December Newsletter

Around The World In 80 Days
for the Victorian Drama League

I did wonder how, particularly on Williamstown Little Theatre’s compact stage, an audience was going to be transported around the world or even across the street, in any number of days at all. The answer is: very well indeed and in surprising and imaginative ways, thanks to the very deft direction of Peter Newling.

Toby Hulse’s play ‘Around the World in 80 Days’ is a somewhat silly, but very funny romp incorporating a large number of characters and, of course, impossibly varied locations. There were many belly laughs, laugh out loud moments and a lot of smiles on faces throughout the show.

Peter Newling is a very experienced director (34 shows to his credit) and it showed. There were so many clever and effective vignettes that were clearly not in the script but dreamt up by Peter. He modestly credited the cast with a lot of them. Passepartout about to take his bath, the burning of the ship and audience items to make it to land, the Princess and Fogg about to kiss, the fight on top of a moving train, spring to mind. This is a sumptuous feast for the eyes and the ears, thanks to Peter’s direction of his very talented cast.

Travis Handcock as Passepartout, and several other characters, gave an extremely energetic, witty and accomplished performance, swapping from one character to another seamlessly. Kate Bowers was an inspired choice for Fix of the Yard (Scotland Yard) and many others. I could be wrong, but I believe the role was intended by the writer for a male actor, although these days we’ve moved well beyond having any fixed view of gender roles. All the characters she plays are male. Kate is a master of accents, showing off her skill many times to great effect. All her gestures and physicality too were first rate and very funny.

Keith Hutton as Jules Verne excelled as Princess Ayuda, often hilariously, with his absurd falsetto as a woman and gormless expression. I felt Andrew Wild, in the lead as Phineas Fogg, was a trifle languid in his portrayal, which didn’t have the same “oomph” and vivacity as the rest of the cast. There are several moments when the cast drop their characterisations and have a discussion as themselves. I felt these vignettes didn’t work as well as the rest of the show. They felt under-played to me, without the necessary strength of feeling or conviction.

The costume designs by Leah Downey are quite simply stunning. It’s 1872 and we could well believe it as all the fashions were period appropriate, but with extremely clever and fascinating twists. Jackets of two different fabrics (sounds bizarre but it worked brilliantly), quirky lapels and collars, oversized hats with fascinating baubles, decals, and ridiculous but fascinating paraphernalia, and even spats (look it up) covering the lower legs and with multiple leather straps and buckles. I’d love to know where they found spats in 2022.

There was so much incredible attention to detail of costume, I really wanted to ask the actors to hold still for a while, get up on stage and just examine them all minutely. And with such a large number of characters from different countries and professions, there were multiple costumes changes. Desarae Acaster, the dresser would have been very busy indeed. Top marks also to the many costume makers who brought Leah’s vision to reality, no mean feat given most of the costumes were handmade specifically for this production.

The set is superb. Unfortunately no one is listed in the program as the designer, as a tribute to George Tranter, who died recently. He was a regular set designer and builder for Willy. The director told me much of the set had come from a 2016 professional production and was kindly lent to Willy. Giant clock cogs, nifty boxes with multiple uses, a ship’s boiler and a massive clock face with moving hands certainly looked worthy of any professional theatre. Whoever positioned them and dreamt up the very clever, raised upstage section running the width of the stage, deserves credit.
By the way, they managed to have the cast riding an elephant, sailing across oceans and taking to the skies in a hot air balloon. I’m not going to tell you how. You’ll have to, and should, see the show.

I hope as you read this there’s still time to see ‘Around the World in 80 Days’. It very much deserves completely full houses. (Editors note : there's not now, sorry! 25/12/2022!)

Reproduced with permission of The Victorian Drama League

A crowd of about 50 people braved a revolting Melbourne day to attend WLT’s annual Cordell Day. When I say ‘annual’, this is the first time we’ve been able to have our end of year function since 2019 . . . but it was worth waiting for.

The day consisted of a wrap of 2022, provided by Peter Newling. This was followed by the formal launch of our 2023 season which was ably hosted by Play Selection Committee Chair, Damian Coffey. The directors for each of our 2023 productions talked about their plays, why they chose them and what our audiences can expect next year.

Then it was on to the all-important awards for the 2022 season.

The Committee kicked things off presenting thank you gifts to three WLT legends who went above and beyond the call of duty during 2022:

James Holt – for his willingness to jump in and help us out with his technical expertise, often at very short notice.

Leah Downey – for excellence in design work for The River, Citysong and 80 Days.

Alan Thompson – for his year-long contribution to the set building team

Alex Begg, on behalf of the Committee, presented the Grahame Murphy Award for Excellence to Andrew Wild. (You can read Alex’s testimony to Andrew below).

Then our three fantastic in-house adjudicators – Maureen McInerney, Les Terrill and Christina Costigan - were welcomed to the stage. They started off with presentation of their individual Adjudicator’s Awards. They were:

Les' award:
To the director, lighting, and sound technicians, cast members and whoever else was involved in the hysterical chase along the roof of the train in Around the World… A classic bit of comic business.

Christina’s award:
To the set design, realisation, and set dressing teams for The River. For impressive use of space and creation of dimension, depth and sense of both the interior and exterior world. Excellent attention to detail, the cabin felt lived in and functional, something tangible against which the dreamlike, psychological drama played out.

Maureen’s award:
To the costumes and props teams for Around the World in 80 Days. For the variety and quality of costumes, and the coordination and “rapid fire“ movement of props in Around the World in 80 Days.

The adjudicators then spoke to their nominations for our three awards:

Win Stewart Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role:

Nominees
Margie Bainbridge as Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest

Casey Bohan as Cecily Cardew in The Importance of Being Earnest.

Gabby Llewelyn as The Woman in The River

Julia Lambert as The Other Woman in The River

Katherine Hubbard as Brigid in Citysong

Kate Bowers as Fix of the Yard etc in Around the World in 80 Days

Winner
Katherine Hubbard

Cordell Award for Best Performance in a Leading Role:

Nominees
James Madsen- Smith as Algernon in The Importance of Being Earnest
Paris Romanis as The Man in The River
Stephanie King as Shirley in Shirley Valentine

Winner
Paris Romanis


Craven Award for Best Production
Winner
Citysong

The Company thanked the adjudicators for their excellent work through the year. Special thanks were offered to Maureen who will retire from the adjudication panel. We are delighted that actor, director and WLT favourite, Stephanie Gonnelli, will be joining the adjudication team for a three year stint from next year.

Attendees then adjourned to the foyer for a standardly sumptuous Alex Begg barbeque and a few celebratory drinks.

Big thanks to all those who assisted with putting the day together. It was great to be able to get back to having our end of year function again!

Season’s Greetings!

Congratulations to all our performers, production creatives and workers on a wonderful full season of theatre. We made it through the year without the need to alter our course. Yay!

Congratulations also to our Cordell Day Awards recipients, details are contained elsewhere in our newsletter. I was an apology for the day. Thank you Peter Newling for stepping in for me and I know from all reports that a grand time was had by all.

Thank you to the committee for getting us through 2022. You managed us through a year of the “new normal” and provided great support for the company, continuing on the provision of fine theatre and great entertainment.

Our Season 2023 was launched and looks like yet another great year of theatre. I hope you have managed to get your theatre subscriptions in. Getting our Little Theatre back to being the finely tuned machine that it has always been has been a gradual process and we will again have our summer working bees on the Tuesdays in January commencing at 5pm at the theatre. It is a great opportunity to not only help us get things organised in costumes and props and around the theatre but also a chance to catch up when we sit down and admire our hard work.

Wishing you all the best for the festive season and looking forward our New Year in the theatre.

Until next time,
Celia

TICKETS INFORMATION, SEASONS AND SUBSCRIBERS

2023 Season Subscriptions e-Tickets
Say goodbye to the old cardboard tickets sent in the mail! Tickets which you then put in a drawer and six months later you can’t remember exactly what drawer that was . . . and now you’re running late for Play 4!

2023 subscriptions are being sent out as e-Tickets! These can easily be stored on your smart phone, tablet or desktop and retrieved or printed out as you need them.

*Those patrons who would prefer their tickets as hardcopy versions posted to them simply need to let us know (via tickets@wlt.org.au ) and this can still be accommodated.

Online Subscription Bookings
Say goodbye to filling in forms, scanning them, emailing them and then waiting and wondering how long until a notification arrives confirming you got your favourite seats on your first choice of dates!!

Plans are currently underway which, in the near future, will allow Patrons to book their own Subscriptions online.

Of course, for those Subscribers who prefer it, manual bookings will still be an option.

Gift Vouchers
Looking for that last minute stocking filler? Forgotten anniversary gift or last-minute birthday present idea? Or maybe you just want to encourage a friend to come check out some of our fabulous productions?!

Why not give someone a Gift Voucher to Williamstown Little Theatre? These will soon be available for purchase online all year round.

Valid for 12 months from date of purchase and redeemable against the cost of tickets to any* WLT Productions or Subscriptions.

(*Subject to seat availability of individual productions at time of redemption)

Onsale Dates for Single Performance tickets, 2023

Tickets for Productions that are not purchased through a subscription package will go on sale online approximately 6 weeks prior to each productions first performance.

For those who want to mark it in their diaries, these dates are:

All My Sons - 1 January
Jumpers For Goalposts - 1 March
Continental Quilt - 15 May
Agnes of God - 1 August
A Gentleman's Guide... - 1 October

Andrew Wild
WLT Ticketing Manager