THE PLAY

Pictures of Bright Lights' is a new play by Sydney based playwright Maree Freeman and directed by her theatre partner Stephen Nicolazzo. 

Pictures of Bright Lights is a play that explores grief and growing up and what happens when a life becomes tragically stuck within its own despair. For Mother and Child, life spins on a perfect loop of birthday cakes, rose gardens and homework. But when a strange carnival appears in their front yard, and a Story Teller unearths the town’s dark secret, nothing will ever be the same again.

It's not just another day in this small mining town by the sea, but, somehow it is just like every other day.  Today is Daddy's birthday and the party preparations are going well. Child should be helping Mother get ready for tonight but instead she has a secret – a brightly coloured carnival has appeared behind the house and Child is discovering a story, buried deep under the earth, that no-one was ever meant to know.  

Pictures of Bright Lights is Little Ones Theatre’s debut production at the newly refurbished Bondi Pavilion Theatre. This wonderful and haunting story is delicately crafted with a big heart, and is coming to life in Sydney’s heart – Bondi Beach.

WE NEED YOUR HELP

Our funding goal is $3500. This support will contribute to two essential elements that will help create the production.  Firstly, with this donation we will be able to pay independent artists for their creative input, time and dedication.  It will also be a wonderful contribution to vital elements of our set and lighting design.  A strong visual aesthetic is vital to this project as we aspire to create a fully formed and beautiful production. Little Ones Theatre would be extremely grateful for any donation or help the community can provide and hope that even if you can't support financially, you'll be able to come along to the show and have a drink with us.

WHO WE ARE

Little Ones Theatre is a Melbourne and Sydney based theatre company dedicated to the development and production of new Australian works. The company is focused on playful storytelling and a heightened visual aesthetic that will get you out of your seat and into a fantastical stage world.

Little Ones Theatre attempt to realise fantasy in the flesh and spotlight the unknown through new Australian writing. We are interested in a non-judgmental theatre that serves up the seemingly strange inner-workings of our hearts in a light that is respectful and tender, celebratory and revelatory.

The work we intend to make is a hint, a seduction, where fantasies can take shape on stage and come to life with pleasure. It is about allowing ourselves as audiences and artists to celebrate the grey areas we all try to repress. We want to create work that allows you to love ferociously, abandon yourself, and let your heart explode.

Writer, Maree Freeman and Director Stephen Nicolazzo met while studying at NIDA and developed a close working relationship.  The partnership proved fruitful with the sudden acceptance of their show 'Pictures of Bright Lights' by the Tamarama Rock Surfers for inclusion in their all Australian works Season.

Stephen's background is focused on the development of new Australian writing, beginning Little Ones Theatre in 2006 with the help of emerging playwrights Declan Greene, Dan Giovannoni, Ricci Jane Adams and mentors Lally Katz and Chris Kohn.  Originally from Melbourne, Stephen has moved the company to the shores of Sydney to contribute further to a national 'new works' audience base.

Maree is a writer and director who hails from Newcastle, NSW.  She was Artistic Director of Synergy Cubed Productions from 2004 - 2007 where she wrote several successful theatre-for-education shows including 'LoudSpeakers' that toured to both metropolitan and rural NSW. 

She is passionate about creating characters with faults; characters that have sinned or rally against the hand they have been dealt.  It is with these characters – whose points of view are just as valid as the righteous – that we find the parts of ourselves we often wish to avoid; maybe the part of ourselves we should take a good look at.

Maree believes that theatre should be critical, immediate and urgent. It is passion that forces change and passion that creates vital theatre.  If we want to change an idea then we must be the voice that presents an alternative.  Theatre is the place for agitation, for making a statement, for standing up and saying ‘that’s not good enough and this is what I want to do about it’.

The work that Stephen and Maree are making takes elements of the magical, the tragic and the comic and blurs them together to create theatre with soul.

The Bondi Pavilion Theatre – Queen Elizabeth Drive, Bondi Beach

Previews:      

4th – 7th May 2011   

Dates:                          

4th May – 28th May 2011     

Tues-Sat, 8pm and Saturday matinee 2pm
Tickets:                      

$33 Full, $25 Concession,$21 Preview and Cheap (NO booking fee)

Bookings:                  

www.rocksurfers.org or 02 8019 0282  

Visit: www.littleonestheatre.com.au for more details about this beautiful little show.