“People aren’t perfect. Even the people you love.
Especially the people you love.”
Australian master playwright, Andrew Bovell’s play, Things I Know To Be True recently opened at The New Theatre to loud applause. The Prices are a typical aspirational Australian working-class family. They’ve bought into the dreams and promises of a better life across the generations: the baby-boomer parents encouraged to sacrifice for a comfortable retirement, and the betterment of their children, all four of whom believe you can ‘have it all’. Over the course of one tumultuous year, audiences witness the fracturing of this seemingly tight-knit unit, as each of the children comes into conflict with the parents over how to live their lives.
The New Theatre are thrilled to be producing this exceptional play, and welcome director Hailey McQueen, making her New Theatre directorial debut.
Hailey recently said, “You can’t escape good writing. Bovell, in my opinion, is one of the most brilliant playwrights in the modern Australian landscape. His ability to simultaneously represent the mess and the beauty of the human experience is breathtaking and his dialogue sings onstage. Through this deeply Australian setting – the ordinary, the tragic and the humour – we are reassured that family, despite the mess, can be a place of unconditional love. The characters represent incredibly relatable life-moments for the audience. We see ourselves or a member of our own family in them. The children try to redefine their lives separately from the hopes and dreams of their parents and as the year unfolds each season contains a crisis, a turning point and tough choices need to be made and the ramifications of those choices dealt with. My hope is that the audience, through the witnessing of the Price’s year unfold, will be encouraged, and touched by the unfiltered mess and beauty of this family (which could be any family) and be challenged to treasure moments of closeness and connection with those we love.”
Hailey has assembled a terrific cast for this production. James Bean (The Grapes of Wrath, August: Osage County, The Clean House) and Kath Gordon (In Angel Gear, Who’s Afraid of the Working Class) return to New Theatre as the parents, Bob and Fran Price, while four talented young actors make their New Theatre debuts as the children: Anne Wilson (Pip), Michael Smith (Mark), Ben Chapple (Ben) and Skye Beker (Rosie). Try and catch this though-provoking play.
CREATIVE TEAM
Director: Hailey McQueen
Set & Lighting Designer: Victor Kalka
Co-Costume Designers: Eleni Chrysafis, Serena Pollock
Sound Designer: Rhiannon Cox
Assistant Director: Colleen Willis
Movement Director: Miriam Green
Production Managers: Gemma Greer, Hailey McQueen
Stage Manager: Catherine Tomsen
Cast James Bean, Skye Beker, Ben Chapple, Kath Gordon, Michael Smith + Anne Wilson
SEASON: 15 November – 17 December 2022
VENUE: The New Theatre, 542 King St Newtown
PERFORMANCES
Thursdays – Saturdays 7:30pm, Sundays 5pm
Final performance Sat 17 December 2pm
TICKETS
Full $35, Concessions, Groups (6+) $30, Thrifty Thursdays $22
BOOKINGS
https://aunewtheatre.sales.ticketsearch.com/
* Photos © Bob Seary
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