Australian TV Plays: Elizabethan Theatre Trust

Showing posts with label Elizabethan Theatre Trust. Show all posts

Frank Harvey 1965 letter about Oz play writing

Defends Hugh Hunt at the Trust - refers to developing writers like Barbara Vernon, etc

SMH 2 July 1965

SMH 16 July 1965

SMH 30 June 1965

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll Knock Offs

Unfair title - but, plays given a chance bc of the Doll (* means UK production)

1. The Shifting Heart* - worked well

2. The Bastard Country*

3. Curly on the Rack

4. Slaughter of St Teresa's Day

5. The One Day of the Year*

6. Life of the Party*

7. The Piccaddily Bushman

8. The Unshaven Cheek*

9. The Multi Coloured Umbrella

General Motors Theatre Awards

Jan 1958 announced see here.

Dec 1958 winner announced. 202 entries. 1st prize Slaughter of St Teresa's Day by Peter Kenna. 2nd prize 'Anchor Nuggett' by Jon Holliday. 3rd prize - 'Fox in the Night' by Harry Pree and 'Heirs of the Dead Heart' by David Ireland. Commended plays: 'Cesare', 'Do It Yerself', 'Fifteen Yards for Eddie', 'Goodbye to No. 6'. 'Resurrection at Mathewtown', ''Shadow of a Bulldozer', 'Sing for St Ned', 'The Pub at Pelican Creek' (by Chris Gardner)

March 1959 - award presented by Gladys Moncrieff to Kenna at Theatre.

*April 1960 - announced more awards see here. Winners: Wal Cherry for A View from the Bridge, John Sumner for Moby Dick Rehearsed, and Hugh Hunt for Julius Caesar

*Feb 1961 - General Motors Holden theatre comp see here - no winner but four prizes, 'Donny Johnson' by Alan Seymour 'Zelda Trio' by Laurence Collinson, 'Hateful Face in the Mirror' by John Pinkney, 'Wish No More' by Marien Dreyer

Sept 1962 invite entries for musical play in comp see here.

*Jan 1963 - Musical Theatre award given see here - first price Lesley Patching and C Phillips, The Captain's Ladies, 2nd prize Joyce Trickett and Dulcie Holland for Jenolan Adventure, 3rd place John Chapman and Dennis Carroll for surfing musical

R Walker George Patterson at Vincent Report

General Motors ran a General Motors Theatre Award through the Elizabethan Trust in Sydney. Last year it was run in connexion with plays; this year it is run in con-nexion with a musical comedy. The awards have just recently been made. I think that of about 260 plays we received, about four or five looked possibilities for television productions, but after reading them we found that they posed too man’y production difficulties. So that out of 260 we got virtually none. We are inclined to think now that it is better to commission writers to write plays, writers of known stature, than to invite people to sub- mit plays by way of competitions.

*July 1964 - no prize for best play General Motors Holden Theatre see here

*Sept 1965 - General Motors Holden Theatre Award for Theatre design see here

Script Competitions

*May 1940 Melbourne New Theatre Competition - won by Leslie Rees for play about Peter Lalor

*May 1945 PAB 1st Competition - won by 'Son of the Morning' by Catherine Duncan

*Apr 1946 Playwrights Advisory Board 2nd Competition - equal first ‘Ha Ha Among the Trumpets,’ by George Landen Dann and ‘And the Moon Will Shine’ by Miss Lynn Foster

*Nov 1946 Wagga Play Competition (with PAB) - My Life is My Affair by Oriel Gray see here

*Dec1947 Playwrights Advisory Board 3rd Competition - won by 'The First Joanna' by Dorothy Blewett

* Dec 1951 Commonwealth Jubilee Play Competition - won by 'Tether a Dragon’ by Kylie Tennan

*Sept 1955 Playwrights Advisory Board 4th Comp - won by The Doll and The Torrents see here

*Jan 1957 - 1957 First Annual Award by Journalist Club for works of Australian creative art - won by The Shifting Heart

*Aug 1957 London Observor Play Competition - The Shifting Heart came third - and Swamp Creatures in top 25.

*Oct 1957 Ballarat competition won by Oriel Gray Drive a Hard Bargain see here

*Dec 1958 General Motors-Holden Theatre Award - first prize Slaughter of St Teresa's Day see here

*March 1959 - Shell Australian TV Drama Prize - won by The Day Called Black by Robin Corfield

*Oct 1959 Melbourne Little Theatre Guild Competition (in association with JC Williamson) - won by Burst of Summer by Oriel Gray

*April 1960 - Journalist Club TV Play Prize - won by The Sergeant of Burralee and J Warner's World Without End.

*April 1960 - General Motors Holden Theatre Award - Wal Cherry for a View from the Bridge (see here - I think just for direction)

*June 1961 - ATV Play Competition - won by No Decision

*March 1962 - Adelaide Comp won by Wall to Wall

*April 1962 - Journalist Club Prize - won by When the Gravediggers Come and The Tower - see here

*Jan 1963 - General Motors Holden Musical Theatre award given see here - first prize Lesley Patching and C Phillips, 'The Captain's Ladies',

*May 1964 - Journalist Club Prize - won by Bandicoot on Burnt Ridge by Marian Dreyer,

The No Hopers by Peter Batey

Australian comedy play from 1962.

First presented at Naitonal Theatre Perth in June 1961 see here. Then played in Hobart see here. It went on tour see here.

Premise

A comedy at a country pub.

Joan MacArthur was in it as a postmistress.

Did the ABC look at it?

Time Remembered (14 May 1958)

Broadcast of a play by the Elizabethean Theatre Trust. Play by Jean Anouilh.

The ABC recorded a rehearsal. It ran 35 mins. OB. Director Colin Dean.

Cast

*Margaret Rutherford

*Darlene Johnson

* Ray Barrett

Production

The play debuted in New York on 12 Nov 1957 starring Susan Strasberg and Richard Burton and Helen Hayes. It was picked up by the Trust.

It was touring Melbourne and Sydney. It started at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne in Jan then moved to Sydney on May 7 until May 31. Margaret Rutherford was touring in The Happiest Days of Your Life see here.

The Age review of the stage show is here. SMH review is here.

SMH 10 May 1958

NAA Prod Plans 1958

SMH 14 May 1958

Plays by the Elizabethan Theatre Trust

Australian Plays

* Summer of the Seventeenth Doll - debut at Union Theatre 28 Nov 2955 then toured

*We Find the Bunyip by Ray Mathew at the Independent in 1955 - given a sponsorship guarantee by the Trust see here

*The Tintookies - puppets - debut 1956

*Ned Kelly - debut Oct 1956 - disastrous production

*The Shifting Heart - Oct 1957 - done a few times

*Curly on the Rack - Sept 1958 - rejected by ABC

*Little Fella Bindi - puppets - 1958 toured

*Lola Montez - Union Theatre early 1958, Sydney in Oct 1958

*The Bastard Country - May 1959

*The Magic Pudding - puppets - July 1960

*Mystery of the Hansom Cab - gaslight version - Jan 1961 at Union Theatre - filmed by GTV9

*The One Day of the Year - April 1961 (Adelaide debut) - offered to ABC but done by GTV-9

*Naked Island - Jan 1962 Union Theatre in Syd - ABC wanted to to it but UK had rights

*Shipwreck by Douglas Stewart - Jan 1962 Union Theatre in Syd - rejected by ABC

*The Break by Phil Albright - Feb 1962 Union Theatre in Syd - rejected by ABC

*The Ballad of Angel's Alley - July 1962 Union in Melb

*The Ham Funeral by Patrick White - July 1962 in Syd (Adelaide debut)

*Season at Sasparilla by Patrick White - Oct 1962 in Melb (Adelaide debut)

*The No-Hopers by Peter Batey - Dec 1962 in Melbourne

*And the Big Men Fly by Alan Hopgood - June 1963 in Melbourne

*The Golden Legion of Cleaning Women by Alan Hopgood - June 1964 in Melb - by June 1964 trust said that sixteen Australian plays professionally produced see here

*Night of the Ding Dong by Ralph Peterson - Aug 1966 - already been performed

*Barbara by Mona Brand - Aug 1966 New Theatre

*Private Yuk Objects - Oct 1966 Melbourne

*Burke's Company by Bill Reed - May 1968 at Russell St Melbourne

*The Explorers - puppet show Jan 1969

More detail

1955

Sydney - 27 Jul 1955 The Sleeping Prince (d Lionel Harris), 5 Aug 1955 Separate Tables (d Lionel Harris), 11 Oct-5 Nov 1955 Medea (with Judith Anderson first production of Aust Drama company) (then toured), Nov 1955 The Little Hut (d Lionel Harris)

Union Theatre - Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (28 Nov 1955)

1956

The Tintookies - profit 1,458, Twelfth Night, 11 Jan-27 Mar 1956 The Doll, 31 Jan 1956 The Boyfriend (then tour), 19 May 1956 The Rivals, 12 Jun-7 July 1956 The Tinktookie, 14 Jul 1956 Witness for the Prosecution, 3 Oct -27 Oct Ned Kelly* (lost 17,118), 20 nov 1956 The Rainmaker

ACT - The Day Before Tomorrow*

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll* - 6,834 profit, London, 27, 421 in 1959

- Ned Kelly* - lost 9,317

- THe Beggar's Opera - lost 8,097

- 27 April Hamlet (toured)

- The Relapse (toured)

- 4 Oct 1957 The Shifting Heart - profit 9,780 see here - also 1,831

- Look Back in Anger - lost 2,997

-The Happiest Days of Your LIfe 23 Dec 1957 Cinderella

1 Jan 1958 The Shifting Heart again

3 Sept 1958 Curly on the Rack* - lost 5,621

22 Oct 1958 Lola Montez * - lost 31,581

6-30 May 1959 The Bastard Country* 3 June Long Day's Journey into nIght 1-25 July 1959 Julius Caesar

- Slaughter of St Teresa's Day*

- Man and Superman

* UTRC: Waltz of Toreadors, Arms and the Man, Venus Observed, Rape of the Belt

* Ah Wilderness

*The Hostage - lost 8827

*Candida - lost 4619

*Charley's Aunt - flop - lost 7116

*The Magic Pudding - lost 1085

*UTRC- Roots, She Stoops to Conquer, Visit to a Small Planet, Taste of Honey, See How they Run

*Taste of Honey

*Glass Menagerie

*The One Day of the Year* - lost 1867

*Merchant of Venice

*Lock Up Your Daughters - lost 3870

*Come Blow Your Horn - gained 6158

*The Most Happy Fella - lost 10172

*UTRC: Mystery of Hansom Cab, See How they Run, Importance of Being Earnest, Five Finger Exercise, Lady's Not for Burning, The Guardsman, Dark at the Top of the Stairs, Rhinoserous, Thataway the Kings Go, Romanoff and Juliet

Shipwreck by Douglas Stewart

Play by Douglas Stewart. AustLit entry is here. Performed by Trust. Considered not good enough for ABC (see below).

Premise

A ship is wrecked on the West Australian coast. The play starts after the shipwreck, with over 300 people on an island. They include Lucretia, her husband Van Mylen, the captain Pelsart, a pastor, Sebastian, his daughter Judith and Pelsart's butler, Henyrock. The men are restless. Pelsart decides to return to Batavia, against advice, and also sends some men led by Hays to find water.

In the absence of Pelsart and Hays, some of the men, led by Cornelius, lead a revolt. They steal gold, massacre men, and keep women as sex slaves. Cornelius takes Lucretia after her husband is murdered, although he waits for a time.

A mutineer Huyssen taunts Sebastian and the pastor kills him and his killed in turn.

Hays returns and defeats the mutineers.

Pelsart returns and executes Cornelius and other mutineers. He falls dead of a heart attack before Cornelius is taken away. Hay returns to Batavia with the survivors including Lucretia.

my thoughts on the play: Lovely words. Interesting. Most of violence, massacre, etc off stage but some happens on - Sebastian kills a mutineer, and he is killed. Sexual slavery. Shakesperean in an early Shakespeare way. The review of the text in the SMH play review was fair and accurate. Sebastian is an interesting character. The women are mostly sex slaves. There is plenty going on.

Background

Written for radio in 1947. Published that year. Review is here.

Produced at the Metropolitan Theatre at St Laurence Hall, Sydney in September 1949. Review is here and here.

Then at the Little Theatre, Melbourne, 1951 . See here, here and here. The age called it "the most successful and ambitious essay in drama by an Australian".

And by the Canberra Repertory Society at the Riverside Theatre, June 1960. See here.

Produced professionally by the Elizabethan Theatre Trust, Union Theatre, Sydney, 1962. Directed by Henri Safran. .Article about that is here.

Paul O'Loughlin wrote "we have known of this play for many years and have never considered it worthy of presentation on either radio or TV. A viewing of last night's performance at the Union Theatre did nothing to change this opinion of the play. The ABC would be ill advised to touch it in its current form."

Reception

The SMH called it "an interesting play, verbally distinguished if unsatisfactorily dramatically, hopelessly soiled by a poor production." A longer review said it "provides enough incident and action to satisfy anybody" and "Stewart offers the sort of distinction in the dialogue to be expected from a poet of his gifts." He liked the characters of Sebastian and the butler. "Henri Safran's production, much too slow and deliberate, seemed to be designed at times to emphasise the faults of plays and obscure its virtues."

NAA

Douglas Stewart by Clem Semmler

SMH 16 July 1962

Leslie Rees, Towards an Oz Drama

Philip Albright and The Break (27 Feb 1962)

Phil Albright was an American who wrote for Australian TV in the late 1950s.

Career bio

*Dec 1949 appeared in Pirates at the Barn for Minerva

*1950 - in the cast of Dream Girl - review here - at Minerva

*June 1950 - Hobart article that he was company manager for Banvard Productions here

*July 1950 in Ah Wilderness for Minerva here

*Oct 1950 in Essie Lady Buckering for Minerva - here

*Oct 1951 he and David Netheim co wrote Hold High the Lamp see here

*April 1952 wrote radio drama Joe the Magnificent see here

*1952 appears in Radio play The Semblance of Death see here and wrote serial Jones Junior see here

*June 1954 wrote serires The Untold Story see here

*Jan 1958 wrote The Fiends see here
* adapted Sorry Wrong Number (18 June 1958) Lady in Danger (9 Sept 1959) The Skin of Our Teeth (25 Feb 1959)

*July 1959 - died

*Dinner with the Family (26 Aug 1959)

* Oct 1959 his play The Bust won equal second prize in Little Theatre Guild competition (first prize went to Burst of Summer) -see here

*Feb 27, 1962 - The Break appears at the Union Theatre, part of a trio of Australian plays presented by the Elizabethan Theatre Trust (along with Shipwreck)

Also wrote a play Tread Softly Or The Bust : A Play In Three Acts

The Break

Premise: A woman alcoholic lost her husband years ago. He returns to Australia determined to take their teenage son back with him.

Cast: Allan Trevor (Raoul), Terri Aldred (Laura), Grant Taylor (Tom), Dennis Carroll (Terry), Bruce Myles, Judith Arthy, . Directed by John Trasker.

Copy of script in Gordon Glenwright papers at State Library NSW see here

1949 article here

Philip Albright is a young New York newspaperman who has been living in Sydney for three months. He says: “Australia is definitely a man’s country. Look at the prevalence of all - male clubs. Notice how few men drink with their women- folk in Aus- tralian hotel lounges. Amer i c a n women demand more attention from their men than your women and they get it simply by raising hell if there’s slackness. “Australian husbands continue to see as much of their men friends after they are married as before. In America marriage alters all that because you rarely go out without your wife. She’d lift the roof if you stopped in for a few drinks on the way home the way Australians do.”

The play won third prize in the JC Williamson Little Theatre Competition of 1959 - won by Burst of Summer see here.

Play Synopsis

It takes place over one evening and the following morning at the Potts Point flat of Laura Masters. Laura is preparing the flat for the arrival of Raoul, her ex-husband and father of their 17 year old child, Terry. Raoul has been away for nine years, working in Europe. The marriage broke up because of Laura's drinking. Laura has a friend, Tom, a doctor who wants to marry her. Her neighbour Sybil goes to AA meetings with Laura, is married to Ed Collins, and has a son, Peter, who is friends with Terry.

Raoul arrives. He announces he has broken up with his second wife, Marilyn and would like to reconcile with Laura. He also wants to take Terry away on a trip. Terry is reluctant to leave his mother and talks a lot about his friend Peter.

Raoul asks Tom if Peter is "queer" and worries about Terry being raised by Laura "boys being raised by their mothers". Peter has arranged a date with a girl, Gloria, and wants Terry to date the friend. Peter alludes to Terry having never done anything with a girl but Terry wants to stay to be with his father.

Raoul and Laura discuss the past. It is implied they had an unsatisfactory sex life - Laura only liked it when drunk, and there is an allusion to Raoul having raped her. Raoul and Terry have a chat then Raoul heads out and Terry prepares to meet the girls.

Gloria turns up with her friend Bet. Peter wants to take Gloria to his family's shack at Narrabeen. He wants Terry to go with Bet but Terry is reluctant to leave his parents alone together. Gloria is attracted to Peter but when she asks why he doesn't get around with girls much he gets defensive. Gloria tells Terry about a boy Ollie who asked another boy down to "Palmer street" but the boy begged off because he was "spending time" with another boy. Terry knows Ollie was talking about them.

Laura refuses to let Raoul take Terry overseas, suggesting Raoul moves to Australia. He turns nasty, saying Tom is going to marry another girl, and that Tom suggested Terry and Peter are involved (both lies) due to a lack of masculine involvement in Terry's life. "Terry is a borderline case". They find a note from Terry saying he's gone to spend the night with Peter. Laura is tempted to have a drink and recites the AA prayer then calls Sybil for help. Raoul says he saw Peter with Terry and Laura starts drinking.

Terry and Peter come back having had sex with the girls to find Laura drunk. Terry thinks it's because his mother knows that he was with a girl, unaware it's because she thinks he's gay. Raoul suggests Terry go overseas with him. Peter suggests Terry go with his father. Tom arrives. Laura says Raoul told her Tom was engaged to someone else and Raoul denies it. Eventually Raoul's lies are exposed and Tom punches him. Terry tells his father to leave. Tom and Laura are united.

Thoughts on the play: long. Needed an edit. Full of drama. No one is gay. That's a cop out. Though maybe it implies that Peter is.

Reception

From 1962 review of The Break in The Bulletin - see here

Philip Albright’s “The Break” which finished the Elizabethan Theatre Trust’s season of three Australian plays at the Union Theatre was an appalling event. An earnest stupid play which piled in- credible situations on to even more unbelievable people, a setting which suggests a flat laid out on nightmarish lines, trite production filled with appropriate cliches of movement and gesture —even to the villain tapping an envelope significantly on his fingers—combined to provide one of the worst nights in recent theatre. How the Trust came to choose such a turkey as this —1 am informed that the play won second place in a recent major competition, which casts grave doubts on the judges ahead of many other local plays is just one more of those enticing mysteries that the Trust has been producing lately. Fine actors in Alan Trevor and Grant Taylor were quite wasted in this trash. KEVON KEMP

The SMH called it a "worthless piece of sensation mongering given an occasional sense of something better by John Tasker's direction of it... a talented company sets to work on a play about alcoholism which is also an illbred thriller. This is an unfortunate combination." The critic said Trevor "gives an admirably hateful performance" and that Taylor gives "another excellent performance of an impossibly one dimensional part."

Paul O'Loughlin said "the homosexual theme which runs through the play would make it unsuitable for ABC use."

Clement Semmler called it "a rather unsavoury play (for our purposes) which deals with homosexuality and alcoholism."