SULIS are delighted to launch 4-FEST-2004, their new project commencing in the New Year. Through collaboration with Shakti at the Japan based Garage International, they have been invited to take their next production to 4 Major International Arts Festivals – Adelaide, Montreal, Avignon and Edinburgh. This will be a unique achievement - at 3 out of the 4 they will represent the UK and the 4th, Edinburgh, is the largest International Arts Festival in the World. It will make SULIS the first British Company to achieve this theatrical quartet.

4-FEST-2004 will be split into two blocks. Block one runs from January – March 2004 when Contacting Laura will rehearse and open at The Rondo Theatre, Bath and the MAC in Birmingham before transferring to Adelaide for a month in March with the second play, Smashed Eggs by Phil Porter. Block two starts in Montreal for a week in June followed by Avignon in July and Edinburgh in August.

SULIS are now in a position to move forward with Block one. We are taking two new plays for the tour, Contacting Laura by Steve Carley and Smashed Eggs by Phil Porter, winner of The Children’s Award UK 2003. Smashed Eggs will be an international collaboration, cast from UK and Australian performers and rehearsed in Adelaide.

the shows
- Contacting Laura
- Smashed Eggs

flyers/posters
- 'Contacting Laura' flyer.
- 'Smashed Eggs' flyer.

- About the company

present productions
Montreal 2004
The Human Juke Box

Click here to see the 'Contacting Laura' flyer.

Two years is a long time. For Alec Jackson it has been an eternity. That’s how long it has been since his marriage to Laura ended. And he still hasn’t come to terms with it. He still hasn’t moved on.

Returning to his now vacant home in the country in search of some kind of peace Alec is angry to discover someone rooting through his belongings. But his anger turns to astonishment when the intruder turns out to be Jill, an old friend of his ex-wife.

It is a meeting Alec will never forget. Because Jill has her own reasons for being there. Urgent reasons.

Steve Carley’s first play, The Edge, was performed at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, in 1997, and is published by Samuel French. A radio version was published in 1998. Contacting Laura was commissioned by the Stephen Joseph Theatre and enjoyed a nine week run in the summer of 1998. In February 1999, Steve’s third play, Penumbra, was presented at the Bristol Old Vic’s Basement Theatre, where Contacting Laura was revived the following year. He is currently working on a full-length play commissioned by the Stephen Joseph Theatre.

QUOTES

' We should be proud of this Bath Export' - Bath Chronicle 2004

' intelligent and skillfull direction' - Society Of Authors 2004

‘Sydonie and Biggs work together like a well-oiled machine' – DB magazine

‘beautifully understated' – DB magazine

‘Outstanding' - Adelaide Theatre Guide

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Click here to see the 'Smashed Eggs' flyer.

Phil Porter won The Children’s Award 2003 for Smashed eggs. The Children’s Award is made for excellence, inspiration and innovation in children’s theatre writing.
Presenting the award Brendan Murray, one of the judges, said “Smashed Eggs is a hugely audacious, genuinely funny and vastly imaginative play about something at the centre of any kid’s life: rules . . . It’s a winner in every sense of the word. Commissioned and first produced by Pentabus Theatre Company and supported by the Young People’s Theatre Initiative, an Art’s Council programme to encourage children’s theatre, Phil Porter calls Smashed Eggs “ a play for 8 – 11 year olds and their families”.

In a household painted, literally with thousands of rules, Titus lives with his mother Angela and orphan Miranda. Titus obeys every rule but Miranda wants answers – would their hands really turn into claws if they had kippers for breakfast? Would she go egg- shaped if she broke an egg? Would their heart and brains really change place if they stand by the microwave? The only way to find out is to break the rukes and run away.

Smashed Eggs will be an international collaboration cast from UK and local Australian performers and rehearsed in Adelaide.

Phil Porter is currently writing plays for the Bush Theatre, London and Pentabus Theatre for whom he is writer is residence. He is also about to start a yearlong residency for the Royal National Theatre’s Studio. His play Stealing Sweets and Punching People, originally commissioned by The Royal National Theatre Studio has recently been performed at the Latchmere Theatre in London.

QUOTES

‘Simply Smashing!' – Adelaide Theatre Guide

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Peter Sowerbutts

Peter is directing Sulis’s Contacting Laura and Smashed Eggs in Adelaide following his production of A Friend of Dorothy for them at last year’s Edinburgh Festival. In England he has directed musicals, plays, pageants and Son et Lumières during his 30 year career as both professional actor and director. He has been artistic director of Firebird Productions with Open Air Productions, including classics by Oliver Goldsmith and Noel Coward. Peter directed a comedy company, Seriocomic, who tour Britain in character based sketch shows and has directed several famous musicals including The Boyfriend and Salad Days.

As an actor Peter has done it all! From creating the role of PC Norman in Supergran on television tom sharing the stage with Dame Judy Dench in The Cherry Orchard and playing the leads in No sex please we’re British and The Mousetrap all in the West End to touring the UK with Birmingham Stage Company’s Georges Marvellous Medicine as the formidable Grandma.

Peter has recently directed Kissing Sid James for the Eye Theatre.

Roshni Savani

Roshni recently graduated from Rose Bruford College with a BA Honours in Stage Management. She has been freelance Stage Manager for the Bridewell theatre since 2002. Here her credits include Sondheim’s “There’s always a Woman” and “The Road You Didn’t Take!. She also worked on the British premiere of “Ballad of Little Jo”, also at the Bridewell. Her most recent work includes “The Snowman” at the Peacock Theatre.

Roshni has been a part of a British Asian theatre company for the past 10 years who have developed actors such as Meera Syal and Parminder Nagara, and has now become the resident Company Manager.

Anthony Biggs – Performer

A versatile actor, Anthony already a broad range to his name. His theatrical roles include Lennox in Macbeth at Ludlow, the Earl of Westmorland in Blood Royal at the King’s Head and gay cruiser Glenn in What’s Wrong with Angry at the Arts Theatre.

Anthony’s screen credits include the lead in British feature Soho Square and a modern angel in Second Thoughts, recently screened at the Cannes Film Festival.

Memorable TV roles include a doctor in ER trailers for C4 and Geoff Blakely in BBC’s Grange Hill.

Anthony’s recent performance as Leonard in Alan Ayckbourn’s Time and Time Again at Eye Theatre was described as both “sensitive and adept” and “side splittingly funny”.

Tamara Lee – Performer

Tamara graduated from the Centre for Performing Arts in Adelaide in 1998. Since then she has been working as an actress, singer and for a short time, a Stand Up Comedian. Before going to the CPA she spent some time in the UK and studied briefly at Fooltime Circus School in Bristol.

Tamara has thoroughly enjoyed acting in plays such as Road by Jim Cartwright, The Bruised Hearts Travelling Freak Show for the 2002 Adelaide Fringe, Antigone with the Bakehouse Theatre, the Ugly Man for the 2003 Feast Festival and the One Peron play Annie for the 1999 Bakehouse Theatre Festival of One. She has also toured extensively with Splash Theatre Company in Stage Fright That's Disgusting and Faster, Higher, Stronger.

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