When Your Bad Dreams Come a Knocking

Media Release – For Immediate Release
When Your Bad Dreams Come a Knocking

The Moving Theatre Company and Q presents

THE PITCHFORK DISNEY

By Philip Ridley
Directed by Sophie Roberts
Starring Michelle Blundell, Todd Emerson, Leon Wadham and Sam Snedden
 
Studded with pitch-black comedy and images of shocking beauty; The Moving Theatre Company return to Auckland with The Pitchfork Disney, playing Q Theatre Loft from 20 - 29 June.
 
The mysterious disappearance of their parents years earlier have led to a pair of twins in arrested development. Surviving on chocolate, barbiturates and by spinning fanciful tales of the apocalyptic wasteland that exists outside their London flat, their self-induced solitary confinement is shattered when a sinister nightclub entertainer and his lumbering, masked cohort come calling…
 
Set in an imagined future that increasingly reflects the present - a world of emotional isolation, infantilized adults, sexual panic, fear of foreigners and the impossibility of connection in an age of terror, The Pitchfork Disney may not be a work from this “place” but is very much a work for our anxiety ridden times.
 
The Moving Theatre Company has always prided itself on pursuing innovation in the staging, design, presentation and marketing of their work. The Pitchfork Disney creates a world spun with fairytales, homo-erotica, derelict landscapes, childhood hysteria and seemingly unlimited moments of theatrical beauty. Auckland audiences take on the provoking and challenging role of voyeur in this galvanizing and immersive production.
 
This production brings together an incredible team of cast and crew, a dynamic mix of extablished professionals and emerging performers. Director Sophie Roberts commands performers Michelle Blundell (Shortland Street, Eigengrau), Todd Emerson (Sunny Skies, Autobahn), Leon Wadham (Go Girls, Tribes, Shopping) and Sam Snedden (Private Lives, The Pride) while producers Martyn Wood and Sam Snedden combine with the likes of The Cut Collective to create a work that once again develops a newer, younger audience for theatre. The show also signals the Auckland debut of multi-award winning theatre designer Daniel Williams (Masi, Angels in America, The Tigers of Wrath) who will transform the Q Loft and invite audiences to engage with the space in a completely new way.
 
The debut work of multi-talented artist Philip Ridley, Pitchfork Disney was a controversial hit upon its first performance at Bush Theatre in London in 1991. Generally regarded as the play that heralded the arrival of the ‘in-yer-face theatre’ movement of the 90’s it paved the way for the acclaimed work of other playwrights including Sarah Kane and Mark Ravenhill.
 
Ridley’s large body of work also includes the plays The Fastest Clock in the Universe, Mercury Fur and his most recent work Shiver. Screenplays include The Krays and The Passion of Noon Darkly (which he also directed). He is the recipient of the Evening Standard Awards for Most Promising Newcomer to British Film and Most Promising Playwright, the only person to have received both awards.
 
Twenty-one years since it first debuted, Pitchfork Disney has lost none of its potent imagery or disturbing visions as its Auckland premiere production will reveal.
 
Proudly supported by Creative New Zealand and Arts Alive.

THE PITCHFORK DISNEY plays:
20th – 29th June 2013
Q Theatre Loft, 305 Queen Street, Auckland
Performs at 7pm; Extra show Friday 28th at 9.30pm
Tickets: $25.00 - $35.00 (service fees apply)
Tickets available through Q Theatre – 09 309 9771 or www.qtheatre.co.nz

ENDS

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