Graduates Band Together for Bartlett’s Dystopian Present

Media Release – September 21st 2012 for Immediate Release
Graduates Band Together for Bartlett’s Dystopian Present

The Actors’ Program present:
13 Written by Mike Bartlett.
Directed by Sophie Roberts

“Hip, incisive... 13 demands to be seen”
Time Out, London

Fourteen of Auckland’s hottest new faces are ditching their training wheels to showcase their talents with award winning UK playwright Mike Bartlett’s work 13, from November 6th at the Basement Theatre.

After a year of working with top respected arts professionals including Sara Wiseman, Michael Hurst, Jennifer Ward-Lealand, Michele Hine, Cameron Rhodes, John Callen, Charlie McDermott and its patrons Ian Mune and Sam Neill, the grads of The Actors’ Program have chosen the highly acclaimed 13 as their presentation vehicle. The grads will tackle themes such as personal responsibility, the hold the past has over the future and the nature of belief itself through this new work by Bartlett.

Across London, people wake up from an identical, terrifying dream. At the same moment, a young man named John returns home after years away to find economic gloom, ineffective protest, and a Prime Minister about to declare war. But John has a vision for the future and a way to make it happen.

Penned in 2011 – the year which saw the London Riots stem from what some described as a disenchantment of a forgotten generation as governments around the world fall and thousands take to the street in protest – Bartlett’s work captures a malaise many people are finding in this day and age. Its frank depiction was summed up in a review from respected UK newspaper The Guardian – “Bartlett has pinned down the unease that is currently in the air; the sensation that we are sleepwalking into some kind of disaster.”

Groundbreaking, anarchic and at times outspoken, Mike Bartlett has become one of British theatre’s enigmatic young playwrights. His early works became fringe favourites in the United Kingdom, and in time Bartlett found himself creating works for the National Theatre in London and for the BBC. In 2007, Bartlett became the Royal Court Theatre’s “writer in residence”, and in 2010 the playwright earned his biggest accolade to date; a Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre for the play Cock.

Though set in London, its emotive narrative is one that Auckland audiences will still find all-too relatable given the political and social shifts taking place in New Zealand. It is fitting that the graduates of the year-long Actors’ Program will be performing and producing 13; it is their generation the work most speaks to.

The Actors’ Program is an independent and privately run one-year acting course concentrating on providing actors with the tools they need to be effective practitioners in the world of stage and screen. It delivers a wealth of knowledge to a younger generation of aspiring New Zealand actors.

13 plays
6-10th November 2012
The Basement Theatre, Lower Greys Avenue, CBD
Concession $18 | Full $22
Bookings through iTicket – 09 361 1000 or www.iticket.co.nz

ENDS

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