2023
SYDNEY SEASON OPENED AT WHARF 1 THEATRE, SYDNEY 10 JUNE 2023
A NOTE FROM OUR ARTISTIC DIRECTOR KIP WILLIAMS
It gives me and everyone at STC great pleasure to be collaborating with our colleagues at La Boite Theatre to premiere this remarkable and groundbreaking new Australian work.
Over the last few years of programming, my team and I have been particularly interested in exploring new and underrepresented perspectives on Australian history. When our 2019 Patrick White Playwrights Fellow, the extraordinary Anchuli Felicia King, came to us with this classic, vast, and criminally under-read novel – indeed Australia’s first Chinese language novel – we knew it was a perfect match. Wong Shee Ping’s tale contains all the pleasures of epic literature; an expansive adventure that crosses seas and deserts, moral conundrums of the highest order and a cast of unforgettable characters. Add to this King’s wry, sardonic and electrifyingly contemporary eye and you have an explosive cocktail.
It also brings me great personal pleasure to be working again with La Boite Artistic Director and former Sydney Theatre Company Resident Director Courtney Stewart. Courtney’s extensive and profound theatre-making gifts make her the ideal director for this piece that so gracefully weaves together many different forms of storytelling.
You are about to experience a fantastic and thrilling work of Australian theatre, so sit back and enjoy the ride.
Kip Williams, Artistic Director and Co-CEO
WRITER'S NOTE: Anchuli Felicia King
The Poison of Polygamy’s epic scope can be somewhat attributed to its original form. It appeared in fifty-three instalments in a Chinese-language newspaper in 1909-1910. The newspaper’s readership was a nascent category: the Chinese-Australian. In writing this social fable, Wong Shee Ping was driven by his values as a Christian preacher and political organiser for the Kuomintang. Yet it’s also a romp – a rollicking serialised saga written in Literary Chinese. Poison ricochets between two competing imperatives: to evangelise and to entertain. It’s uniquely compelling and, to my mind, an Australian classic.
Yet it’s languished in obscurity. Academics rediscovered it in 2019. As soon as I read Ely Finch’s mellifluous English translation, I felt it deserved a wider audience.
While I have remained (mostly) faithful to the novel’s central events, I admit that I’m a promiscuous adaptor. The play is infused with my own jokes, research, politics. My approach was reciprocal, not parasitic. I felt I was in conversation with a ghost. It’s a sentiment all of us have felt working on this production – that in staging this lost piece of our cultural heritage, we’re speaking to our ancestors.
Now the ghosts can speak to you too.
DIRECTOR'S nOTE: Courtney STewart
This play by Anchuli Felicia King is a social homily adapted from Wong Shee Ping’s novella of the same name.
While Ping attempted to wrangle the narrative to support his ideas around morality and encourage his readership to push towards virtuous self-betterment – King makes space for the audience to look at these words and ideas anew, and questions the original writer’s authority to tout the perfection of Christian monogamy.
Working on this play with this team has been a highlight of my career – I have never had the chance to interrogate so deeply the origins of the Chinese diaspora in this country and look at how we as a people also contributed to colonisation. These characters are deeply flawed, with even the most virtuous of the characters having imperfect politics or personal weaknesses. The Poison of Polygamy is a gift to the Australian canon – a chance for Chinese characters to play against the model minority myth, and to be grappling with ideas that extend beyond a mere exploration of self-identity.
Felicia is right in saying this play is big! We traverse themes of Chinese Nationalism, political and social thinking, race relations, women’s rights, the challenges of migration, marriage, religion, modernisation, and the value of kinship and solidarity between Chinese diaspora in Australia. But ultimately, I think this play is about legacy and how fixated we are as human beings by the mark we will leave behind. How will we be remembered? How can we take control of our own personal histories and curate them to shine us in a certain light for generations to come? This production offers up a live conversation between the Chinese Diaspora of then and the Chinese Diaspora of now, and asks the question: How do we ensure we become good ancestors?
CAST & CREATIVES
ANCHULI FELICIA KING
Writer
Anchuli Felicia King is a playwright, screenwriter and multidisciplinary artist of Thai-Australian descent. As a playwright, King is interested in linguistic hybrids, digital cultures and globalization. The Royal Court Theatre’s mainstage production of King’s play White Pearl marked her professional debut in May 2019, directed by Nana Dakin. White Pearl was subsequently produced by Sydney Theatre Company / National Theatre of Parramatta in Sydney in 2019 and the Studio Theatre in Washington, DC in the United States. Her play Golden Shield was commissioned through Melbourne Theatre Company’s Next Stage program and made its Off-Broadway debut at Manhattan Theatre Club in 2022. As a screenwriter, King recently wrote on HBO’s/Team Downey series The Sympathizer with Robert Downey Jr and Hoa Xuande based on the book of the same name due for 2024 release, HBO/Sky’s dark horror comedy The Baby and the Foxtel drama series The Twelve. She has TV projects in development with a range of companies including See-Saw, SK Global, Warner Bros, Amazon, Netflix, and Lucky Chap Entertainment.
ELY FINCH
Translator
Ely Finch (林雍坣; www.elyfinch.com) is an Australian translator and consultant linguist, with an abiding interest in Chinese languages and traditional Chinese literature, who specialises in historical texts written in Literary (Classical) Chinese, Cantonese, and related Southern Chinese vernaculars. His largest translation to date is Australia’s and possibly the West’s first Chinese-language novel, Wong Shee Ping’s 1909–1910 newspaper serial The Poison of Polygamy: A Social Novel, which translation was published by Sydney University Press in 2019 in a bilingual parallel format. In keeping with a continued focus on the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Chinese diaspora in Australia, his most recent book, cowritten with historian Dr Juanita Kwok, is a work entitled Bew Chip’s Register: a Chinese Australian remittance register from the Tambaroora and Hill End goldfield, which was published in April 2022 by the Hill End and Tambaroora Gathering Group.
COURTNEY STEWART
Director
Courtney Stewart is an acclaimed director, dramaturg, actor and teaching artist with a deep passion for intercultural works and multicultural dramaturgies. She has worked on a number of productions and developments of new Australian work such as Top Coat (STC), Eat Me: The Necklace (NIDA/ STC), Julius Caesar, Playing Beatie Bow, Hamlet - Prince of Skidmark and Australian Graffiti (STC), Double Delicious (Contemporary Asian Australian Performance), Neon Tiger by Julia-Rose Lewis and Single Asian Female by Michelle Law (La Boite / Belvoir St Theatre), A Ghost in My Suitcase by Vanessa Bates, Siti Rubiyah by Katrina Irawati Graham, Barbaric Truth by Jordan Shea, Orange Thrower by Kirsty Marillier and White Pearl by Anchuli Felicia King. A proud Queenslander, Courtney started her professional career as an actor before honing her talents as an artistic leader, director and change-maker for some of the country’s most prolific organisations including Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir and Contemporary Asian Australian Performance. Courtney was previously Chair of the Equity Diversity Committee, a delegate to the National Performers Committee, and a former board member for Contemporary Asian Australian Performance. The Poison of Polygamy is the first play of Courtney’s debut season as Artistic Director at La Boite.
RAY CHONG NEE
Ching/Villager 1
Sydney Theatre Company: How to Rule the World, Hubris and Humiliation (Rough Draft). Other Theatre: Bell Shakespeare: Hamlet, Antony and Cleopatra, The Dream, Othello, Actors at Work: The Players. MTC: I Call My Brothers. QT: Emerald City (with MTC), Noises Off (with MTC), Hydra (with STCSA). Sport for Jove: The Tempest. Elbow Room/La Boite/ HotHouse/Theatre Works: The Motion of Light in Water. Performing Lines: Bare Witness. Theatre Ink/Parramatta Riverside: Angels in America. NIDA: Andy X. Film: Swimming for Gold, Wonder Down Under, Exposure, Amalia Lucia, Gomez is Gluten Intolerant, The Bench, Savage Garden, The Pool. TV: Year of, Home and Away, Pulse, Tomorrow When The War Began, Glitch, Party Tricks, Offspring, Rescue Special Ops, Dance Academy. Awards: Green Room nominated actor for Outstanding Performance in a Featured Role and Best Independent Male Performer, and recipient of Best Performance (Melbourne Fringe), Best Ensemble (Green Room) awards. Member of Equity since 2004. Pronouns: He/They.
HSIN-JU ELY
Mrs Lui/Mrs Ching
Sydney Theatre Company: Debut. Other Theatre: Shock Therapy Arts: Locked In. QT: Boy Swallows Universe. As Performer: Belloo Creative: The Woman Remembers. Other: Dancenorth: Gravity Feed, The Sleeping End, NightCafe 06, Underground, NightCafe 07, Remember Me, Nowhere Fast. Q150: Rock Show. Stalker Theatre Company: Shanghai Lady Killer. Lisa Wilson Projects: Lake, Bunker. Jumping Frames Dance Video Festival: Rite of City-Reminisce. Melbourne Dance Theatre: The Nutcracker. Melbourne City Ballet: Consumption. Seeing Place Productions: Time Capsule. Shanghai International Arts Festival: Do You Speak Chinese. Anywhere Festival: One Two Ten. Brisbane Festival: You Should Be Dancing. The Farm: The Last Blast, The Ninth Wave. Melbourne White Night: Love. Phluxus2 Dance Collective: angel-monster, Proximal. Branch Nebula: Snake Sessions. GOMA: Sugar Spin (The Heard). Training: QUT. Pronouns: She/Her.
SILVAN RUS
Chan/Ma’s Cousin/Villager 2
Sydney Theatre Company: Debut. Other Theatre: La Boite: Morsels from the Heart. Playlab: Slow Boat. Opera Australia: Turandot. QT: Our Town. Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble: Henry IV Part I, Hamlet, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead, The Blood Votes, The Winter's Tale, Twelfth Night, Titus, The Tempest, The Bomb-itty of Errors, Mary Stuart, A Midsummer Night's Dream. Brisbane Powerhouse/Wax Lyrical Productions: Nineteen. Small Crown Productions: 1066: The Bayeux Tapestry Brought to Life. The Earthcrosser Company: Cold. As Music Director: Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble: Henry IV Part I, Twelfth Night. Wax Lyrical Productions: Appalling Behaviour, Bloke. As Playwright: Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble: The Last Athenian, Part III: The Tragedy of Socrates (Creative Development). CAAP Lotus Asian Australian Playwriting Program: Carpe Noctem, The King of Spades (Creative Development). Training: Apprenticeship with Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble, Macquarie University, The University of Melbourne, The University of Queensland. Pronouns: He/Him.
SHAN-REE TAN
The Preacher/Sleep-Sick
Sydney Theatre Company: Debut. Other Theatre: Ensemble Theatre: The One, Nearer the Gods. Sport for Jove: As You Like It. Dinosaurus: Yellow Face. New Ghosts & Secret House: For the Grace of You Go I. Secret House: Crime and Punishment, Troilus & Cressida, Seagull. Clock & Spiel: Wit. New Theatre: Pygmalion, Nell Gwynn. TV: The Twelve, The Secrets She Keeps. Awards: 2021 Sydney Theatre Award for Best Performance in a Leading Role in an Independent Production (Yellow Face). Training: NIDA Actors' Studio. Pronouns: He/Him.
MERLYNN TONG
Ma
Sydney Theatre Company: White Pearl (with National Theatre of Parramatta). Other Theatre: Griffin Theatre: Golden Blood. La Boite Theatre: Straight White Men, The Mathematics of Longing. Brisbane Festival: American Music Club, BITCH: The Origin of the Female Species, The Theory of Everything. Brown’s Mart Theatre: New Babylon. Elbow Room: Enlightenment, What I’m Here For. Playlab Theatre: Blue Bones. ERTH: Dinosaur Zoo. Hot Brown Honey: Hot Brown Honey. QT: The Shot. Punchdrunk Theatre & Imaginary Theatre: The Lost Lending Library. Bleached Arts: Hotelling. Shock Therapy Productions: Viral. Wax Lyrical: Ma Ma Ma Mad. As Director: ERTH: Dinosaur Zoo. As Assistant Director: QT: Hydra. As Writer: Griffin Theatre & Melbourne Theatre Company: Golden Blood. La Boite Theatre: Caesar (co-writer), Congratulations, Get Rich!. Playlab Theatre: Blue Bones. Black Swan State Theatre Company: Legends (of the Golden Arches) (co-writer). QT: Antigone, Good Grief. Critical Stages Touring & Paines Plough Theatre Company: Come to Where I am. APT: Skin. Wax Lyrical: Ma Ma Ma Mad. TV: Top of the Lake (China Girl), Nautilus, In Our Blood, Harrow, Reef Break. Awards: 2017 Matilda Award’s Lord Mayor Award for Best New Australian Work (Blue Bones), 2017 Matilda Award for Best Female Actor in a Leading Role (Blue Bones), 2020 Sceen Queensland Award for Stage to Screen Pitch (Blue Bones), 2022 Greenroom Award for Best Independant Theatre Ensemble (Enlightement). 2019 Sydney Theatre Award for Best Ensemble (White Pearl). Pronouns: She/Her.
KIMIE TSUKAKOSHI
Tsiu Hei
Sydney Theatre Company: Top Coat, Death of a Salesman. Other Theatre: QT: Nearer the Gods. La Boite: The Dead Devils of Cockle Creek. Critical Stages/Belloo Creative: Hanako: Desire and Other Secret Weapons. TEG Live: Puffs the Play. Woodward Productions: The Mystery of the Valkyrie. Oscar Theatre Company: Boy & Girl. Cabaret: Mercury Rising. Film: Great White, Marley Someone, Rip Tide, Zelos. Short Film: The House That Hungers. TV: Miss Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries, The Bureau of Magical Things, The Family Law, Doctor Doctor, Secret City, H2O Just Add Water. Audiobook: A Place Near Eden, She is Haunted, The Shut-Ins. Awards: CGA Rising Star Award, Equity Ensemble Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series (The Family Law). Pronouns: She/Her.
ANNA YEN
Villager 3/Sleep-Sick’s Mother/Ma’s Mother/Ms Lin/Dance Captain
Sydney Theatre Company: Debut. Other Theatre: As Actor: La Boite Theatre: Wicked Bodies, Fortune. debase productions: Death in a Statesman, Concerto for Harmony and Presto. Creative Regions: It All Begins With Love. Baran Theatre: Tower of Babel. QT-ED: Loaded Stories. CAAP / Griffin Theatre /Sydney Festival: The Serpent’s Table. CINOVA: After China. QPAC / Gum Yi Productions: Chinese Take Away. Circus/Physical Theatre: As Performer: GUSH: Monsteria. Rock’n’Roll Circus: BodySlam, Circus Under the Tin Top, Shame, Xmas Blitzmas, Blood on the Butter, Trashed. Vulcana: Cravings. Los Lunch Dates: The Case of All Things. As Director: Backbone: Manga Metropolis. Sunny Drake: Other-Wise II. QUT:SVAWP. Vena Cava: Taboo. KITE: Kese Solwata (Assistant Director). UQ: Dimboola. Vulcana Circus: Aviatrix (co-director), Fire in the Belly , Blissed Out… As Writer: Playlab Theatre/Brisbane Festival/Brisbane Powerhouse: Slow Boat. QPAC: Chinese Take Away. As Movement Director: Slow Boat. Film: The Portable Door, Chinese Take Away, Karaoke King. As Writer: Looking Glass Pictures: Chinese Take Away. Other: Goblin Movement Coach on The Portable Door. As Collaborating Artist: Flinders Uni: Undiscovered Country. Awards: Matilda Award Special Commendation 1997 (Chinese Take Away). 2006 Queensland Short Film Festival Best Actor (Female) (Karaoke King). 2017 Matilda Award Best Costume: GUSH ensemble (Monsteria). 2018 Bank SA Best Circus Physical Theatre Weekly Award (Monsteria). Training: Philippe Gaulier, Monika Pagneux, Dell’arte International School of Physical Theatre, Nanjing Acrobatic Troupe, Shanghai Circus School, Feldenkrais Method Practitioner, ISAAC. Pronouns: She / Her.
GARETH YUEN
Doctor Ng/Pan/Song
Sydney Theatre Company: Rough Draft #29 Australian Graffiti. Other Theatre: includes Ensemble Theatre: Photograph 51. Griffin Theatre: Emerald City. Playbox: Sabat Jesus. Malthouse Theatre: Melancholia. MTC: Happy Ending, Cybec play readings. La Jolla Playhouse: Car Plays: San Diego. Vic State Opera: The Pearl Fishers, The Wizard of Oz. White Whale Theatre: Melburnalia. As Director: Collingwood 24hr Playfest: You Don’t Know Me. Film: includes The Jammed, Matching Jack, My Wedding and other Secrets. TV: includes Kath & Kim, Underbelly, Head Start, Neighbours, Power Rangers: Operation Overdrive, Bed of Roses, Round the Twist, Party Tricks, MDA – Medical Defence Australia, Ponderosa, Hunters, Saved, Ronny Chieng: International Student, Ms. Fisher's MODern Murder Mysteries, L.A. Confidential, Doubt, Hungry Ghosts . Radio: ABC Radio National: See How the Leaf People Run, Untrue Crime: Slammin’ With The Poet King. Awards: 2021 Equity Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble (Hungry Ghosts). Training: NIDA.
JAMES LEW
Designer
Sydney Theatre Company: Top Coat. As Associate Designer: The Tempest. Other Theatre: Yirramboi & Liveworks: Daddy. Double Water Sign: HYDRA. VIMH: I sat and waited but you were gone too long, my sister feather, let bleeding girls lie, The View From Up Here. MICF: Romeo is Not the Only Fruit. As Associate Designer: Little Ones Theatre: Merciless Gods, The Happy Prince, Suddenly Last Summer. Fraught Outfit: Book of Exodus – Part II. Positions: 2021/2022 Sydney Theatre Company Design Associates Program. Training: VCA.
BEN HUGHES
Lighting Designer
Sydney Theatre Company: Triple X (with QT), Black is the New White, The Effect (with Queensland Theatre). Other Theatre: QT: The Almighty Sometimes, The Sunshine Club, Othello, Boy Swallows Universe, Return to the Dirt, Mouthpiece, Antigone, L’Appartement, Twelfth Night, Good Muslim Boy (with Malthouse), Scenes from a Marriage, An Octoroon, Noises Off! (with MTC), Constellations, Switzerland, Much Ado About Nothing, The Seagull, Happy Days, Grounded, HOME, The Button Event, The Mountaintop and more. QPAC: Breaking the Castle, Singing in the Rain (with Prospero Arts). Adelaide Festival: Two Feet. Opera Queensland: Verdi Gala, Don Giovanni, Snow White (with La Boite & Brisbane Festival). The Danger Ensemble: Let Men Tremble, Caligula, The Wizard of Oz, Sons of Sin, Loco Maricon Amor, The Hamlet Apocalypse. La Boite: The Last Five Years, Away, The Time Is Now, Naked & Screaming, The Neighbourhood, From Darkness, The Mathematics of Longing, A Streetcar Named Desire, Straight White Men (with STCSA), Samson (with Belvoir), Medea. Australasian Dance Collective: Three 2.0, Forgery, Aftermath, Converge, Mozart Airborne (with Opera Queensland), The Dinner Party, Carmen Sweet, Propel. Queensland Ballet: Peter and the Wolf, The Master’s Series, Flourish, Giselle, A Classical Celebration, ...with Attitude. Positions: Lecturer in Lighting Design at Queensland University of Technology, Artists’ Company La Boite 2021, Affiliate Artist with Queensland Theatre (2014, 2011); Resident Lighting Designer, Queensland Theatre (2013); Associate Artistic Director of The Danger Ensemble. Awards: Groundling Award for Outstanding Contribution to Lighting Design.
MATT HSU'S OBSCURE ORCHESTRA
Composer
Sydney Theatre Company: Debut. Other: A number of collaborations including those with QPAC, GOMA, Museum of Brisbane, La Boite Theatre, State Library of Queensland and Brisbane Powerhouse. Positions: Leader of 22-piece alt-orchestra Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra. Awards: Winner of 2020 and 2022 Queensland Music Awards (QMA).
GUY WEBSTER
Sound Designer
Sydney Theatre Company: The Effect. Other Theatre: QT: L’Appartement, Constellations, The Button Event, The Seagull, Brisbane, Venus in Fur, Kelly, Orphans. La Boite Theatre: An Ideal Husband, Naked & Screaming, From Darkness, Lysa & The Freeborn Dames, Blackrock, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Tragedy of King Richard III, As You Like It, Ruben Guthrie, I Love You Bro, The White Earth, Kitchen Diva, Summer Wonderland, The Narcissist, Last Drinks, Urban Dingoes. Shake & Stir Theatre Company: Fourteen, The Twits, Jane Eyre, A Christmas Carol, Forthcoming, Fantastic Mr Fox, Dracula, George’s Marvelous Medicine, Wuthering Heights, Revolting Rhymes and Dirty Beasts, Tequila Mockingbird, 1984, Animal Farm, Out Damn Snot. Belloo Creative: Boy Lost. Playlab Theatre: White China, Brutal Utopias, Blue Bones, Horizon, Magpie. Brisbane Festival: Riverfire Soundtrack, Art Boat Stories Of Country. Shock Therapy: Locked In, Welcome to Sameville, Locked In. Lisa Wilson Projects: Bunker. Homunculus Theatre: High Tea with Booff, The Knock Em Downs. Bleach Festival: Follow the Bias, Hotelling, Shifting Sands, Quiet By Nature (Gogi Dance), Fish Out Of Water. Brisbane Writers Festival: Angel’s Palace. Jute Theatre Company: La Bella Figura, To Kill a Cassowary, Here We Are All Assembled. The Farm: Depthless. Other: State Library of Queensland: Teacup Sonata, I Cherish This…. National Gallery Singapore: Closer. Institute Of Contemporary Art London: Shifting Intimacies. National Art Museum of China/ BIOS Athens, Ars Electronica Festival/Australian Centre for the Moving Image: Intimate Transactions. Awards: Prix Ars Electronica, Interactive Art - Intimate Transactions, Matilda Award for Best Design – Sound or Composition – Bunker.
NIGEL POULTON
Fight & Intimacy Director
Sydney Theatre Company: Fences, Hubris & Humiliation, The Tempest, The Lifespan of a Fact, A Raisin in the Sun, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Top Coat, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Blithe Spirit, Triple X (with Queensland Theatre), Grand Horizons, Appropriate, Playing Beatie Bow, Rules for Living, The Deep Blue Sea, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Lord of the Flies, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, How to Rule the World, Mary Stuart, The Harp in the South: Part One and Part Two, The Long Forgotten Dream, Blackie Blackie Brown (with Malthouse), A Cheery Soul, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, St Joan, Three Sisters, Dinner, Muriel’s Wedding The Musical (with Global Creatures), Black is the New White, Speed-the-Plow, The Golden Age, The Present, Switzerland, Macbeth, Noises Off, Cyrano de Bergerac, Romeo and Juliet, The Removalists, Romeo & Juliet (Education). Other Theatre: includes productions with The Finnish National Ballet, The Australian Ballet, The New York City Ballet, The Metropolitan Opera, Washington Opera, Opera Australia, Cameron Mackintosh, Bell Shakespeare, Circus Oz, MTC, QT, Belvoir, La Boite, Playbox, Kooemba Jdarra. Film: includes Poker Face, Thor: Love and Thunder, Escape from Spiderhead, Operation Rainfall, Pirates of the Caribbean 5, Deadline Gallipoli, The Water Diviner, Winter’s Tale, Vikingdom, Salt, I Am Legend, The Bourne Legacy. TV: includes Deadlock, Nautilus, Sea Patrol, The Good Wife, Boardwalk Empire, The Sopranos, 30 Rock, Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Positions: Teaching positions at NIDA, ACA, AFTRS, USQ. Awards: Green Room Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Melbourne Stage. Certifications: Certified Intimacy Director & Intimacy Coordinator with Intimacy Directors and Coordinators (IDC), Fight Master with the Society of American Fight Directors; Instructor, Fight Director and past President of the Society of Australian Fight Directors Inc, Honorary Fight Director with Fight Directors Canada.
DEBORAH BROWN
Choreographer
Sydney Theatre Company: Wonnangatta, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, The Long Forgotten Dream. Other Theatre: Bangarra Dance Theatre: productions include Bennelong, Ochres, Lore, Terrain, Kinship, Fire A Retrospective, Mathinna, Unaipon, Bush. Belvoir: Blue, Winyanboga Yuringa. Project Animo: The Wave. Spinifex Gum: Spinifex Gum. Bangarra Dance Theatre: I.B.I.S. Film: As Actor: Assembly, Water. As Director: NITV: Barrumbi Kids. Campbelltown Arts Centre: Hide. Bangarra Dance Theatre: Dive. Awards: 2016 Australian Dance Award, Outstanding Performance by a Company (Lore, I.B.I.S., Sheoak). 2013 Helpmann Award Best Female Dancer in a Dance or Physical Theatre Production: (Terrain). Training: AFTRS.
MELISSA AGNEW
Vocal Coach
Sydney Theatre Company:Debut. Other Theatre: QT: many including Boy Swallows Universe, Once in Royal David’s City (with Black Swan State Theatre Company), Switzerland, Ladies in Black, The Odd Couple, The Prisoner of Second Avenue, Boston Marriage. Black Swan State Theatre Company: Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, A Streetcar Named Desire. Altitude Theatre: The Producers, Once on This Island. La Boite Theatre: many including Neon Tiger, A Streetcar Named Desire, Prize Fighter. Film: A number of productions. TV: A number of productions. Positions: Voice Coaching for Tv and Radio News presenters (for ABC, Seven, Ten, Sky, Nova, Macquarie Network.), Voice, Speech and Dialect Teacher/Coach for Bachelor of Musical Theatre and Bachelor of Acting students at the Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University.
PRODUCTION ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Contemporary Asian Australian performance (CAAP)
PURCHASE THE NOVEL
Delve even deeper into this fabulous adventure and get your hands on the novel that inspired the play. Beautifully translated by Ely Finch, Wong Shee Ping's The Poison of Polygamy, originally published in 1910 and recently republished by Sydney University Press, is an immersive and evocative look into a under explored moment in Australian history.
OUR CO-PRODUCERS
LA BOITE THEATRE | THE WHOLE WORLD ON SHOW
As Australia’s oldest professional theatre company, La Boite Theatre has been energising artists and audiences for almost 100 years. During this time, the Company has been a time capsule for the Australian voice along with other small national companies like La Mama, Darlinghurst Theatre, Griffin, and Australian Plays Transform. Working on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbul people, our vision is to re-birth the new Australian voice over the next hundred years to be the country’s most diverse theatre company. We strive to develop and profile new voices and artists, and share stories that promote cultural equity, social improvement, and interrogate moral and spiritual values and individual and collective responsibility.
La Boite plays a crucial role in the local, state, and national arts sector as an incubator and producer of new work, with a dedicated focus on the sustainability of Queensland-based arts practice from emerging to established practitioners, producers, and arts leaders. In the past, and more critically in the future, La Boite interrogates the boundaries of theatre, creating pathways for local and national artists to mainstream stages in Brisbane and beyond.
Mainstage works of note include: The Poison of Polygamy (with Sydney Theatre Company), Tiddas (with Queensland Performing Arts Centre & Brisbane Festival), An Ideal Husband, The Last Five Years, seven methods of killing kylie jenner (with Darlinghurst Theatre Company and Green Door Theatre Company), Away, Caesar, Naked & Screaming, The Neighbourhood (with Multicultural Australia), From Darkness (with Brisbane Festival), Laser Beak Man (with Dead Puppet Society) Single Asian Female, and Prize Fighter.
La Boite has its sight set on being the most culturally relevant theatrical institution in the country by putting on the whole world on show.
Discover more at laboite.com.au
CORPORATE PARTNERS
Sydney Theatre Company is grateful to our corporate partners for their generous support of theatre and the arts. We applaud their commitment and vision.
You can find out more about our current partners here.
OUR DONOR COMMUNITY
Thank you STC Angels for your unwavering commitment to our work.
Anita Belgiorno-Nettis AM & Luca Belgiorno-Nettis AM
Jane & Andrew Clifford
Alan Joyce AC & Shane Lloyd
Gretel Packer AM
Rebel Penfold-Russell OAM
Ruth Ritchie
Rosie Williams & John Grill on behalf of the Serpentine Foundation
Thank you to our donors at all levels, who support a bright future for STC.
View your acknowledgement.
If you would like to help STC continue to be one of the largest employers of artists and theatre-makers in Australia, please make consider making a tax-deductible donation at www.sydneytheatre.com.au/donate
SYDNEY THEATRE COMPANY BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Alan Joyce AC (Chair)
Ann Johnson (Deputy Chair)
Anita Belgiorno-Nettis AM
Brooke Boney
Mark Coulter
David Craig
Anne Dunn
Heather Mitchell AM
Gretel Packer AM
David Paradice AO
Annette Shun Wah
Kip Williams
See Sydney Theatre Company’s full staff list.