Description
AUDREY HEPBURN AND I CONSIDER OUR ASSETS
SYNOPSIS
Audrey Hepburn and I Consider Our Assets is a musical about Liz O’Sullivan, a struggling thirties something suburban girl growing up in Melbourne in the late 1960’s and 70’s. Liz has been brought up by her adoring parents as if she’s the star in a Hollywood movie from the Golden Age. Surrounded by the voices in her head and inner turmoil, Liz cracks under the pressure of the endless chatter telling her who she is and what she should be. Her movie-mad parents, aunts and uncles, offering only visions of life that come straight from the silver screen. Lonely and scared, Liz jumps on board a merry-go-round of part-lovers trying to find a real man but instead finds Len, a simple man, who wants nothing more than marriage, children and a wife. What should she do? Is marriage really the answer? Maybe therapy will help her get away from all the responsibilities of her life? So with the help of Rod, her overbearing good looking therapist, Liz must drive out the voices and ‘do the seeing’.
Audrey Hepburn and I Consider Our Assets is a funny, lyrical and moving musical about family, the importance of idols, and the value we place on appearances. And, how sometimes delving beneath the surface can unearth an unexpected guardian angel.
Audrey Hepburn and I Consider Our Assets is a funny and probing exploration of one woman’s journey to selfhood and self-acceptance.
Reviews based on the original play
“Like Dorothy Hewitt’s ‘The Chapel Perilous,’ Audrey and I explores a broad canvas in a way that is not didactic but funny, accessible and very real”
– Sue Ingleton (actor/playwright/director)
“Gaylene’s work is so beautiful, so honest – and so brave.”
– Kerry Armstrong (acclaimed Australian actress)
“This play would make a great musical”
• Wolf Heidecker (award-winning director and producer)
“I loved this play – it’s very, very funny, very clever, and well-written. Entertaining, delightful”
• Linda Gibson (comedian)
Biography
GAYELENE CARBIS (Writer) is an award-winning playwright, poet, fiction and non-fiction writer whose work has been performed and produced in Australia and overseas, including Athens, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Ireland, Oxford and New York. After touring Regional Victoria in 2011, Gayelene's play This Is What Happened toured Asia in 2012, including George Town Festival in Penang. Gayelene is dramaturg/script consultant on the opera libretto Confined (by performer Tammy Brennan) which has had showings at the Arulean Theatre (Alice Springs), Legs on the Wall (Sydney); and will be performed in India in 2013. In 2012, Gaylene was awarded a scholarship for a five-week Residency at Banff in Canada and read her poetry in Canada and New York. In 2011, Gayelene was selected for the Librettists Workshop with Chamber Made Opera. Gayelene's plays include: Crossing The Bridge (La Mama), Women Men Nazis and Trucks (La Mama), Disconnected (Fitzroy Gallery, Edinburgh Festival), Ode To Death (La Mama), Going Out Tonight (Butterfly Club, Wesley Anne), and Cunversations (Theatreworks). Acclaimed actress Kerry Armstrong has expressed interest in performing Gayelene's work in a one-woman show. Gayelene is currently writing a new one-woman show for Clara Pagone. Gayelene's play for her Masters in Creative Writing (Melbourne University) achieved First Class Honours and she has now applied to do the VCA Masters in Writing for Performance in 2013.
NOEL ANDERSON (Co-Writer & Director) completed NIDA’s Playwright Studio 1996 and also trained at Stella Adler Studio (New York), The Gate Theatre (London), Independent Theatre (Sydney) and Brisbane Academy of Music. He has worked as an actor, director, writer throughout Australia, his written work includes: Germ Warfare, Circles and The Carer which played at Sydney’s Belvoir Street theatre. Noel's strictly adult play, Sammy & Dave, which he also directed, played to packed houses at the Stables Theatre (Sydney), and ran for 3 months. In 2001-2002, Noel’s children’s play Kylie Kastle Throws a Party was performed in hundreds of schools across the country by Troubadour Theatre Co. As director & dramaturg, Noel worked on Kingdom - an Australian musical based on the King Arthur Legend and also The Other Half, a TV pilot for Beyond Films. Noel assistant directed on the first ever Aboriginal sitcom produced on SBS TV called The Masters, and counts Sylvia Plath’s play Letter’s Home at Belvoir Street Theatre among his best directing work. In 2004 -2006, Noel worked on a feature film script, Adult Services and a new play, Moonshot, about the American Lunar landing. But, needing adventure, he packed up and moved to Melbourne where he directed Dark Angels with Pop Diva Katie Underwood (Bardot). In 2008, Noel’s short play "Pulling Out" won Midsumma’s Pink Shorts Festival and Noel's production The Water Sellers at Dante's was awarded Best Director by the Monash Theatre Festival. In 2013, Noel's written work was performed in the show Love Letters at the Melbourne Arts Centre and his play Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes of Fame played to full houses at La Mama, Courthouse. Other directing work includes: Oliver (The Gold Coast Performing Arts Centre), Friday Night in Town, A Fitzroy Romance, Blowing Whistles, Australia Dot Com (Melbourne Comedy Festival) and Especes Menacees (performed in French) for the Melbourne French Theatre Company. Festival credits include : The Sydney Gay Mardi Gras, The Sydney Olympic Arts Festival, The Sydney Film Festival, and The Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.
CERISE DE GELDER (Co-Writer) has had plays performed around Australia, in the USA, New Zealand, Canada, India, Malaysia, Dubai and the UK, on stage, film and radio. Since 2004 she has been a regular participant in Melbourne Writers’ Theatre seasons, Williamstown Little Theatre Play Six, Walking Into Bars productions, Baggage Productions Madwomen Monologues, the Adelaide Fringe Festival, Flinders University Drama Department productions, and Short and Sweet festivals around the world in both theatre and cabaret. Her plays have been performed by local theatre companies all around the country, and have won several national playwriting awards, including Noosa Arts Theatre One-Act Playwriting Competition (Man Of Snow), the Dogwood Playwright Initiative Radio Play Competition (Squeaking In Tums) and Kew Court House Arts Association National Playwriting Competition (Snap). In both 2007 and 2008 she was named Writer Of The Year at Walking Into Bars’ Crash Test Drama. Full-length productions have included A Narrow Time For Angels (two week season at The Storeroom), Searching For Comets and A Narrow Time For Angels, The Musical (Wishing Well Productions, Midsumma Festivals), The Umbrella Plays and Just Douglas (Accidental Productions, Adelaide Fringe Festivals), and a MWT season at La Mama First George and Then Sally and The Cherry Umbrella. Her next production is Beyond Sky There Be Dragons (Melbourne Fringe Festival) and she is currently collaborating on three new musicals.
GEOFF MAIN (Composer/Lyricist) - Geoff's writing career started in his mid 20’s when he wrote a one act musical for a Melbourne local theatre company. Shortly after he moved to Toronto, Canada where he became a radio producer/director for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) creating national and provincial programs. His most well known work was Radio Noon and Sunday AM. After more than two years with the CBC, Geoff joined the Victoria Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent, England as a stage manager. Here he worked with their resident playwright , Christopher Bond, who was currently acting in his play “Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.” Chris’s play was later adapted by Stephen Sondheim into the well known musical. In 2003, with Renn Barker, he created and developed the musical play “Face A New World”, writing the 17 songs in an integrated style. A CD was produced with arrangements by John Grant .
