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"Our feelings and our experience are in conflict with our ideology. Perhaps ideology has to go." October, Ian Wilding

In 2007, a total of 12 playwrights will present work on the SBW Stables Theatre stage. At the heart of artistic director Nick Marchand’s first season is the theme of identity. Marchand said at a time when the new writing landscape was being reframed around the country, he wants Griffin to reassure writers that they are the indispensable and fundamental basis for the theatre.

“The last few years have proved that where new plays were once viewed as a risk, Griffin is now at the heart of a revival of interest in new writing,” he said. “I hope we can now build on David Berthold and the Griffin team’s incredible achievements over the last three years.”

In a change with tradition, Marchand will not direct a production in his first 12 months as artistic director, but instead concentrate on programming, play development and the overall artistic and strategic direction of the company.

“A playwrights’ theatre is at its best when it reflects the diversity of the culture around it. I don’t believe that’s always possible if plays are then viewed through the prism of a single director,” he said. “I hope our new approach offers writers the optimum working environment. It’s not about removing the artistic director from the frame – it is about further privileging the playwright.”

The first show for 2007 is an encore season of Tommy Murphy’s Holding the Man. Living up to director David Berthold’s assertion that audiences have a growing hunger for Australian stories, it’s another opportunity for those who were unable to get a ticket in 2006 to see this electrifying production. It will be a highlight of the New Mardi Gras Festival.

A new work from Daniel Keene is always eagerly anticipated, and after a 13-year absence from Griffin, the company is excited to be staging the Australian premiere of The Nightwatchman. With William Zappa in the central role, the intimate diamond stage of the SBW Stables is tailor-made for Keene’s startlingly poetic and poignant work about a family tied to the memories of a shared past.

In October, two-time Griffin Award winning playwright Ian Wilding throws a complete stranger into the lives of an ordinary city couple and asks what they’re willing to sacrifice to get him out? A provocative and hilarious black comedy about comfortable lives thrown out of kilter, it will be directed by Julian Meyrick.

The Story of the Miracles at Cookie’s Table by Wesley Enoch is a powerful family saga spanning four generations on Stradbroke Island. A young man’s desire to understand his history is at odds with his mother’s desire to protect his future. Griffin has teamed with HotHouse Theatre to present this humorous and affecting, deeply personal tale, from one of Australia’s leading theatre artists.

From a writer who consistently tackles big issues comes King Tide, the story of an ex-journalist who has completely given up on them. Katherine Thomson’s play tells of a woman about to rediscover her motivation, in the most confronting fashion. With this heart-felt and stirring call to arms, Thomson is a playwright at the peak of her powers.

And there are other discoveries to be made, with The Seven Needs by 7-ON. Seven award-winning playwrights have responded to psychologist Abraham Maslow’s A Theory of Human Motivation as only artists can. A series of 10-minute plays reflect his hierarchy of human needs: Food. Shelter. Sex. Safety. Belonging. Respect. Spirit. Throughout the season, these short plays will be presented individually on selected nights before Griffin productions. And as part of Griffin’s drive for self-improvement, all the audience has to do is to seek out the presentation dates, hidden within the season brochure!

2007 sees another new initiative for the company, with Marchand establishing an artistic counsel to complement the Griffin Board’s input to the company’s role and its continued development. While he retains full responsibility for programming decisions, the counsel will also include playwright Hilary Bell, writer/directors Wayne Blair, casting director Kirsty McGregor, and actor/playwright/director Louise Fox.

Instead of producing programmes in 2007, Griffin and Currency Press are collaborating to publish the script of each new major production with programme notes. Subscribers can purchase them for $5 each ($7 for single ticket buyers). As well as providing the audience with another angle to experience the play, Marchand hopes it will promote the work of Griffin playwrights, long after the initial production, both in Australia and internationally.

“I don’t want Griffin to be a comfortable experience, but I hope it will consistently surprise,” he said. “We will continue to encourage that dialogue between our artists and audience - one that asks us to reflect upon, and I hope also celebrate, our surroundings. It’s not about building a theatre rooted in Australian identity, but allowing that identity to present itself naturally, in all its eclectic glory.”

Since 1978, Griffin has provided in excess of 137 opportunities for Australian playwrights, 374 jobs for directors, designers, choreographers and composers and cast 600 actors. It is the only theatre company in Sydney entirely dedicated to the professional development and production of new Australian plays.


Further Information: www.griffintheatre.com.au