HAMLET

CASTHamlet Johann WalravenHoratio, Player Queen Brendon McDonallClaudius/Ghost James Lugton Gertrude Cat MartinPolonius, Gravedigger 1 Frank McNamaraOphelia, Servant Abigail AustinLaertes, Guildenstern, Player King, Bernardo

Andrew Johnston

Rosenkrantz, Osrick, Lucianus’ Prologue, Gravedigger 2, Priest

Wade Doolan

PRODUCTIONDirector David RitchieAssistant Director Gertraud IngeborgSet and Lighting Design Tony YouldenCostume Design Claire MoloneyMusic and Sound Design Marcello FabriziFight Choreographer Kyle RowlingFront of House Gertraud Ingeborg,

Johannes SwatonPhotography Bob SearyProduction Manager Gertraud Ingeborg

THANK YOUACTT Actors College, New Theatre, Sport for Jove Theatre.

DIRECTOR’S NOTEShakespeare was first and foremost a popular dramatist; he has an exuberant and irreverent theatricality which is often undervalued in the disproportionate focus on his colossal dramatic ability – (especially and ironically in the English-speaking world). We try to value both his drama and his theatricality. But we don’t use gimmicks – the theatricality in our productions derives from Shakespeare’s texts.

Hamlet was written & performed between 1599 and 1601 – almost exactly in the middle of Shakespeare’s career. The main focus of the play is playing itself. An earlier version of the play is known to have existed – the ‘Ur-Hamlet’. The text of the earlier play, in performance a decade earlier than Shakespeare’s, is not extant. No doubt a great deal of witty satire aimed at the earlier version is thus lost to us.

HARLOS PRODUCTIONSSee www.harlos.com.au for company details.

ABIGAIL AUSTINAbigail graduated from Theatre Nepean in 2004 .Since graduating Abigail has performed in several Harlos Productions, King Lear 06-08 and Belle of the Cross 08. More recently, she played Harper in Angels in America 08-09 directed by Alex Galeazzi and Gina in the Dysfunkshonals directed by Michael Piggot in 2010. She has just finished performing the roles Phoebe in As You Like It and Hypolita in A Mid Summer Nights Dream for Damien Ryan’s Sport For Jove theatre company. Her television appearances include Home and Away (Channel 7), Review with Myles Barlow (ABC) and Tough Nuts 2 (Foxtel).

WADE DOOLANWade is a a graduate of the Bachelor of Fine Arts Acting course from the Queensland University of Technology. His plays include, among others, Zoo Story, On an Average Day, Once in a Lifetime, MacBeth, Three Sisters, Twelfth Night, The Last Days of Judas Iscariott, Road and Camino Real. His short films include Loose Change, Blood Type, Grey Zone and Delusion. In 2010 Wade appeared in The New Theatre productions of Burnt by the Sun and Equus and made a guest appearance on Channel 7's Packed to the Rafters.

ANDREW JOHNSTONAndrew’s recent theatre credits include his award winning one-man show, Rip Whitening's SynchroDestiny Experience (Sydney Fringe), Brand Spanking New (New Theatre), Hamlet (Harlos, Bondi Pavilion), Light Bites & Tasty Treats (Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Straylight), The Return (Devil May Care), Take Me Out (New Theatre), Queen C (B Sharp), The Crucible (Seymour Centre) and Motortown (SBW Stables). With comedy team, The Nice Guys: You Say Potato, I Say Die (at Melbourne ICF) and Nice Guys Finish Fast. He is a former member of the Pact Youth Ensemble (Crime Site & Song of Ghosts). Additional credits include: Dogg's Hamlet/Cahoot's Macbeth, Spring Awakening, Much Ado About Nothing, The Glass Menagerie, Oleanna, Into The Woods, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Pulp Fiction. Andrew has just completed filming in the lead role on the feature length film, Sellouts.

MARCELLO FABRIZIMarcello is a voice over artist and actor with theatre credits including As You Like It, Hamlet, Measure for Measure, The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Ado About Nothing, The Tempest, A Doll’s House, Sweet Phoebe, Carp Are Smart Fish and Luncheon of The Boating Party. Film and TV include Superman Returns, Home & Away, Curtin and Underbelly 2. Marcello wrote and performed in the play North for the 2009 Short & Sweet finals winning Best Comedy Script and Best Director. His voice over work includes multiple characters in the Emmy Award winning cartoon, I Got A Rocket, as well as many TV and radio campaigns.

CAT MARTINCat’s most recent performance was in Shakespeare’s Mothers: Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know at the 2011 Adelaide Fringe Festival (also performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2010). In 2010, Cat appeared as Roberta in Danny and the Deep Blue Sea (Apocalypse Theatre), as Duchess/Audrey in As You Like It (The Shakespeare Centre), as Adriana in The Comedy of Errors (Shakespeare on the Green), as Starveling in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and as Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet (Sport for Jove). Other recent productions include Taming of the Shrew (Kate) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, (Titania) with Shakespeare on the Green, To Kill a Mockingbird (Epicentre), Someday Suddenly at the Sidetrack Theatre, her holiness (Bakehouse Theatre), Noel Coward’s The Vortex (Factory Space Theatre Co.), and The Comedy of Errors with Nightsky Productions. Film and television appearances include the feature films Damaged Goods and Older ‘n’ Last Time (Myrtle Boys Prod), Review With Myles Barlow and Home and Away. Short film credits include Wakefield (screened in 5 international festivals) and Best Enemies. Cat has trained with Kate Gaul (2008) and at the Actor’s Centre (2007). She has a Ph.D. in Linguistics and works freelance as a television scriptwriter and university lecturer.

GERTRAUD INGEBORGDirected Ritter, Dene Voss (English title: Lunch with Ludwig) by Thomas Bernhard, one of the most prolific Austrian writers, as well as Siberia by Felix Mitterer, The Bald Prima Donna by Ionesco and Punch & Judy by Frank Gauntlett. Her acting credits include: For Short & Sweet: Thin Air (Runner up Best Actress, 2010); For the Sydney Theatre Company: Streetcar Named Desire directed by Liv Ullmann, which toured Washington and New York, 2009), Manna (Wharf 2LOUD, 2008), Thyestes (2004) and This Little Piggy (Blueprints, 2005). For Adelaide Fringe Festival/Belvoir Street Downstairs: Quartet (1990/95); For New York International Fringe Festival: Mary Stuart (2001); For B Sharp: One Flea Spare (2004), Bumming with Jane (2008); For Theater am Hof, Bolzano, Northern Italy: Nacht Mutter (2005), Oskar und die Dame in Rosa (2006/07); For Stablemates: Live Acts on Stage (2005); Film: 15 Amore.

BRENDON McDONALLA Theatre Nepean acting graduate, Brendon’s stage credits include Bell Shakespeare’s Actors At Work and Hamlet; A Midsummer Night Dream and The Comedy Of Errors (Nightsky/Centennial Park); Mademoiselle Fifi and Don’t Stare Too Much! (Darlinghurst Theatre/JT Productions); King Lear (Harlos); Hating Alison Ashley and Five Times Dizzy (Theatre South); Morris Gleitzman's Worry Warts for Monkey Baa/Glen St Theatre and the Helpmann Award winning production of Thursday’s Child for Sydney Theatre Company/Monkey Baa. Television credits include the ABC series Review With Myles Barlow. Brendon directed the world premiere of the musical Somewhere... by Kate Mulvany and Tim Minchin (Q Theatre); Love's Triumph (two seasons) and The Mystery Of Irma Vep (Darlinghurst Theatre); Falsettos, Search & Destroy and Ben Ellis's Falling Petals (new theatre); Red Noses, The Visit and Henry V (Theatre Nepean); Out/Side/In and From Here To There

(ATYP); The Tuesday Clan and The Nimbs (Shopfront); and the Australian premiere of the musical Whistle Down The Wind. Brendon has just graduated from the Australian Film, Television & Radio School (AFTRS) where he wrote and directed the short film ‘The Law’. He currently teaches screen acting at NIDA.

JAMES LUGTONJames most recently performed in As You Like It, Romeo & Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Sport For Jove Theatre's 2010 and 2011 festival seasons culminating in the Royal Botanic Garden, The dYsFUnCKshOnalZ for Darlinghurst/Flightpath Theatre, Open For Inspection – The Real Estate Musical (Lickety Split/Darlinghurst Theatre), and Hamlet for Harlos Theatre. In 2009 he toured nationally for Monkey Baa Theatre for Young People’s Helpmann Award winning production of Thursday’s Child. Prior to that As Bees in Honey Drown (Bluen di Face/ Darlinghurst Theatre), God Botherers (Under the Table/Darlinghurst Theatre), You’re Nobody 'Til Sydney Loves You (Lickety Split/ Darlinghurst Theatre), Macbeth (Wildfire Theatre), King Lear (Harlos Theatre), A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Centennial Park and Coogee (Nightsky Productions), The Frail Man (Lightbox/Darlinghurst Theatre), Romeo and Juliet (Alchemy Theatre), The Popular Mechanicals (Cufflink Productions), In the Blood (Queensize/B Sharp Belvoir), Hamlet and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (Harlos), and Much Ado About Nothing (Nightsky Productions). Film and TV include Cleo (ABC), The Cut (ABC), Tough Nuts (Foxtel), All Saints (Channel 7), Home and Away (Channel 7), Water Rats (Channel 9), Queen of the Night, and BMX Bandits.

FRANK McNAMARAFrank has been loitering (with intent to act) about theatres for some fifty years. When unable to coerce directors into casting him he has sometimes resorted to directing other unsuspecting thespians, (including David Ritchie in ‘The Biko Inquest’). Favourite roles include ‘George’ in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’, Lear in ‘King Lear’, Thomas More in ‘A Man for All Seasons’ and Judge Danforth in ‘The Crucible’. He has worked extensively in film and television in England and the USA and can be glimpsed in old, late night movies such as ‘Sink the Bismark’, ‘Operation Amsterdam’ etc., and in re-runs of ‘Spin City’ ,’Law and Order’ etc. Frank played ‘Claudius’ in a previous David Ritchie production of ‘Hamlet’ and despite this is now appearing as “Polonius’. ‘Tis true. Tis Pittie. And pittie it is true’ has been given a whole new meaning.

DAVID RITCHIEShakespeare : Hamlet (direction), King Lear (Lear), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Aegeus & Quince), Titus Andronicus (Titus), Othello (Iago). Other theatre: Tattoo, The Man Who, The Unexpected Man, Europeans, Ritter, Dene, Voss, Young Tycoons, The Doglogs.Film : Wolverine, Multiple Choice, Disgrace (3 awards), I Am Not Someone Else, Beneath Hill 60. Television : All Saints MRU, Chandon Pictures, Stupid Stupid Man, Out of the Blue, White Collar/Blue & Major Crime East West. Voice Work : Recently Puyi, The Last Emperor of China, which he narrated, won the Gold Medal in Toronto for Best Documentary. He has worked for the ABC,

BBC, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, ZDF, NPR. Channel 4, & NHK, among others. David is the male voice in The Lyric Voice – the innovative & highly acclaimed 15 ep. programme, devised & produced by Phil Carrick, featuring literature from 1400 to yesterday, which was twice aired nationally on ABC Classic FM in 2008. Another series is planned this year by demand.

CLAIRE MOLONEYClaire has a Bachelor of Design from the College of Fine Arts (COFA), UNSW and a Bachelor of Dramatic Art – Design from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA). Claire has designed the set and costumes for Love Song (Darlinghurst Theatre), The Love Talker (Parade Playhouse). Stage designs include Othello (Parade Studio). Claire designed the costumes for Day’s of Significance (Parade Playhouse), Summerfolk (Parade Space), Out of the Blue (Parade Playhouse), and Melvyn Morrow’s Shakespearean Idol (The Piano Room). She also worked on the costumes for the Australia wide tour of Steel Magnolias. For Ensemble Theatre, she has designed the set and costumes for The Ruby Sunrise, The Sunset Limited and Absurd Person Singular, Rhinestone Rex and Miss Monica, and Murders. Claire also designed the opera The Merry Wives of Windsor (Sydney Conservatorium of Music). Claire has worked on numerous short films and a number of features in various roles within the design department. Since 2004, Claire has been working professionally in the costume departments on the hit musicals West Side Story, Cats, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, The Musical, The Boy From Oz, The Producers and Dirty Dancing.

JOHANN WALRAVENSince graduating from NIDA in Acting in 2003 Johann has appeared as Vincent Van Gogh in Vincent in Brixton (Ensemble), Ethelred in Silence, and Jack in Checklist for an Armed Robber (B Sharp) Mike in Dinner (Griffin), Rot in Features of Blown Youth and Hamlet in Hamlet (New Theatre), Will and Donny in The Carnivores (TRS), Jaques in As You Like It (Shakespeare Centre), Adam in Alaska (ATYP), amongst other things. Other roles include TV performances in Fireflies, Home and Away, All Saints, Rescue Special Ops, Rake, the U.S feature film Stealth, numerous short films & music videos.

TONY YOULDENTony’s involvement with the theatre spans over fifty years. Tony has worked as a freelance designer for most of Australia’s performing arts companies. He has lit over four hundred theatre, opera, and ballet productions. He has just retired as Technical Director from NIDA where he worked for over sixteen years. His association with Harlos Productions includes being Lighting Designer for Hamlet and many productions over the past eighteen years. In addition Tony has acted as a theatre consultant advising on the re-development of the Capitol Theatre, the Broadwalk Studio at the Sydney Opera House, and the new NIDA Stage II complex, as well as many educational theatres.

PROGRAMME

HARLOS PRODUCTIONSwww.harlos.com.au

harlosproductions@ozemail.com.au