La Boite Artistic Director David Berthold last night announced La Boite’s 2012 Season, “a year that will pull at the heart, stir
the blood and tickle the funny bone”.

The 2012 line-up of 10 productions includes five Mainstage productions and five La Boite Indie productions.

“We’ve rhymed some Shakespearean joy with summery Scottish charm, layered a mischievous hoax with a spellbinding
puppet, and crowned it with melting verses of tender napalm,” David said.

“I love what this theatre can do,” David said. “This is a theatre that allows for the most direct and fundamentally sensual
conversation between actor and audience I have ever encountered. Our shows – and they are shows, not just plays – very
often break down barriers in ways that spice the space with a frisky playfulness.”

The season opens in February with David directing a contemporary reinvention of Shakespeare’s most joyous comedy,
As You Like It. Helen Howard (Hamlet) and Thomas Larkin (Hamlet, Julius Caesar) lead a 10-strong cast that includes
Helen Cassidy (The Wishing Well), Kathryn Marquet (Ruben Guthrie), Bryan Probets (Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of
Loneliness), Hayden Spencer (Ruben Guthrie) and Trevor Stuart (Hamlet).

“Our theatre is perfect for Shakespeare,” David said. “It’s open and alive and allows actors and audiences to come together
to share the joy. I know Helen will delight as Rosalind, Shakespeare’s greatest female creation, and I could think of no better
Orlando than Thom – what a gorgeous pairing. This production will be our biggest in years; outrageous fun and full of
theatrical surprises.”

In April, La Boite presents the Traverse Theatre’s smash hit musical rom-com Midsummer (a play with songs), direct from
Edinburgh and the Sydney Opera House.

“This is another show just brilliant for our space – it thrives on the pleasure of actors telling and singing stories,” David said.

“It’s wonderful to be able to welcome Scotland’s leading theatre for new writing to the La Boite stage with a pitch-perfect
production of enormous charm and depth - a show about the great lost weekend we all dream about. And how fantastic to
have original cast members Cora Bissett and Matthew Pidgeon.”

In May, La Boite teams up with Sydney’s Griffin Theatre Company for the world premiere of Rick Viede’s Griffin Award winning
new play A Hoax. Directed by Lee Lewis, A Hoax will rehearse and premiere at La Boite ahead of a Sydney transfer in July.

“Rick is one of the bravest and most entertaining new voices in Australian theatre,” David said. “This is his terrific second play,
inspired by the recent spate of fabricated ‘misery memoirs’. Think of the controversies surrounding James Frey’s A Million
Little Pieces and Wanda Koolmatrie’s My Own Sweet Time. It’s bravura writing.”

“And what a treat to be partnering with the good folk at Griffin for the first time – our third interstate collaboration in as many
years.”

In August, the Dead Puppet Society’s 2011 La Boite Indie smash The Harbinger moves to La Boite’s Mainstage in a
refreshed and fuller version. Written and directed by David Morton (The Timely Death of Victor Blott) and Matthew Ryan
(boy girl wall), The Harbinger combines 3D animation and more than a dozen puppets – the star of which is three metres tall.

“The Dead Puppet Society is a team of incredible dreamers,” David said. “I think The Harbinger is their best, most ambitious
work yet. I adored it. They have seized this opportunity and returned to the rehearsal room to sharpen the story for a bigger
space and a new audience. I know this production will be even more magical than the last.”

In September, David returns to the director’s chair for Philip Ridley’s intoxicating new play Tender Napalm, a presentation
with Brisbane Festival 2012.

“Philip is undoubtedly one of the world’s most sensational playwrights,” David said. “I’ve directed two of his plays and see
in this, his latest, the most beautiful and acute distillation of his incredible art. It’s a theatrical firecracker about love, desire
and the whole damn thing. It’s danced as much as acted, taking us into the secret places of a relationship, and I know it will
explode in our theatre.”

An additional five productions will feature as part of La Boite Indie: The Truth About Kookaburras (Pentimento
Productions), I Only Came to Use the Phone (Netta Yashchin), Home (nest4change), A Tribute of Sorts (Monsters
Appear), and Children of War (The Danger Ensemble).

“La Boite Indie really kicked up a gear in 2011,” David said. “We saw a 67% increase in attendance across the season. Indie
2012 is set to be even bigger with five brilliant productions taking to the stage. It’s so, so exciting to be able to provide this
new platform for independent work in Brisbane.”

Now in its third year, La Boite Indie aims to nurture a more sustainable independent theatre culture in Brisbane, to
cultivate new audiences, to enable closer ties between independent theatre and La Boite, and to help create outstanding
contemporary works made with passion and rigour.

“It gives us great joy to be able to contribute to the development of independent work in this way and to help grow audiences
for theatre right across the city,” David said.

“Our collected works of 2012 are drawn from creative colleagues here and around the world. They have been chosen to
provide full theatrical experiences: good nights out that we hope will surprise, stimulate and sweeten,” he said. “The stories
range across human living, but touch often on matters of the heart and dreams of the fantastical.”

“We love what we do, and trust that what touches our audiences in our space, the very round room we call a world and a
stage, inspires them to feel creative and alive and a genuine part of the thing that is theatre.”

Read on to find out more about each production.

As You Like It

Rosalind falls in love with the younger Orlando at a wrestling  match, as you do. Banished from the city by her usurping uncle, she disguises herself as a man, as you would. With her best friend Celia at her side, she seeks refuge in the magical Forest of Arden where she meets Orlando again and teaches him the art of love, just as she likes it. Shakespeare’s most joyous comedy is a feast of wit and wisdom,
love and lust, cross-dressing and cross-purposes. This is a life-affirming, wonderfully optimistic trip into the forest of love performed by a crack cast for your special beguilement.

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players” Jaques, As You Like It

Director David Berthold
Designer Renée Mulder
Lighting Designer David Walters with Helen Cassidy, Helen Howard, Thomas Larkin, Kathryn Marquet, Bryan Probets, Hayden Spencer
& Trevor Stuart

Previews 18, 21, 22, 23 Feb
Opening Night Fri 24 Feb
Season 25 Feb - 24 Mar
Meet the Artists Fri 2 Mar
Duration 2hr 30min (including interval)
La Boite Mainstage 2012

MidSummer - A Play with Songs
After sell-out seasons in the UK and the USA, Scotland’s smash hit musical rom-com arrives at La Boite direct from Edinburgh and the
Sydney Opera House. Bob and Helena meet at a wine bar. He’s a failing car salesman waiting to pick up the keys to a stolen car. She’s a divorce lawyer with a taste for other people’s husbands. She’s totally out of his league; he’s not her type at all. They absolutely should not sleep
together. Ever. Which is why they do.This is the story of two strangers whose one-night stand turns into a fabulous lost weekend of stolen money, car chases, wedding bust-ups, Japanese rope bondage, midnight trysts and self-loathing hangovers.

“A warm-hearted, beautifully sculpted musical romantic comedy” Scotsman
“You float out laughing as if you’ve just swallowed sunshine on a spoon” The Guardian

Writer & Director David Greig
Songwriter Gordon McIntyre
Designer Georgia McGuinness
Lighting Designer Claire Elliot
Dramaturg Katherine Mendelsohn with Cora Bissett & Matthew Pidgeon

Previews 10 & 11 Apr
Opening Night Thu 12 Apr
Season 13-28 Apr
Meet the Artists Fri 20 Apr
Duration 1hr 45min (no interval)

A Hoax
SOME PEOPLE ONLY EVER GET TO LOOK IN AT THE WINDOW...

Currah’s life has just changed forever. She’s hit the top of national best-seller lists for the controversial indigenous memoir Nobody’s
Girl, literary agent extraordinaire Ronnie Lowe has offered her a contract for the sequel and the media is in a frenzy. The world goes
mad for her story and Currah goes mad for the attention. But when it emerges that the memoir was actually written by starryeyed
white male social worker Ant, the lies are torn from the book with astonishing consequences. Rick Viede is one of the bravest and most entertaining new voices in Australian theatre. He burst onto the scene when his first play Whore won the Griffin Award, toured to New York and took out the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award. A Hoax is his provocative and hilarious second play and winner of the 2011 Griffin Award. Inspired by the recent spate of fabricated ‘misery memoirs’, this is a vicious satire on the politics of identity,modern celebrity and the peddling of abuse culture.

Director Lee Lewis
Designer Renée Mulder with Shari Sebbens

Previews 5, 8, 9 May
Opening Night Thu 10 May
Season 11-26 May
Meet the Artists Fri 18 May
Duration 2hr (including interval)

The Harbinger
In 2011, The Harbinger premiered to sell-out houses and an extended season as part of La Boite Indie. Now, due to overwhelming popular demand, the Dead Puppet Society moves to La Boite’s Mainstage with a refreshed and fuller version of their extraordinary adult fairytale.
Written and directed by David Morton (The Timely Death of Victor Blott) and Matthew Ryan (boy girl wall), The Harbinger is part puppet show, part storybook, part daydream. It’s a classic tale of heroes and villains, centred on a little girl and an old man who find themselves thrown together in the aftermath of civil war. The Harbinger embraces terror and beauty and enchants us with both.

“Unlike anything you’ll have seen... a dark fairytale-within-a-fairytale that feels a bit Tim Burton, a bit Brothers Grimm, but has a magic
all its own” Time Off
“It’s gorgeous, a little addictive and more than a little disturbing” Australian Stage Online

Directors David Morton & Matthew Ryan
Producers Nicholas Paine & Natasha Pizzica
Technical Director Whitney Eglington
Sound Designer Tone Black Productions with Kathleen Iron & Giema Contini, Elizabeth Millington, Anna Straker

Previews 11, 14, 15 Aug
Opening Night Thu 16 Aug
Season 17 Aug - 1 Sept
Meet the Artists Fri 24 Aug
Duration 1hr 20min (no interval)

Tender Napalm
This is the story of you and your first great love. A young man and woman meet at a party. They are drawn to each other. They have sex. They fall in love. Then something happens.Their fantasies take charge: tales of golden shores, snakes,serpents, unicorns, kings, queens and blood. Dangerously and absolutely, they’re thrust into the secret places of love and desire. Philip Ridley’s extraordinary new play confidently traverses the delicate and the brutal, mapping the journey from first attraction to consuming devotion. It’s a sweaty portrait of passion and destruction, danced as much as acted, and an examination of how love can leave you shipwrecked, deep-burning and unquenchable.

“Seldom has sexual love been explored on stage with such ferocious honesty, brutality and melting tenderness” The Guardian
“Violently beautiful… Unforgettable” Time Out
“Seriously wild” The Independent
“HEART STOPPING…WILDLY INTOXICATING“ The Times

Brisbane Festival is an initiative of the Queensland Government and Brisbane City Council
Director David Berthold

Previews 21, 22, 24 Sept
Opening Night Tue 25 Sept
Season 26 Sept - 13 Oct
Meet the Artists Fri 5 Oct
Duration 1hr 20min (no interval)

The Truth about Kookaburras
It’s party time in the testosterone-drenched dressing sheds of AFL underdogs the Gold Coast Kookaburras. They’re celebrating a big win, the booze is free-flowing and a stripper has been booked as a buck’s party surprise for one of the players. But tainting the air is a dark secret
held by the entire team. By tomorrow, the secret will be national news, lives will be torn apart and cops will be combing the change rooms for clues.
Sven Swenson’s controversial Kookaburras was one of the most talked about shows of 2009. It comes to La Boite Indie reshaped and ripped for its long-awaited encore.

Writer & Director Sven Swenson
Choreographer Brian Lucas
Designer Tim Wallace
Lighting Designer Jason Glenwright
Composer & Sound Designer Phil Slade
Fight Director Justin Palazzo-Orr
A cast of 28 with Chris Baz, Donna Cameron, Michael Deed, Kieran Law, Cameron Sowden, Ray Swenson & Jack Treby

Season 6 - 23 June
Duration 2hr 40min (including 2 intervals)
Contains high level coarse language and full-frontal nudity
Image by Brent Lammas

I Only Came to Use the Phone
Maria is driving home to Barcelona when her car breaks down on a deserted road. After several failed attempts to hitch, she finds rescue in a ramshackle bus. Anxious to find a phone to call her husband, alone and exhausted, she falls asleep. It’s only when she wakes that the
nightmare really begins…

Netta Yashchin’s celebrated production at last receives its Queensland premiere after sell-out seasons in Sydney and Adelaide. Underscored by live flamenco guitar and performed with magical realist buoyancy, this is a line-byline re-telling of Nobel Prize winning author Gabriel Garcia
Márquez’s acclaimed short story.

“Uncomfortable but invigorating theatre… a gripping 90 minutes” Time Out

Director Netta Yashchin
Producer Fiona Boidi
Lighting Designer Rachael Smith
Production Manager Lucy Shepherd
with Fayssal Bazzi, David Hansen, Annabelle Stephenson,Dorje Swallow, Netta Yashchin, Damian Wright

Season 27 Jun - 14 Jul Duration 1hr 30min (no interval)

Home
Embracing fragmented myth and storytelling, Margi Brown Ash re-imagines life as actor, therapist, wife and mother, uncovering the extraordinariness of an ordinary life. The audience awakens to their own stories as we journey with Margi as an actor in New York in the 80s, a
hopeful schoolgirl in 1960s country NSW and a No. 96 soapie starlet in her ‘old home town’ Sydney in the 70s.

Along the way we return again and again to Brisbane, where we grapple with our own sense of ‘home’ and the many stories we hold of isolation and belonging.

Moving and uplifting theatre, this is both your story and mine, someone’s and everyone’s, timely and timeless.

“Not intimate theatre but epic theatre about intimacy” Real Time

Writer & Co-Deviser Margi Brown Ash
Director & Co-Deviser Leah Mercer
Visual Artist, Designer & Images Bev Jensen
Ensemble Members & Managers
Kate Caley & James Newton
Composer & Sound Designer Travis Ash
with
Margi Brown Ash & Travis Ash

Season 18 - 28 Jul
Duration 1hr (no interval)

A Tribute of Sorts
Ivan and Juniper have a peculiar task. Over the course of one night, they must re-enact a list of alphabetically ordered, but altogether unfortunate events. With lo-fi charm and eisteddfod zest, each incident is luridly reimagined, becoming more outrageous and elaborate as
the night progresses. Beneath the shameless theatrics and melancholic gaud of their recreations, something unexpected is happening
between Ivan and Juniper.

A wickedly funny jaunt of old-world magic and intrigue -it’s a tribute of sorts...

“A brilliantly demented sense of humour” Time Off on Monsters Appear

Director & Designer Benjamin Schostakowski
Directorial Associate Lucas Stibbard
Producer Ashleigh Wheeler with Dash Kruck

Season 24 Oct - 10 Nov
Duration 1hr 15min (no interval)

Children of War
Following the rampant success of The Danger Ensemble’s sell-out production The Hamlet Apocalypse comes a masterful mash-up of classical myth, the news of today and the voices of tomorrow. The Danger Ensemble, working with Vanguard Youth Theatre, daringly dissect the age-old relationship between children and war, setting the modern mass media and the untold stories of the children born of the Trojan War
on a collision course.

This is theatre full-tilt - visual, visceral, brutal, unflinching - exposing a world that is confronting, anarchic and terrifyingly real.

“Simply astounding, heart-wrenchingly real, shambolic, chaotic, philosophical, whimsical, hilarious, empathic, angry” Artshub on The Hamlet Apocalypse

Director & Designer Steven Mitchell Wright
Producer Katherine Quigley
Lighting Designer Ben Hughes
Media Producer Tyronne Curtis
Dramaturg Simon Tate with Sam Barnett, Sam Lara Canin-Henke,Imogen Gilfedder-Cooney, Jaimee-Lee Holstein, Elle Mickel, Patrick O’Connor & Eva Rae Smith

Season 14 Nov - 1 Dec
Duration 1hr 15min (no interval)

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