Old Fitz Theatre Announces 2018 Season

The upcoming 2018 season at The Old Fitz will feature 3 World Premieres (including a musical), 3 Australian Premiers, 2 Sydney Premieres, and 2 Of the great contemporary love stories, plus the Launch of Red Line UNDERGROUND, our Monday Night extravaganzas: Burlesque with Hannah Raven, Just The Two Of Us with Scott Witt, Bang Bang Rodeo with Jane Watt, AND MUCH MORE!

A message from Red Line Productions Artistic Director Andrew Henry: "Theatre is raw. It's entertaining. It's rebellious. Funny, like wet your pants funny. Sad, like wet your face sad. You don't need to be a genius, or own a collared shirt, or be sober. Theatre is a movie that's different every time. Theatre can be a great night out for everyone, if you go to the right theatre. Welcome to 2018 at Red Line. The theatre for everyone, literally!"

2018 SEASON

There Will Be A Climax

9 JANUARY - 3 FEBRUARY 2018

By ALEXANDER BERLAGE & THE COMPANY

Directed by ALEXANDER BERLAGE

Produced by Red Line Productions

Cast: Toby Blome, Oliver Crump, Geneva Schofield, Alex Stylianou, Contessa Treffone

An assorted few are convinced they are stuck on a spinning revolve.

"YOU SPIN ME RIGHT ROUND, BABY

RIGHT ROUND LIKE A RECORD, BABY

RIGHT ROUND ROUND ROUND

YOU SPIN ME RIGHT ROUND, BABY

RIGHT ROUND LIKE A RECORD, BABY

RIGHT ROUND ROUND ROUND"

- DEAD OR ALIVE, 1984

This production was originally presented at The National Institute of Dramatic Art, Sydney.

Metamorphoses

8 FEBRUARY - 10 MARCH 2018

Written and Originally Directed by Mary Zimmerman

Directed by DINO DIMITRIADIS

Produced by Apocalypse Theatre Company in association with Red Line Productions

Re-imagined for the 40th Anniversary of Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras

Set in and around a body of water, Metamorphoses collides the ancient and the modern to celebrate the primal body and the staying power of love and desire in the face of constant and inevitable change. Savage and tender, queer and irreverent, with vivid imagery and visionary theatricality, Ovid's poem of ancient Greek tales is roused to soul-stirring life.

"RECAPTURES THE PRIMAL ALLURE OF THE THEATRE... IT SHOWS THAT THEATRE CAN PROVIDE NOT JUST ESCAPE BUT SOMETIMES A GLIMPSE OF THE DIVINE." - TIME MAGAZINE

Nominated for three Tony Awards including Best Play

Suitable for audiences 18+

The Wolves

14 MARCH - 14 APRIL 2018

Australian Premiere

Written by SARAH DE LAPPE

Directed by JESSICA ARTHUR

Produced by Red Line Productions

Left quad. Right quad. Lunge. A girls' indoor soccer team warms up. From the safety of their suburban stretch circle, the team navigates big questions and wages tiny battles with all the vim and vigour of a pack of adolescent warriors. A portrait of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for nine girls who just want to score some goals.

"THE SCARY, EXHILARATING BRIGHTNESS OF RAW ADOLESCENCE EMANATES FROM EVERY SCENE OF THIS UNCANNILY ASSURED FIRST PLAY BY Sarah DeLappe." - New York Times

Finalist - 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama

The Effect

19 APRIL - 19 MAY 2018

Written by Lucy Prebble

Directed by Andrew Henry

Produced by Fishy Productions in association with Red Line Productions

The Effect is a clinical romance. Two young volunteers agree to take part in a drug trial and succumb to their mutual attraction, threatening to de-rail the trial to the frustration of the clinicians involved. This funny, moving play explores questions of sanity and the limits of medicine.

"AN ASTONISHINGLY RICH AND REWARDING PLAY, AS INTELLIGENT AS IT IS DEEPLY FELT" - The Telegraph

Stalking The Bogeyman

23 MAY - 23 JUNE 2018

AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE

Written by Markus Potter & David Holthouse

Directed by NEIL GOODING

Produced by Neil Gooding in association with Red Line Productions

"This time last year I was plotting to kill a man."

Twenty-five years after he was sexually assaulted, award-winning journalist David Holthouse learns his 'bogeyman' has moved to his new neighbourhood. Armed with a pistol and a plan, he plots to enact revenge on the man who stole his childhood. First told in the Denver Westwood newspaper and subsequently featured on the popular weekly radio broadcast This American Life, Stalking The Bogeyman is a thrilling true story of one man's search for vengeance.

"BREATHTAKING" - New York Times

Permission to Spin

27 JUNE - 28 JULY 2018

WORLD PREMIERE

Written by Mary Rachel Brown

Produced by Apocalypse Theatre Company in association with Red Line Productions

Meet Carl, a failed rock star turned children's entertainer. Carl can write a kid's song on the back of a beer coaster in two minutes. This talent has made him one of the richest and most unhappy men in Australia. Things take a turn for the worst when Carl decides to reinvent himself as a moral crusader. The problem is Carl underestimated the leap from children's music to truly standing up for your beliefs, and he comes out looking like a poor man's Bono.

Permission to Spin is a funny till it's not cage fight between art and ethics; a Trump-esque allegory about men that carry their school-yard bully techniques all the way to adulthood. This play is for everyone that thinks children's music is torture.

"A CROSS BETWEEN DEATH AND THE MAIDEN AND SPINAL TAP" - Catherine Coray, Director of Hotink Play Festival, New York

Warning: contains swearing, drug use, sexual references and actors in animal costumes (but no nudity).

King Of Pigs

1 AUGUST - 1 SEPTEMBER 2018

WORLD PREMIERE

Written by Steve Rodgers

Directed by BLAZEY BEST

Produced by Red Line Productions

One Woman. Four Men. She could be with any one of them; at twenty-two on a date on the Gold Coast, at thirty-one moving into an apartment in Albert Park, or at forty, happily married with a nine-year-old son living in Campsie. Four very different worlds share an identical space, our homes.

King of Pigs throws us into a blistering series of reality pockets. Each glimpse we get provides a momentary view of a vast panoramic lie. It's a lie every man tells himself privately but every woman lives with publicly. King of Pigs is a direct response to the nature of power and the way men licence themselves to abuse it.

KING OF PIGS WAS DEVELOPED WITH PLAYWRITING AUSTRALIA AT THE NATIONAL PLAY FESTIVAL AND IN THE NATIONAL SCRIPT WORKSHOP.

The Humans

5 SEPTEMBER - 6 OCTOBER 2018

Australian Premiere

Written by Stephen Karam

Directed by Anthea Williams

Produced by MopHead Productions in association with Red Line Productions

The Blake family have assembled for Thanksgiving dinner at the run-down Manhattan apartment of youngest daughter Brigid and her boyfriend Richard. Tragically, this middle-class clan seems to be spiralling toward perilous entropy.

Stephen Karam's blisteringly funny, bruisingly sad and altogether wonderful comedy-drama is written with a fresh-feeling blend of documentary-like naturalism and theatrical daring. The Humans depicts the way we live now with precision and compassion. "We" being the non-one-percenters, most of whom are peering around anxiously at the uncertain future and the unsteady world, even as we fight through each day trying to keep optimism afloat in our hearts.

"IT IS AN ABSOLUTE TRIUMPH." - Associated Press

TONY AWARD WINNER - BEST PLAY 2016

Sherlock & Me

9 OCTOBER - 10 NOVEMBER 2018

A World Premiere Musical

Written by LOUIS NOWRA & STEWART D'ARRIETTA

Produced by Red Line Productions

Texas, Queensland during the terrible floods: David Thackery, a New York university professor has escaped to the safety of a railway waiting room. Who should also seek refuge but his arch enemy in Sherlock Holmes studies, Reg Withers, a farmer and also a Holmesaphile.

Ferociously hungry and vicious wild dogs, as in The Hounds of Baskerville, surround the waiting room eager to devour the duo. And then there's the problem of what happened to the owner of the waiting room - is he dead or not? There's the mystery of a killer somewhere in Texas and the realisation that they will need each other to survive the flood. This funny and moving musical tells the stories of two very different people who find that this accidental meeting will change their lives.

Eurydice

14 NOVEMBER - 15 DECEMBER 2018

Sydney Premiere

Written by Sarah Ruhl

Directed by CLAUDIA BARRIE

Produced by Mad March Hare Theatre Company in association with Red Line Productions

Sarah Ruhl re-imagines the classic myth of Orpheus through the eyes of its heroine. Dying too young on her wedding day, Eurydice must journey to the Underworld, where she reunites with her father and struggles to remember her lost love. With contemporary characters, ingenious plot twists, and breathtaking visual effects, the play is a fresh look at a timeless love story.

To post a comment, you must register and login.