Tim Rogers Musical Named In Melbourne Theatre Company's 2015 Season

MTC Artistic Director Brett Sheehy AO has revealed Melbourne Theatre Company’s 2015 Season: Life In Living Colour, with the world premiere of You Am I frontman Tim Rogers' musical.

The season features 11 mainstage plays, a family show, an education production, an independent theatre festival, a series of play readings, and productions touring regionally, interstate and internationally.

Among the four world premieres are Kylie Trounson’s The Waiting Room and the musical What Rhymes With Cars And Girls, from Rogers and Aidan Fennessy.

The Waiting Room [pictured left], which was performed as part of MTC’s Cybec Electric play readings this year, deals with the issues of conception, the science of creation, and the feelings that come with not being able to conceive.

It celebrates the development of IVF from a uniquely personal perspective: Trounson’s father Alan was a leader in the field of fertility research, and Trounson recalls, as a child, seeing the various reactions from the public and the controversy it sparked – years later, now, she understands what it all means.

It stars Aaron Pederson and Belinda McClory, with director Naomi Edwards making her MTC mainstage review.

Aidan Fennessy transforms Tim Roger’s debut solo album What Rhymes With Cars And Girls into a tale of love across the class divide in modern Australian. Rogers himself will oversee the music, and Clare Watson will direct.

Both Edwards and Watson were part of MTC’s inaugural Women Directors’ program this year.

Other highlights of the program include Jumpy, a West End hit by April De Angelis about frazzled hopes and parental anxiety, starring Oz comedy queen Jane Turner and directed by Pamela Rabe; Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, with direction from Associate Artistic Director Sam Strong and starring Colin Friels; British playwright Simon Stephens’ satire on celebrity obsession, Birdland, directed by MTC Associate Director Leticia Caceres and starring Mark Leonard Winter in his MTC debut; and the New York cult hit Buyer And Cellar [pictured right], a fictional story that takes place in her very real personal basement shopping mall – starring Ash Flanders in a one-man show directed by Gary Abrahams.  

In addition, Cybec Electric, MTC Connect (in partnership with Multicultural Arts Victoria) and the Women Directors’ Program will make a return in the new season, and new initiative Sharing The Light (a partnership with Crown Resorts Foundation) will tour acclaimed Swedish play I Call My Brothers to regional Victoria as well as make theatre more accessible to disadvantaged youth and outer Melbourne residents, and provide Indigenous scholarships.

Details of the 2015 program for the NEON Festival of Independent Theatre will be announced early next year.

The full MTC 2015 Season

Jumpy — 31 Jan to 14 Mar, Southbank Theatre, The Sumner
What Rhymes With Cars And Girls — 13 Feb to 28 Mar, Arts Centre, Fairfax Studio
Endgame — 21 Mar to 25 Apr, Southbank Theatre, The Sumner
The Waiting Room — 15 May to 27 Jun, Arts Centre, Fairfax Studio
North By Northwest — 1 Jun to 4 Jul, Arts Centre, Playhouse
Birdland — 6 Jun to 11 Jul, Southbank Theatre, The Sumner
Death And The Maiden — 18 Jul to 22 Aug, Southbank Theatre, The Sumner
The Weir — 14 Aug to 26 Sep, Arts Centre, Fairfax Studio
The Boy At The Edge Of Everything — 23 Sep to 9 Oct, Southbank Theatre, The Lawler
Betrayal — 26 Aug to 3 Oct, Southbank Theatre, The Sumner
Buyer And Cellar — 30 Oct to 12 Dec, Arts Centre, Fairfax Studio
The Last Man Standing — 6 Nov to 12 Dec, Southbank Theatre, The Sumner 

MTC website