Cirrus@Austlit

'Coming home from her sister’s funeral, Grace decides that at 87 years old… her time has come. She’s done with it all. She’s ready to leave the party.

'Her daughter, Dorothy, decides her mum is just depressed. She makes it her mission to show Grace the beauty of living. But Dorothy is divorced. Stuck in a dead-end job. Estranged from her own daughter, Suzie, who lives halfway across the world. Soon, Dorothy starts to worry that her mum might have the right idea.

'Pushing up daisies. Kicking the bucket. Ghosting the Party. The euphemisms are endless. For a phenomenon so certain and all-encompassing, humans are terribly good at looking for ways to avoid talking about death. It’s easy to forget that the concept of ‘checking out’ can be complex, contradictory—funny, even. Especially when an old lady with a bone-dry wit is involved.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Hedda Gabler is railing against her life. She didn’t marry bogan drug slinger George Tesman so she could play housewife in a monstrous Gold Coast mansion with white leather couches, blingy chandeliers and endless rounds of Aperol Spritz.

'She wants something much more. Now her old flame, Ejlert Løvborg, is out of prison and off the junk. Is he about to slice off a piece of George’s empire? Maybe Hedda can pull some strings to work this to her advantage.

'Logie Award-winning actor Danielle Cormack (Wentworth, Rake) is the Hedda we’ve all been waiting to see. Melissa Bubnic gives us a local version of the Henrik Ibsen classic that is as dangerous and surprising as its heroine.'

Source: Queensland Theatre Company.

A series of five plays by Australian playwrights, collected and performed as a single performance.

'The devil wears pinstripes

'Astrid Wentworth is relentless. A currency trader at the top of her game, she takes multinationals out for dinner before joining hedge funds at a strip club. She hasn’t broken the glass ceiling, she’s remodelled the entire building.

'When a bright young woman applies for a junior position, Astrid decides to play mentor. But, in the self-serving world of the trade floor, every favour has a price.

'Playwright Melissa Bubnic won STC’s Patrick White Award in 2010 and, since then, has been carving out a distinctive writing style that is smart, risqué and very funny. In Boys will be boys, she systematically skewers the hypocrisies and the fallacies of the finance world.

'Strapping on Astrid Wentworth’s razor-sharp stilettos is Danielle Cormack (Rake), making a welcome return to STC. The comedy is black, the language colourful and the stakes are f*ing high. Welcome to the trading floor.' (Production summary)

'A wildly absurd coming of age story about the sexual awakening of two very different sisters. Two sisters, Pauline and Bianca, are on the verge of adulthood. Bianca is betrothed to a boy and the preparations for her imminent wedding send the girls into a flurry of excited confusion. With the adult world swelling around them, Pauline and Bianca respond in wildly different ways to the strange discoveries they are making about the mysterious business of sex. "Mariage Blanc" (referring to an unconsummated marriage) is a surreal coming of age story; a fairytale for adults and a poetic collage of ideas and images. At once comic and sad, absurd and profound, this exceptional play is an exploration of why being a woman in 1890 or 2012 sometimes sucks, and why being a man isn't much better.' Source: http://www.sydneytheatre.com.au/ (Sighted 12/12/2012)

'Arty is huge. Ginormous. Morbidly and grossly obese, he’s in need of a gastric bypass to save his life. At over 400 kilos, he’s the world’s fattest teenager.

'Arty is also being followed by a reality TV crew. Will he lose the kilos needed to have the op? Will he survive to eat another cream puff? Will Louise, his Pathways-to-Work officer, transform his life in ways he never imagined?

'Unapologetically satiric, Beached is also the moving story of a man imprisoned in his own body. It lays bare the mercenary nature of reality TV, and turns the microscope on society’s insatiable appetite for human misery.'

Source: Griffin Theatre Company.

'Is it too late to live the life you've always wanted? As a disparate group of co-workers at a departmental office struggle to hold on to their dreams, we glimpse the series of comprimises that has led each to their place in this eclectic community ... [a] comedy with heart that begs the question, how well do you know the person at the next desk? ...'

Source: Red Stitch Actors Theatre website, www.redstitch.net (sighted 13/07/2010)