Cirrus@Austlit

'With the help of her ‘boomer’ parents, Sophia takes the giant leap into the property market … but it’s all about the fine print. And a global pandemic means a brand new deal. Now Sophia and Greg (her ‘fiancé’) must live with Sophia’s parents as ‘downsizing’ bites and this reconstructed family get swamped by their own ambitions. Family, it seems, is a big deal … and this could be a bad one.

'Award-winning playwright Ross Mueller aims his laser wit at the property market, family life and the transactions that bind us. This unlikely family must live together, as the cracks widen beneath them, threatening their hopes, their dreams … and their record collection!

'A Simple Act of Kindness is a comedy for a generation who’ve been locked down with the ones we … love?' (Publication summary)

'Finding the right person is never easy, but finding the right person in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of your life… well that’s quite an achievement.

'Belinda works in Community Development. She's looking for a fresh start and arrives in Tarocco, a small town in regional Victoria, looking for volunteers for a youth mentoring program she's running. And maybe she's looking for love - she gives the local dating agency a go, even though she's not quite sure why she's doing it. Marco is a small businessman, who knows everyone in town. He's lonely - living with his teenage daughter means he may as well be living alone.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'There's been a lot of refiguring of romantic relationships throughout this pandemic.

'With the world around us shifting so suddenly, people are working out what they want, and who they are. And there's a lots of imagining too, about what might be, after all this is over.

'Playwright Ross Mueller has been considering how we might try to come to new understandings, and new ways of being with the person we love.'

Source: Radio National.

'Charles is a Millennial who wants to have kids, live in Spring Street Speculation 'The Dream', and for his lover Dan to hold his hand in public. Jodie is Charles' assistant. She's new in town. She can't control her own human instincts but wants to take her industrial design to the next level.

'A rock and roll comedy featuring property development, new love, sex tapes, divorce and a '67 Mustang, LIFETIME GUARANTEE is a brutal anthem exploring inexplicable love in a punishing world.'

Source: Theatre Works program.

'Feel like your drowning in paper work? Beaten by the impenetrable weight of office bureaucracy? Adrift in a sea of jargon? You’re not alone. Andrew, former rock muso and new CEO of youth music organisation, Staccato, was parachuted in to save this company from oblivion. Mission accomplished, he’s setting his sights on implementing a bold, new strategic plan. But the Board has unanimously scrapped the plan and neglected to tell Andrew, leaving him adrift in a world of KPIs, performance reviews and a General Manager who refuses to return from his holiday in Thailand.'

'A Strategic Plan is Geelong-based playwright Ross Mueller’s contemporary satire about office life, arts funding and the perils of following your heart. Hilarious, pointed and painfully observant, it’s sure to cut close to the bone for anyone who’s ever tried to make a difference at work.'

(Publication Summary)

'We hit Cairo like a train! … Every dirty little alley, every dusty back room bar - the pyramids are marvellous, but I could spend the rest of my days quite happily in the arms of your temptation.

'Inspired by The State Library of New South Wales' jaw-dropping collection of WWI diaries and letters, and featuring a cast of Australia’s hottest emerging actors, A Town Named War Boy is the moving new play that brings our ANZAC legend to life.' (Production summary)

'The global housing bubble has well and truly burst, leaving the inhabitants of the previously buoyant city deflated and contemplating the impending age of austerity. While CNN reports that ruined New Yorkers have begun to exchange goods for services, trading iPods for cab rides, the deal of the century is going down in a Manhattan bar called 'The Big House'.

At his daughter's request, 57-year-old businessman Larry has agreed to a blind date with her fiancée. He's expecting a 'kid' to show up. What he is not expecting is Jimmy, a 55-year-old Australian jock, who is betrothed to his precious little girl. These two self-made men are going to have to do business. Jimmy is selling and the product is himself: 'the best son in-law in the world'.

Apart from the soon-to-be in-laws, the bar is deserted. Its owner, Robinson, is in the depths of an emotional and fiscal crisis of her own but when this chance meeting blows Jimmy, an acquaintance from the distant past, in her direction the course of her future might be set to change.' (Sydney Theatre Company website)

'Somewhere in a busy city, a Man wakes to discover he has forgotten his life. He has no memory of the past and no clear sense of the present.

'He is concussed. Or so he is told by a doctor - who may also be his partner. Now there are flashes of something. Hunger, mourning, sexual appetite... Bob Dylan? But why isn't he in hospital? And what of the voices, the Blackberry, the brothers? The hammer?

'A comedy with attitude, Concussion explodes a simple conceit and scatters its achingly funny and filthy tales of the city like shrapnel.'

Source: Griffin Theatre Company.

Appetite is presented as part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival and marks a collaboration between KAGE and playwright Ross Mueller, as well as musician Sally Seltman, better known as the indie outfit New Bullalo.

Louise is an affluent and successful woman. On the event of her 39th birthday, she cooks a feast of Dionysian proportions for her husband, sister and a small number of close friends. As the evening progresses, Louise becomes increasingly conscious of the discrepancy between her material wealth and her neglected emotional well-being, as her guests descend into a drug and alcohol fuelled exploration of excess.
Source: http://www.australianstage.com.au/reviews/miaf/appetite--kage-2005.html (Sighted 2/4/2009)

'Meet Ed Kennedy - underage cabdriver, pathetic cardplayer, and useless at romance. His life is one of peaceful routine and incompetence, until he inadvertently stops a bank robbery. That's when the first Ace arrives. That's when Ed becomes the messenger...

'The Messenger is a darkly humorous, thought provoking and moving story that reminds us how difficult it is to find our place in the world.'

'... [F]eaturing The CBD, Kew, St Kilda, Ringwood and Footscray. Melburnalia weaves together five specially commissioned new plays by outstanding local writers Kate Holden, Lally Katz, Ross Mueller, Tee O'Neill and Alice Pung.

These short works form a single theatrical journey which transits from suburb to suburb and uncovers a city with many faces. Each play illuminates the extraordinary within the ordinary: paraphernalia and miscellanea yield up their stories. From the grungy backalleys of St Kilda to the boulevards of Kew; first love in Footscray and betrayal in Ringwood; from the wide lanes of the Maroondah Highway to the narrow arcades of Degraves St; from heroin to homosexuality; library to laneway; sex work to stage work; bohemians to bogans to boat people to an Apocalypse Bear. Melburnalia is a thought- provoking exploration of the diverse localities, peoples and meanings that come together to form 'Melbourne'.'

Source; White Whale Theatre website, www.whitewhaletheatre.com (Sighted: 19/05/2009)