The art of theatre and the theatre of art.

Blak Yak Theatre Inc, having just completed a highly successful season of Dylan Moran’s Black Books, have decided to go in a completely different direction for their next production.

Picasso’s Women, written by Brian McAvera, is not a play in the traditional sense, rather it is a series of monologues from the point of view of the women who loved, and were loved by, Pablo Picasso.

This unique production traces the life of one of the twentieth century’s most revered and influential artists. Beautifully written, Picasso’s Women examines the man though the women. But more importantly, it tells the story of four women who were so very important to Picasso and his work and yet have been largely ignored by history.

These women were Fernande Olivier – played by Melissa Merchant, Eva Gouel – played by Gemma Northover, Marie-Therese Walter – played by Kristen Berry and Dora Maar – played by Sherryl Spencer.

The four monologues will be played out over two nights, Fernande Olivier and Eva Gouel on Friday the 8th and Friday the 15th of June, and Marie-Therese Walter and Dora Maar will be on Saturday the 9th and Saturday the 16th of June. The monologues contain adult themes and some will also include nudity.

Picasso’s Women will be presented at the Studio, in the Subiaco Theatre Centre, Hamersley Rd Subiaco. Tickets are $12.95 concession and $14.95 adults, however as the show is being performed over two nights we are pleased to offer a discount for those who wish to come along to both evenings. $20 is all you will pay for two nights of entertainment. The shows start at 8pm each night and bookings can be made through BOCS on 9484 1133.

Blak Yak is proud to have the chance to present this masterful, yet poetic piece of work to the public. Picasso’s Women is a theatrical event designed to
entertain, enlighten, invigorate and excite. It will hopefully leave audiences talking long after the lights have dimmed.

Playwright:
Brian McAvera

Director:
Nick Donald & Melissa Merchant

Blak Yak Theatre Inc is very proud to announce its upcoming season of one act plays, entitled Original Virgins, which will feature three locally written productions. Having previously won awards for their original plays Blak Yak is looking forward to presenting the works of this new batch of authors to what will surely be appreciative audiences.

Enmity by Scott North over is a highly charged political thriller which will resonate with audiences in this election year. Enmity is a play about Australian politics, and the short-comings of our democratic system. “I was motivated to write it because of my own passion for politics” says writer Scott North over “ and really just to see if I COULD write a play. What is amazing is the huge amount of support I have received from my peers (and betters) in community theatre.”

Prod and Prejudice is a very adult comedy, written and directed by Stuart Porter. The play focuses on a production company who are making an adult version of Pride and Prejudice when the Jane Austen Historical Society decide to pay a visit. “If you ever want to drive yourself insane write and direct a play. I spent about four hours staring at four lines, trying to figure out how to make them funny and ended up with an Inspector Gadget reference” says Stuart “It‘s interesting when the director in you decides that the writer in you has written something that simply doesn‘t work and you begin to think that the writer is an idiot. You also begin to wonder if you‘ve ever actually been funny in your life.”

Joining Blak Yak in this season is A Lad Insane, performing No Strings Attached, written and directed by company founder Johnny Grim. The play considers the idea of what it would be like to have a long career in a chosen field (or not chosen as the case may be), only to discover that as your career reaches the twilight years, the world has changed and moved on, seemingly without you. No Strings Attached takes us inside the lives of two wooden puppets. ‘Flip’ the older of the two, has enjoyed a long and successful career as a fairground entertainer, his sidekick ‘Scratch,’ has only been part of the show for a few years. We join them as they finish one show, and await the next. When asked “where the idea comes from” he replies “I can’t be specific, but I guess it comes from the fact that I have worked for the one organization for many years, and I sometimes, (more frequently as time passes) have the dreaded nightmare of the customary retirement party, and gold watch. Yeek! It scares the hell out of me”.

Playwright:
Scott Northover, Stuart Porter & Johnny Grim

Director:
Scott Northover, Stuart Porter & Johnny Grim

In 1982, on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, the wealthy, articulate pot-smoking teenagers who were small children in the ’60s have emerged as young adults in a country that has just resoundingly rejected everything they were brought up to believe in. The very last wave of New York City’s ’60s-style Liberalism has come of age – and there’s nowhere left to go. In meticulous, hilarious, and agonising details.
This Is Our Youth follows forty-eight hours of three very lost young souls in the big city at the dawn of the Reagan Era: Warren Straub, a dejected nineteen-year-old who steals fifteen thousand dollars from his abusive lingerie-tycoon father; Dennis Ziegler, the charismatic domineering drug-dealing friend who helps him put the money to good use; and Jessica Goldman, the anxiously insightful young woman Warren yearns for. Funny, painful, and compassionate, This Is Our Youth is a living snapshot of the moment between adolescence and adulthood when many young people first go out into the world on their own, armed only with the ideas and techniques they developed as teenagers – ideas and techniques far more sophisticated than their parents ever realise, and far less effectual than they themselves can possibly imagine.

Performing at Subiaco Art Centre

Playwright:
Kenneth Lonergan

Director:

Scott Northover

Blackbird is a 2005 one-act (90 minute) play by Scottish playwright David Harrower. It depicts the meeting between a young woman and a middle-aged man with whom, fifteen years earlier, at the age of 12, she had had a sexual relationship.

He has managed to establish a reasonably successful new life under another name, but Una recognized him in a photograph and tracked him down. But why has she suddenly appeared after all this time? What does she want from him?

**PLEASE NOTE** Contains strong adult themes that may offend.

“Blackbird” will be performed at the Subiaco Arts Centre Studio November 19, 20, 21, 26, 27 and December 3, 4 and 5. $19.00 full, $15.00 concession. Bookings through BOCS 9484 1133 or www.bocsticketing.com.au

Playwright:
David Harrower

Director:
Dean Schulze