JANUARY-FEBRUARY
THEATRE NEWS

Happy New Year from The Captioning Studio!
We hope everyone enjoyed the festive season.
We have lots of exciting news to share with you in this jam-packed edition of our GoTheatrical!™ Theatre Captioning News!
2011 was a wonderful year for us here at The Captioning Studio, and we have much more in store for 2012! We’re really looking forward to sharing our plans with you over the coming months.
Along with all our latest news, we’re pleased to be able to detail here for you the fantastic selection of captioned performances coming up in January and February!
Enjoy the great captioned shows on offer!

Best wishes,

— The GoTheatrical! Team at The Captioning Studio

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The Captioning Studio wins 2011 Human Rights Award!

“Nari Jennings of The Captioning Studio accepts the award from
Race Discrimination Commissioner Dr Helen Szoke.
Photo: Australian Human Rights Commission”

We’re thrilled to announce that The Captioning Studio has won the Australian Human Rights Commission’s 2011 Human Rights Award in the Business Category for our contribution to the inclusion of people with a hearing loss through our quality captioning services and our innovation in captioning technology.

Nari Jennings and Alex French of The Captioning Studio attended the Awards ceremony in Sydney on 9 December.

Colin Allen, President of the World Federation of the Deaf, also attended the Awards ceremony and said: “It was a pleasure to see The Captioning Studio awarded the Business Award for their dedication to the Australian Deaf Community and hard of hearing people in Australia. It’s great to see a successful business inspired by personal experience providing top quality captioning and giving back to the community.”

Nari Jennings, Co-Founder of The Captioning Studio, said: “Receiving this prestigious award will help us to create awareness of the need for captioning. Importantly, it’s also a wonderful opportunity to recognise, respect and celebrate those already making life accessible to people with a hearing loss, including many theatres, festivals, schools and universities, employers and website owners”.

We would like to extend our sincere thanks to the Australian Human Rights Commission for this Award. We are deeply honoured to have received it.

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Sydney Festival 2012

• Performance 1
• Performance 2
• Performance 3
• Performance 4
• Performance 5

We are delighted that the Sydney Festival will, for the first time, offer GoTheatrical!™ theatre captioned performances this month!

The following performances will be captioned:

Beautiful Burnout,
York Theatre, Seymour Centre,
January 22, 2pm & 8pm

Tis Pity She’s A Whore,
Sydney Theatre,
January 21, 2pm & 8pm

Details about these shows can be found in the listings below.
Bookings can be made by phone 02 8248 6500 or by email access@sydneyfestival.org.au.
We’re looking forward to working with the team at Sydney Festival!

There will also be GoTheatrical!™ captioned performances at the Perth Festival and the Adelaide Festival!

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Our GoTheatrical! Kids Project Launches

Late last year, we launched our new national project, GoTheatrical! Kids, to bring captioning to live theatre performances for school children in Year 3 and above.


We passionately believe that every child should have the opportunity to experience and participate in the Arts, and through captioning, live theatre can be accessible to so many children with a hearing loss!

Since announcing the project, we have been completely overwhelmed by the amazing support we have received from venues and production companies around Australia who have agreed to participate!

A complete list of children’s productions at participating venues will be available within the next few weeks for distribution to schools across Australia. Once the list is prepared, we will be calling for expressions of interest from schools interested in attending any of the particular performances on offer.

If you would like more information on GoTheatrical! Kids, please have a look at our video and information on our webpage at www.theatrecaptioning.com.au/gotheatrical-kids.

Please help us to spread the word to parents of children with a hearing loss and teachers of the deaf.

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2011 International Arts & Health Conference

“International Arts & Health Conference”

The International Arts & Health Conference was held in Canberra late last year at a truly magnificent venue – the National Gallery of Australia!

Nari Jennings, Co-founder of The Captioning Studio, presented to the Conference on the topic ’ Inclusion in the Arts Through Captioning – Access and Social Inclusion for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.’

There were many interesting presentations throughout the Conference and it was a wonderful opportunity to meet new people as well as to catch up with friends!

We look forward to attending more Arts & Health Conferences in the future!

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Australian Theatre Captioning Advisory Group (ATCAG) formed

Great news! A new captioning industry group has been formed specifically for theatre captioning!

The Australian Theatre Captioning Advisory Group (ATCAG) has been established to assist venues and production companies with knowledge and experience of theatre captioning for patrons who are deaf or hard of hearing.

ATCAG brings together a knowledgeable and respected group of industry professionals with a wealth of experience in the theatre and access industries, along with representation from the deaf/hearing impaired community.

With a shared commitment to access to the arts for people with a hearing loss, ATCAG aims to encourage and assist Australian venues interested in offering theatre captioning for patrons with a hearing loss by sharing combined knowledge and experience of the access service.

The Australian Theatre Captioning Advisory Group (ATCAG) comprises the following members:

• Ricky Bryan, Canberra Theatre Centre
• Tim Dakin, Frankston Arts Centre Melbourne
• Susan Daw OAM, Hearing Impaired Patron
• James Dipnall, The Arts Centre Melbourne
• Joanne Hartstone, Centre for International Theatre Adelaide
• Kay Jamieson, Brink Productions Adelaide
• Nari Jennings (ATCAG Chairperson) The Captioning Studio
• Steve Robinson, Merrigong Theatre Company
• Lisa Scicluna, Melbourne Theatre Company; and
• Gillian Thompson, Frankston Arts Centre

What a formidable team!

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Upcoming Performances

• 

  ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore’
  

• 

  ‘Beautiful Burnout’
  

• 

  ‘Summer of the
  Seventeenth Doll’

• 

  ‘White Divers of Broome’
  

• 

  ‘Jack Charles v The Crown’
  

• 

  ‘Every Single Saturday’

• 

  ‘Pygmalion’
  

• 

  ‘Henry V’
  

• 

  ‘The Winter’s Tale’

• 

  ‘Tribes’
  

• 

  ‘MidSummer’
  

• 

  ‘Babyteeth’

Visit www.theatrecaptioning.com.au for more Captioned Performances.

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‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore

Captioned Performances:
Saturday, 21 January 2012

Time:
2:00 PM - 4:30 PM and
8:00 PM - 10:30 PM

Venue:
Sydney Theatre Walsh Bay, Sydney NSW



Presented by Sydney Festival in association with Sydney Theatre
Written by John Ford
Directed by Declan Donnellan
Designed by Nick Ormerod

Following legendary productions of The Changeling and The Duchess of Malfi, Cheek By Jowl, one of the world’s great theatre companies, returns to Jacobean tragedy with a new production of John Ford’s ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore. In this violent and bloody drama, we watch a brother and sister’s passionate descent into hell. Incest, morality, religion and corruption intertwine to make this play as shocking and controversial as it was almost 400 years ago.

‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore is the vision of Britain’s renowned artistic team, director Declan Donnellan and designer Nick Ormerod. Sydney audiences will remember their compelling production of Othello (Sydney Theatre Company 2004) and their all-male Russian version of Twelfth Night (Sydney Festival 2006). Known for an intense yet informal rapport between actors and audience, Cheek by Jowl have toured to more than 40 countries with their thrilling versions of European classics.

Now, direct from its Paris premiere, they bring us ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, set in a not unfamiliar world of lust, vengeance and greed. Declan Donnellan (Director) appears as part of our free talks program Microscope: Festival Artists in conversation with Caroline Baum Produced by Cheek by Jowl in association with The Barbican (London), Les Gemeaux/Sceaux/Scène Nationale and Sydney Festival


This production is suitable for 16+.

Visit www.theatrecaptioning.com.au for more Captioned Performances.

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Beautiful Burnout

Captioned Performances:
Sunday, 22 January 2012

Time:
2:00 PM - 4:30 PM and
8:00 PM - 10:30 PM

Venue:
York Theatre, Seymour Centre, Chippendale NSW



Written by Bryony Lavery
Directed by Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett

From the sweat-and-sawdust world of a boxing ring, Beautiful Burnout is about those soul-sapping three-minute rounds that determine which young boxers become gods and which gods become mortal.

This award-winning collaboration between Frantic Assembly and National Theatre of Scotland is stunning audiences with the same raw truth and explosive physicality captured in their tale of the Scottish regiment,Black Watch, a huge hit of Sydney Festival 2008.

In Beautiful Burnout, Tony-nominated playwright Bryony Lavery gives voice to working class youth seeking transcendent ways to escape. An athletic cast sweats, skips and punches at the dreams and terrors of gifted young boxers. Told from the ring on a revolving stage, against banks of screens, this is spectacular storytelling choreographed to the pulsing heartbeat of music by Underworld.

Through broken hearts and broken heads, heart-rendering intimacies and knockabout comedy, Beautiful Burnout is total immersion in the world of boxing.


Bookings can be made via www.sydneyfestival.org.au

Visit www.theatrecaptioning.com.au for more Captioned Performances.

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Summer of the Seventeenth Doll

Captioned Performances:
Saturday, 11 February 2012

Time:
4:00 PM - 6:30 PM

Venue:
The Arts Centre Playhouse, Melbourne VIC




For sixteen summers, Roo and Barney have spent their long layoff from the cane-cutting season down in Melbourne having a high old time with two Carlton barmaids, Olive and Nancy. It has been a carefree ritual that never looked like ending. But back for their seventeenth summer, the blokes find that Nancy got married and Olive has roped in a friend, Pearl, to take her place. And for a while they all do a fair job of kidding themselves that time has not finally caught up with them.

The day we premiered Ray Lawler’s groundbreaking play in 1955 marked the beginning of modern Australian drama. This story of shattered illusions has been revived many times since, but never with such imagination and heart as in Neil Armfield’s new production.

Visit www.theatrecaptioning.com.au for more Captioned Performances.

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White Divers of Broome

Captioned Performances:
Wednesday, 15 February 2012

Time:
7:30 PM - 10:00 PM

Venue:
Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre of Western Australia, Perth WA




Directed by Kate Cherry
Designers:

• Bruce McKinven (Set)
• Alicia Clements (Costume)
• Trent Suidgeest (Lighting)
• Ben Collins (Sound)
• Chrissie Parrott (Movement Directon)

Cast Includes: Caitlin Beresford-Ord, Kylie Farmer, Michelle Fornasier, Stuart Halusz, Yutaka Izumihara, Tom O’Sullivan

The ‘Fat Years’ of Broome’s pre-WWI pearl-shell industry coincided with the national call to promote a white Australia. Broome owed its wealth to the cheap ‘coloured’ labour that collected mother-of-pearl from the hazardous seas.

When the Australian Government discovered this one remaining pocket of racial diversity, they demanded the Asians be replaced with British navy divers. The master pearlers fiercely opposed having to employ white divers and entered into opportunistic alliances with the Asian crews to resist the newcomers.

The White Divers of Broome is a fast-paced celebration of boom time Broome, its unique beauty, its exotic mix of cultures and the seductive power of its landscape. It is a stirring account of isolation, non-conformity and survival in a harsh and relentless environment.

Visit www.theatrecaptioning.com.au for more Captioned Performances.

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Jack Charle V The Crown

Captioned Performances:
Saturday, 18 February 2012

Time:
4:30 PM - 5:45 PM

Venue:
Studio Underground, State Theatre Centre of WA, Perth WA




Performed by: Jack Charles
Directed by: Rachel Maza

Uncle Jack Charles is an Australian legend: veteran actor, Koori Elder, activist and – until recently – heroin addict and cat-burglar.

His is a life lived to its limit, and this is his story.

From Stolen Generation to Koori theatre in the 70s, film sets and Her Majesty’s prisons, Jack tells his captivating tale with humour, warmth, honesty and charm … and a few songs along the way.

Visit www.theatrecaptioning.com.au for more Captioned Performances.

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Every Single Saturday

Captioned Performances:
Wednesday, 22 February 2012

Time:
11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
and 8:00 PM - 10:00 PM

Venue:
Glen Street Theatre, Belrose, Belrose NSW



Produced by: Les Currie Presentations
Directed by: Lisa Freshwater
Running Time: 1 hour and 30 minutes, no interval

Laugh out loud with this musical comedy about four parents whose only common ground is the football field where their kids play Every Single Saturday.

Meet Neil, an aloof orchestra conductor, unaccustomed to the pressures of being a father to his estranged son; Sandy, a hard-driven working class fitness freak trying to avoid her struggles at home; Liz, a well-educated North Shore mum trying to rebuild her life as a single parent and the team’s coach, Carlo, an Italian soccer dad reliving his days as a former sports hero. Follow their sideline dramas as the junior team goes nowhere fast until Neil’s son, the talented Becks, arrives.

Featuring more than a dozen original songs, dazzling dancing, plenty of laughs and a few tears, this heart-warming, inspiring, poignant and romantic new Australian musical comedy celebrates the pain and the passion – the oranges and the lemons – of being a parent on the sidelines. After all, that’s where the real action is!

Visit www.theatrecaptioning.com.au for more Captioned Performances.

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Pygmalion

Captioned Performances:
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
Time:1:00 PM - 4:00 PM
and
Friday, 24 February 2012
Time:8:00 PM - 11:00 PM

Venue:
Sydney Theatre Walsh Bay, Sydney NSW



By: George Bernard Shaw
Running Time: 3 hours, including interval

In one of the great transformative tales of all time, a feral young flower seller glimpses an opportunity to elevate herself in society and boldly snatches at it, naïve to the potential cost of doing so.

It’s a decision that sees the now iconic character Eliza Doolittle transported into the aristocratic world of one Professor Henry Higgins, where she becomes the subject of a wager between the phonetics expert and his friend Colonel Pickering. Higgins bets that within six months he can turn the wild, cockney Eliza into a lady so refined she could pass for a duchess. It’s a matter of professional pride and intellectual curiosity for Higgins. For Eliza it is a matter of infinitely more complexity.

Taking its name from the Greek myth about the sculptor who fell in love with his statue, George Bernard Shaw’s enduringly popular play Pygmalionhas in turn inspired interpretations as diverse as My Fair Lady, Educating Ritaand the eighties’ Hollywood flick Pretty Woman. Shaw’s story is one of rags to relative riches but his Eliza is no Cinderella and Higgins is certainly no Prince Charming. In Peter Evans’ new production the vivacious Jessica Marais will play the original feisty flower-girl.

Visit www.theatrecaptioning.com.au for more Captioned Performances.

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Henry V

Captioned Performances:
Thursday, 23 February 2012

Time:
4:00 PM - 6:45 PM

Venue:
His Majesty's Theatre, Perth WA



By: William Shakespeare
Directed by: Edward Hall
Text adaptation by: Edward Hall and Roger Warren

At the dawning of King Henry V’s reign, power and morality collide amid plots of intrigue, duplicity and a perilous turn to France. Outnumbered five to one, the English army faces the Battle of Agincourt, roused from their fears by the lyrical eloquence and raw power of Henry’s St Crispin’s Day Speech.

Friends of the Festival Artist Talk Tue 21 Feb, post-show (Free to ticket holders)