Review: Observatory Theatre 2024 Season Launch
Picture: Lachlan Driscoll at the 2024 Season Launch (Credit: Creative Futures Photography)
Observatory Theatre launched its 2024 Season at Yeerongpilly’s Studio1. Lachlan Driscoll (Creative Producer), Lucy Rayner-Toy (Associate Producer) and colleagues certainly have much to celebrate. Driscoll began the 2024 season reveal by noting that Observatory Theatre may be a ‘young an emerging company that is now only its fourth year,’ but that Observatory is continuing to learn and grow while continuing to ask, ‘what Is it that theatre does now…in a post-truth, post-pandemic world.’
In developing what Driscoll describes as ‘big, bold, ambitious theatre that responds to today,’ the 2024 season focuses on supporting and developing new works, centred on their successful Telescope new writing program. Two of these new works will be presented during the year at Studio 1, Yeerongpilly. The first will be a work in progress/staged reading showing of Fen Carter’s The Cane (Grace Longwill, Director, and Alex Macdonald, Dramaturg).
Described as ‘at turns hauntingly beautiful and viscerally atmospheric, The Cane is a meditation on the lives we make for ourselves in order to survive, the things that bind us to our past, and the easy isolation that can befall remote communities.’ The 2024 staged reading of The Cane is already cast (Liam Wallis, Tahlia Downs, Jade Clarke, and Riley Finn Anderson), so I suggest getting in early as this will only takes place on 23 and 24 March. A great chance to gain insights into the development process for new work, at what Driscoll describes as a ‘crucial stage,’ as the events will include a short discussion with creatives and actors, plus opportunities to ask questions and submit feedback.
I must admit that, having heard Driscoll speak about at the 2024 season launch, and having seen Peta Kishawi’s poster design (see below, and on the Observatory Theatre website and promotion), I’m particularly looking forward to the March celebration of The Cane. But there is more….
The second Observatory Theatre work to reach the stage this year is Disney Off Ice, which will be coming to the Yeerongpilly Studio1 stage in August (August 16 until September 1). This much-anticipated work was commissioned and developed through the Observatory Theatre Telescope program, and was originally planned for their 2023 season. A little bit more time in development was needed, so this will be one to look forward to. Driscoll notes that this show asks, ‘what would he [Walt Disney] think of his legacy today,’ adding that Oliver Gough’s new work is ‘fast, fun … existential and challenging.’ Marvellous to hear that Driscoll will be directing this new ‘fast and sharp satire that parodies the man, myth and legend, exploring the legacy of cultural icons in the twenty-first century, and what it means to be successful in a post-capitalist world.’
At the Season Launch, Driscoll also highlighted three new works that are in development during 2024: Grace Wilson’s Pony Club (working title), Samantha Hill’s The Blackbird Killing (also a working title), and composer/lyricist Anina-Marie Van Wyk’s From the Cinders. Close followers of Observatory Theatre’s previous programs will remember Van Wyk’s Destiny Doomed, and already be looking forward to a new musical theatre piece that explores the conflation of good and evil (respectively, with beauty and ugliness) in fairy tales. The works by Wilson and by Hill are commissioned by the Telescope New Writing Program. Wilson’s Pony Club exploration of the darker side of fan fiction certainly appears to address more contemporary issues, and I look forward to seeing the development of Hill’s Blackbird Killing consideration of the challenges in trying to achieve a work-life balance.
Congratulations to Driscoll, Rayner-Toy and their writers, dramaturgs, cast and fellow creatives. 2024 sounds as if it will be a hectic year to look forward to—and 2025 already appears to be shaping up well, with three new works already in development.
The 2024 Season Launch concluded with a call for support. As a young and unfunded organisation, Observatory Theatre relies on the support of the artistic and broader community—whether through the purchase of tickets or through Australian Cultural Fund donations. I look forward to seeing you in the audience at future show!
Image: The Cane, Observatory Theatre, Season 2024 (Artwork credit Peta Kishawi).