State Theatre Company to Present OTHELLO

Bringing down the curtain on State Theatre Company's 2014 season is a brand new production of one of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies. Resident Director Nescha Jelk will make her main stage debut, helming a contemporary, adrenaline-fuelled take on Othello.

Othello, newly and secretly married to Desdemona, daughter of the Senator Brabantio, is appointed leader of a military operation to defend Cyprus from the Turks. Iago, his ensign who has been passed over for promotion in favour of the younger and less experienced Cassio, persuades Othello that Cassio and Desdemona are having an affair. Swiftly, the violent engine of jealousy is set in motion.

Othello is a vivid depiction of racial tension, domestic violence, the fog of war and the thin frontiers that separate love and jealousy. Utilising a sharp contemporary staging, Resident Director Nescha Jelk will frame Shakespeare's tragic text in a desert wartime setting that echoes current global conflicts. This Othello will be instantly familiar to today's audiences; highlighting the timelessness of Shakespeare's tale of obsession, racism and misogyny.

The character of Othello - one of literature's most famous anti-heroes - a successful and self made man whose downfall is brought about by trickery and deception - remains one of the most challenging roles in the Shakespearean canon. Director Nescha Jelk says that her decision to cast Palestinian born Hazem Shammas as Othello acknowledges "the current climate of fear and uncertainty about 'the other' in Australia today and brings our Othello into a modern context. It also provides Adelaide a chance to see "an actor of Hazem's rare skill and ability scale the mountain of Othello."

Acting as foil to Shammas' Othello will be Renato Musolino as cynically destructive Iago. The pair, who last played opposite one another as the hapless Dromio twins in 2013's The Comedy of Errors, will plumb their darker depths to bring to life one of Shakespeare's most compelling and destructive pairings.

Ashton Malcolm will make her State Theatre Company debut as Desdemona, along with Taylor Wiese who will play Cassio, and Charles Mayer who will play Lodovico. We also welcome Elena Carapetis from The Comedy of Errors, Chris Pitman from The Seagull, and James Smith from Neighbourhood Watch back to our stage.

Since graduating from Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Hazem Shammas has established a celebrated acting career in film, theatre and television. He has performed with Belvoir, Griffin Theatre Company, Malthouse Theatre Company and Bell Shakespeare and on popular television shows Underbelly lll, East West 101 Season 2, At Home With Julia and All Saints.

Adelaide favourite Renato Musolino has performed in many other State Theatre Company productions including The Seagull, IN THE NEXT ROOM or the vibrator play and Three Sisters. Musolino was described as "delivering a powerhouse performance of great subtlety and finesse" when he stepped in at the last minute to star in State Theatre Company's 2013 Adelaide Festival production The Kreutzer Sonata.

Nescha Jelk won Helpmann Academy's Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Award for being SA's top performing/visual arts 2010 graduate and since graduating has directed The Lesson (Accidental Productions), Alice and Peter Grow Up (Milk Theatre Collective), Hamlet (The Actor's Folio), and Emily Steel's Sepia (RiAus) and most recently State Theatre Company's highly praised education productions Random and Jesikah.

Nescha Jelk said "It's wonderful to dive into a work of the breadth and complexity of Othello in an epic space like the Playhouse and to bring Shakespeare's timeless masterpiece slam bang into the contemporary world."

DIRECTOR: Nescha Jelk DESIGNER: Victoria Lamb LIGHTING DESIGNER: Geoff Cobham COMPOSER: Jason Sweeney FIGHT COACH: Duncan Maxwell VOCAL COACH: Tiffany Knight

CAST: Elena Carapetis, Ashton Malcolm, Charles Mayer, Renato Musolino, Chris Pitman, Hazem Shammas, James Smith, Taylor Wiese

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