Download 2016 Prize Program - Lysicrates Foundation

The Lysicrates Prize
Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney • 29 JANUARY 2016
Message
Senator the Hon. Mitch Fifield
FEDERAL MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS
AND MINISTER FOR THE ARTS
As Minister for the Arts I am pleased to acknowledge the
significant support John and Patricia Azarias and the
Lysicrates Foundation provide to the promotion and
celebration of Australian creativity.
Now in its second year, the Foundation not only awards
the Lysicrates Prize for new Australian playwriting, but also
supports the artists and artisans restoring the monument in
Sydney’s Botanic Gardens to Lysicrates, a citizen of Ancient
Greece and one of the earliest private sponsors of the
performing arts.
Established in 2015 the Foundation has quickly secured
the support of the private sector, the New South Wales
Government and Australia’s theatrical community.
The Lysicrates Foundation encourages and rewards
excellence in the performing arts and the audience does
the rewarding by choosing the annual winner.
I commend The Lysicrates Foundation for its work
establishing a strong board; its commitment to securing
private sector support; its encouragement of creativity; and
its engagement with the artistic community through its
partnership with Griffin Theatre Company.
With a marked increase in entries this year, there is now a
definite buzz about the prize in the playwriting community.
Our writers and artists, as John and Patricia have said,
are the real treasures of our society, and I am delighted to
support this endeavour. Dionysos and Lysicrates would be
amazed at the artistic success that has been achieved, half
a world and almost 25 centuries away from the theatre at
the base of the Acropolis
January 2016
Background image: The youthful god Dionysos, drinking wine and stroking
a panther. Engraving based on the frieze of the choregic monument of
Lysicrates in Stuart and Revett’s Antiquities of Athens.
Program
4.00 WELCOME DRINKS
4.45 WELCOME SPEECHES
Kim Ellis, Executive Director, Sydney’s Parklands
and Botanic Gardens;
The Hon Mark Speakman NSW Minister for the
Environment, Minister for Heritage, and Assistant
Minister for Planning;
The Hon Anthony Roberts, NSW Minister for Industry,
Resources and Energy;
John Azarias, The Lysicrates Foundation
5.10 THE LYSICRATES PRIZE
Lee Lewis, Artistic Director, Griffin Theatre Company
5.20 SAINT THEO by Campion Decent
5.50 APPROXIMATE BALANCE by Mary Rachel Brown
6.20 THE GOOD WOLF by Elise Hearst
6.50 AUDIENCE VOTES
7.20 AWARDING OF 2016 LYSICRATES PRIZE
Senator The Hon Mitch Fifield, Federal Minister
for Communications and Minister for the Arts
MESSAGE OF APPRECIATION
His Excellency General The Honourable David Hurley
AC DSC (Ret’d), Governor of New South Wales
VOTE OF THANKS
Patricia Azarias, The Lysicrates Foundation
7.30 EVENT CONCLUDES
The Great Dionysia
The original Lysicrates Monument, made of marble, still stands in
Athens a short walk away from the huge Theatre of Dionysos, the
birthplace of tragedy and comedy, just under the Acropolis. For five
days each year, during the Festival of Dionysos, the famous assembly
and courts that were the engine of democracy and that met virtually
every other day would shut down, as 15,000 spectators filled the
Theatre. There they would hear and passionately argue about great,
innovative plays by poets like Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles and
Aristophanes, works that continue to be performed all around the
world today.
The Festival was not just about drama. It was an extraordinary
combination of religious worship, unparalleled literary creativity,
community formation, and critical self-reflection on society’s values
and the challenges that faced it. Democracy, philosophy and poetic
creativity came together here for the first time in history in a
celebratory event on a grand, public scale.
The Theatre of Dionysos is still there, but the original Lysicrates
Monument is the only one still surviving intact from a whole street of
such structures. Each one of them was built by the rich sponsor of the
troupe of singers in the play’s chorus who had been judged the best
that year, and in 334 B.C., that sponsor was the wealthy young
Lysicrates. In fact, in ancient Athens, it was the sponsor who won the
prize, not the actors or the author. The city spent on drama at least
5% of its entire annual military budget, and the prestige for the
sponsor who won the prize, in this city obsessed with drama, was
immense. The audience was highly participatory, expected to weigh
up the complex moral arguments presented to them in the nine new
tragedies performed every year, to laugh at the five new comedies,
and to assess the political advice the poets were offering. The
members of the audience made their views known to the panel
of citizen-judges they had selected, so in the end, the decision was,
in ancient Athens just as it is in modern Sydney, the People’s Choice.
Peter Wilson, William Ritchie Professor of Classics,
Department of Classics & Ancient History, The University of Sydney
Notes
JOHN AND
PATRICIA AZARIAS
THE LYSICRATES
FOUNDATION
In 2015, the inaugural Lysicrates Prize was awarded by
Premier Mike Baird on a magical evening of music, good
cheer and festivity in front of the Lysicrates Monument in
Sydney’s Botanic Gardens. The audience was gripped by the
three competing plays, vigorously discussed their merits and
cast their votes with seriousness and commitment. It is very
gratifying that in addition to the winning play receiving a full
commission from Griffin Theatre Company, a further finalist’s
play was selected for inclusion in Griffin’s 2016 Season.
Since then, the Lysicrates Foundation has been formally
established, with a distinguished Board of Directors, and
the Federal Government has granted it DGR status, allowing
contributions to be tax-deductible. A magnificent book,
The Lysicrates Prize 2015: The People’s Choice, has been
created and donated by the IVE Group, which has also
designed and set up the Lysicrates Foundation website,
www.lysicratesfoundation.org.au. As well, Sydney’s Lysicrates
Monument has undergone extensive, loving restoration by
the NSW Minister’s Stonework Program. We are amazed and
humbled at the readiness of so many people of good will –
private donors, state and federal governments, designers,
theatre directors, administrators and artists – to come together
to turn our original dream into such a wonderful reality.
LEE LEWIS
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
GRIFFIN THEATRE
COMPANY
Welcome to Australia’s most exciting new playwriting competition,
a prize that exceeded our expectations in 2015 and gave us the
rare opportunity to experience new works at their earliest stage
of development.
The inaugural winner, Steve Rodgers, has completed the first draft
of Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam and we have high hopes for the
future of the play. We are delighted that Justin Fleming’s The Literati,
a finalist in 2015, will appear on the Griffin stage later this year as a
co-production with Bell Shakespeare.
Today is about three new plays, each different in subject and style,
but each with its own essential humanity, humour and insight. We
love them all. Today, you’re the first audience these plays have ever
seen. When you vote, you’ll be making a decision that could lead to
a new production on one of Australia’s professional stages and you’ll
be putting that play in front of thousands more. Choose wisely.
We’re indebted to all of the writers who submitted work to The
Lysicrates Prize. The calibre of the entries received reflects the
extraordinary depth of talent in this country – something to be
celebrated and cherished. New writing speaks to who we are as
a society, what we value as a community and to our shared future.
I hope that you’re entertained, challenged and inspired by our
three finalists.
Playwrights & Plays
CAMPION DECENT
SAINT THEO
Director
Helen Dallimore
Actors
Paula Arundell
Simon Burke
Tamlyn Henderson
Rowan Witt
MARY RACHEL BROWN
APPROXIMATE
BALANCE
Director
Mitchell Butel
Actors
Linda Cropper
Lena Cruz
John Gaden
Richard Sydenham
ELISE HEARST
THE GOOD WOLF
Director
Ben Winspear
Actors
Natalie Gamsu
Deborah Kennedy
Michelle Lim
Hamish Michael
Campion’s work as a playwright includes Unholy Ghosts
which won the Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award (Griffin
Independent/White Box Theatre), and Embers which won
an AWGIE and the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award for
Drama Script (Sydney Theatre Company). He has worked
in the arts in a variety of roles, including Artistic Director of
HotHouse Theatre, Literary Manager at STC, Artistic Director
of Next Wave Festival, and Festival Director for SGLMG.
Mary was a member of the 2014 Griffin Studio. Her play The Dapto
Chaser was presented in Griffin’s 2015 Independent season and is
opening Hothouse Theatre’s 2016 season. Mary recently had her
new play Silent Night developed at PWA’s 2015 National Script
Workshop. She is the recipient of the 2006 Griffin Award, 2007 Max
Afford Award, and 2008 Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award. Her
play Last Letters is currently on at The Australian War Memorial.
Mary’s work has been given showcased public readings by the
National Playwriting Festival (Australia) and the English Speaking
Theatre (Berlin). In 2009 Mary’s play Permission To Spin was selected
from an international field for the hotINK play festival in New York.
Between 2006 and 2008 Elise lived in London, attending the
Royal Court Theatre’s Young Writers’ Programme. Readings and
performances of her work were shown at Trafalgar Studios, The
Soho Theatre, The Hampstead Theatre and Theatre503. Recent
Australian credits include The Mesh (Red Stitch and Arthur),
The Reckoning (Fairly Lucid Productions), The Sea Project (Griffin
Theatre Company and Arthur, Mudlark Theatre and Arthur, MTC
Cybec Readings), Dirtyland (National Play Festival, New Theatre
and Arthur), and She’s a Little Finch (MKA). Elise also held a 2010
residency with Griffin. Upcoming projects in 2016 include Bright
World (Theatre Works and Arthur) and From Here to Maternity.
James Martin
Sydney’s own choregic monument of Lysicrates, now in the
Royal Botanic Gardens at Farm Cove, was the brainchild of
litterateur, journalist, solicitor, QC, Attorney-General, three
times Premier, and Chief Justice of New South Wales, (Sir)
James Martin (1820–1886), in whose honour ‘Martin Place’
in Sydney is named.
Born in County Cork, Ireland, the son of a horse groom, Martin
settled with his family in Parramatta after arriving in Australia
in 1821 aged only eighteen months. His love of Classical
culture was fostered at a young age at Cape’s School on the
corner of Phillip and King Streets, and at Sydney College (now
Sydney Grammar School), where he distinguished himself
academically, not least of all in the Classical languages. He
was a published author by the age of eighteen, writing a book
of essays on various aspects of Australian life, The Australian
Sketch Book, in 1838.
As a politician Martin was a leading figure in the push to
establish Australia’s first mint. In 1866 as Premier, in coalition
with (Sir) Henry Parkes, he not only supported improved
social conditions through the Act for the Relief of Destitute
Children, but also the Public Schools Act of that year, creating
schools in remote areas and giving greater authority to the
new Council of Education over denominational schools. After marrying Isabella Long, the daughter of William Long,
a wealthy wine and spirits merchant (and former convict),
Martin settled at Clarens in Potts Point in 1853 where he began
an ambitious and costly project to create a magnificent,
classically inspired multi-tiered garden, one which the English
writer Anthony Trollope later romantically described as ‘falling
down to the sea … like fairyland’.
Martin’s project to recreate the choregic monument of
Lysicrates in this garden, where it stood proudly above the
harbour, marked a convergence of several personal interests:
a fondness for Classical culture, an affection for the poetry
of Lord Byron (his favourite poet), and a deep love of travel
literature (although, unfortunately, he never travelled abroad).
Byron, during his Grand Tour of 1809–1811, famously lodged
at the Capuchin monastery in Athens which incorporated
the original monument of Lysicrates. Its hollow interior had
been converted into a small library where Byron would read
and write, and was even rumoured to have slept. Martin’s
imagination was no doubt captivated by such accounts, as
well as by other travel literature that mentioned this peculiar
and elegant relic from antiquity.
One work in particular, The Antiquities of Athens by James
Stuart and Nicholas Revett, first published in 1762, contained
detailed measured engravings of the monument which
eventually became the blueprint for Martin’s replica. For this
task Martin hired the skilful Scottish-born stonemason Walter
McGill to recreate it in Pyrmont yellowblock sandstone, with
the work completed around July/August of 1868. Andrew Hartwig, Honorary Associate,
Department of Classics & Ancient History,
The University of Sydney
Partners
PRONOUNCING “LYSICRATES”
[Ly-SIC-ra-teez]
THE LYSICRATES FOUNDATION
The aims of the Lysicrates Foundation are to encourage and
promote Australian creativity, particularly in playwriting; to
help restore the beautiful Lysicrates Monument in Sydney’s
Royal Botanic Garden; and to foster an appreciation of both
Australian history and our living heritage from ancient Greece.
The Foundation has secured support from both government
and private donors from a wide range of communities, and
has sought to involve all sections of the community and all
age groups in its activities.
GRIFFIN THEATRE COMPANY
Griffin Theatre Company is Australia’s new writing theatre.
We develop and stage the best Australian stories, for the
widest possible audience.
For more than 35 years, the Griffin mission has been to bring
our audiences the highest standards of theatrical craft. We
also have a passion for developing Australian talent, with
many of our nation’s most celebrated artists starting their
professional careers with us.
Griffin produces an annual subscription season of four to
five Main Season shows by Australian playwrights, and
co-presents a season of new work with leading independent
artists. We also support artists through professional
development opportunities, including artist residencies and
masterclasses.
Our home is the historic SBW Stables Theatre, a thriving
cultural hub and Sydney’s most intimate and persuasive
space for actors and audiences to meet. We hope to see you
there soon.
THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN, SYDNEY
Established in 1816, the Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney will
celebrate its 200th birthday in 2016 – a time for the country
to reflect on its significant heritage value as Australia’s first
botanic garden, the site of the country’s first European Farm
and first scientific institution.
The Garden is a place for the enjoyment of aesthetic
pleasures both natural and created. In amongst the
1.2 million preserved plant specimens and 9,000 plants is a
collection of 57 sculptures including the historical Choragic
Monument of Lysicrates which will be restored for generations
to enjoy only with your support.
Considered Australia’s premier Botanic Garden, with its
3.5 million visitors each year it is amongst the most visited
in the world and a culturally important Sydney landmark,
hosting the Lysicrates Prize further consolidates this. Art
and plants are inexorably connected, they create ambience,
reflect history and of course expound beauty.
Music & Musicians
Didgeridoo
Matthew Doyle
Strathfield Girls High School
Conductor: Tracy Burjan
The students and their
instruments:
Violins
Charlotte Tam
Grace Liang
Fei Chen
Rachel Yeung
I Teng Tong
Georgina Mansfield
Kayla Apps
Catherine Prouzen
Viola
Jessica Ngan
Cellos
Angeleena John
Keshavi Jeyaseelan
Bridey Lea
The music performed:
Spring Vivaldi
Toccata Hans Scheepers
Rondeau Purcell
Here Comes the Sun
Brandenburg No 3 Bach
Pachelbel’s Canon
Latin Lullaby
Out of the Blue Trio
Panayiotis Kalandranis (guitar)
Dimitris Vouros (flute)
Antonis Kekatos (bouzouki)
Accompanist to Saint Theo
Elliott Wilshier
The choregoi (donors)
Emmanuel and Louise Alfieris
James Manly
Nick and Effie Andriotakis
Robert and Sandra McCuaig
Anonymous
Richard and Wee Khoon Mews
Bill and Una Calcraft
Damian Scott and Georgia Palmer
Fouad and Josiane Deiri
Keith and Fiona Skinner
Stephen Johns and Michelle Bender
Special thanks to those who have provided support for each
of our first two years
Abbas and Zohra Aly
Dave McCarthy and Cherie Hunter
John and Patricia Azarias
John and Kris Messara
Alex Ding and Vanessa Tay
Don and Leslie Parsonage
Paul and Ros Espie
Peter and Linda Ryan
Greg and Sandra Gav
The Selig Family
John and Cheryl Leotta
George and Ann Thomas
Alan Manly and Jenny McCarthy
Major choregoi
Minister’s Stonework Program
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The Theatre of Dionysos, on the
southern slope of the Acropolis of Athens,
the city’s ancient religious centre
The Lysicrates
Monument
To all scribblers, daubers and assorted eggheads
– a society’s real treasures.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
John Azarias, Patricia Azarias, Bob Carr, Michael Diamond, Sandra Gav,
Kathryn Greiner, Nat Joyce, Geoff Selig, Keith Skinner, Vanessa Tay, Carmel Tebbutt