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A comedy about living the dream.

True Love Travels on a Gravel Road by Jane Miller is a new award-winning Australian comedy-drama, set in country Victoria, about ordinary people going to extraordinary lengths in pursuit of a dream.

Recipient of The R E Ross Trust Playwrights’ Script Development Award 2011 – the selection panel described the work as “a very funny riff on choice and broken dreams.”

Jake has been patronised and pegged as the town “tard” all of his life but when he falls in love with Maggie anything seems possible. Making Maggie’s dream of escaping to Graceland becomes his quest, and a chance to win in a town that has labeled him a loser. Implicated in Jake’s plans of escape are the town’s locals including Maggie’s straight-talking mother, local hard man and philosopher Richard, Jake’s boss and his wife.

Featuring Chris Broadstock, Marnie Gibson, Emily Goddard, David Kambouris, Elizabeth McColl and Glenn van Oosterom.

Images by Michelle Odgers.

In the large gallery, Uproar features current works by artists who were original members of the ROAR Studios collective. ROAR Studios was an artist run space established in 1982 in Fitzroy. Now, more than 30 years later Uproar is a taste of what these artists are doing currently.

They have all continued to paint and exhibit – striking their own directions but coming together to collaborate in this exhibition. The ceramic artist Gordon Hickmott has produced beautiful large pieces for the group to decorate.

Featuring: Annie Howie, Pasquale Giardino, Tony Mighell, Danial Lalor Kogan, Richard Birmingham, Bruce Earles, Stephen McCarthy, Trevor Hoppen, Peter Ferguson,Andrew Ferguson, Mike Nicholls, Judi Singleton and Wayne Eager.

In the small gallery, Colourvision by Judi Singleton and Peter Ferguson will exhibit works on paper crossing the mediums of etching, silkscreen printing, and gouache.

These exhibitions are sponsored by Dalkeith Resources.

Image: Skyscraper by Trevor Hoppen, 2013,  gouache on paper, 300 x 200mm.

For three months fortyfivedownstairs will be hosting Greg Ades as its artist in residence. Positioned in a studio space at the back of the large gallery Greg will be working in the space on material for his upcoming exhibition from 16-27 July.

“Usually you work isolated in the studio with a rough plan of the final show, but when you put it up and look at it there arises new possibilities in the work. In a sense thoughts go through you regarding what could have been, however working next to the space I think will produce that otherwise might not happen ordinarily until the show is over,” says Greg.

Greg currently teaches at Latrobe College of Art and Design and is  involved with Port Melbourne Primary School as a teacher’s aid. Greg also works closely with, and was the Director of, Artists for Kids Culture; an organisation that seeks to provide arts and cultural opportunities to kids experiencing disadvantage in their lives due to factors including poverty, health or social issues or cultural dislocation.

Artist talks, discussions and studio visits available by prior arrangement via contact with our Gallery Manager.

Image: Two Mangroves by Greg Ades, 2012, oil on linen, 1070 x 910mm

Gallery hours don’t fit your lifestyle schedules? fortyfivedownstairs has a solution!

Get your culture fix and expand your social life at our Friday night extended hours.

a) Unwind after a busy week.

b) Enjoy a drink from the bar.

c) Ponder thought provoking exhibitions.

d) Descend one level further and take in a show.

e) Partake in all of the above!

All the world’s a stage… / one man in his time plays many parts / His acts being seven – William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II, Scene vii.

The Seven Ages of Joyce, a biographical play with music, ranges widely over Joyce’s fiction, and adds dollops of burlesque and lashings of his humane (and satiric) comedy. It gives a full account of his life from birth to death and draws from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, and Finnegans Wake. It will appeal to Joyce novices and aficionados alike.

As well as the performance, Bloomsday in Melbourne will be holding a seminar, The Obstetrician and the Psychiatrist Examine Joyce’s Ulysses (with Dr James King and Dr Jo Beatson respectively) on 16  June at 3.30pm. In addition, there will be  free readings on 12 & 13 June at 1.00pm. Join the Bloomsday players in the gallery at fortyfivedownstairs for expert readings of Joyce, to hone your ears for Bloomsday. Bloomsday 2013: Celebrating 20 years of Bloomsdays in Melbourne.

Click here for the full 2013 Bloomsday Festival.

Images by Mairéid Sullivan.

Now in its fourth year, the AMES and Multicultural Arts Victoria Heartlands Refugee Art Prize celebrates the skills, talents and creativity that refugees bring to Australia and the social and cultural contributions they provide to our community.

Paintings, drawings, photography and mixed media works by refugee artists who have arrived in Australia since 1970, are now being sought for this year’s prize. Artists are encouraged to consider and share what they would like to see in the world and submit entries that reflect the theme ‘I wish to see…’ A total prize pool of over $20,000 will be shared by three primary prize-winners, a new arrival prize and an artist in residence prize. First prize is $12,000 plus a solo exhibition. Entries close 10 May 2013. Shortlisted entries will be showcased in an exhibition at fortyfivedownstairs.

The Heartlands Refugee Art Prize is presented by AMES and Multicultural Arts Victoria in partnership with Parks Victoria, VicHealth and the Victorian Multicultural Commission. The Prize is proudly supported by fortyfivedownstairs, STARTTS, Relationships Australia Victoria, City of Greater Dandenong, Walker Street Gallery, Arts Victoria and the Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria.

The Actual and Properly Truthful Account of the Emigration of Thomas Pender

History is forgetful.

Imagine… it’s the 19^th century. You are 126 days at sea in a sailing ship, crammed into communal cabins with 300 other passengers, hopeful for a better life in the colonies. What would you do to stay sane, and sober? Thomas Pender wrote a diary. VOYAGE adapts this diary to performance.

Like memory, a version of history is created newly in each retelling. However much the historian, or in our case the performance maker, attempts to stay close to the facts, she is always interpreting it with her own lens.

Director Tamara Searle leads an ensemble cast who, in addition to enacting the world of Pender’s diary, stage live the performer’s struggle with the instability of history. Events and characters are multiplied and overwritten with alternatives: ‘it didn’t happen like that, it was like this’. Censures, erasures, corrections and refinements are staged to ‘get it right’, to get the ‘actual and properly truthful’ version of history told.

Does it exist?

Image by Justin Batchelor.

White Parachute is a body of work by Lisa Sewards, capturing a childhood memory of her mother’s experience in wartime Russia.  It reveals the human impulse to create order and beauty in the face of displacement and the chaos of war.

As a young child Lisa’s mother lived in a displaced persons camp in Northern Germany and recalls the time when she and her own mother found an abandoned white silk parachute in the neighbouring woods. From this parachute they made clothing and little white silk ribbons for her mother’s hair; her symbols of comfort and hope.

This beautiful story will be told through works on paper, paintings and an installation of a rare WWII white silk parachute canopy which breathes soul and history into this exhibition.

Exhibition to be opened by Sarah Tomasetti, artist and arts educator, on Tuesday July 2 from 5-7pm.

Artist talk & Russian High Tea will be held on Saturday July 13, 2pm.

Image: What Have We Lost ?, 2012, linocut, monoprint, archival digital print on 300gsm  BFK  Rives cotton rag paper, unique state, 500 x 700mm; Untitled (nineteenfortyfive), 2012, monoprint, embossing, archival digital print on 300gsm BFK  Rives cotton rag paper, unique state, 500 x 700mm.

Narelle’s exhibition Living China,  provided solitude and escapism to its creator, as she documented a concatenation of memories of East meets West and her physical and spiritual displacement of residing in an Asian destination.  The autobiographical photographic self-portraits are personalized narratives and the content indulges in dualities of triumphs and tribulations.

Narelle made the transition from remote Far North Queensland to Hong Kong, dislocating her from the securities of her birth place Melbourne, Australia and immersed her in the rich diversity of Hong Kong Chinese cultures and traditions. The displacement rendered her both physically and spiritually into a state of isolation, insecurity, vulnerability and alertness as she adhered desperately to her Australian Heritage. However, after time Narelle grew personal tolerance and acceptance as she acknowledged and adapted to her innovation existence in Hong Kong.

Image: Living China, 2012, photograph, 508 x 762mm; River Crossing, 2012, photograph, 508 x 762mm.

From writer/director Dean Bryant direct from the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, Jersey Boys star Michael Griffiths IS Annie Lennox. No accent, costume or wig. Lyrics plumbed for new meaning, melodies reinterpreted, all peppered with candid musings and remembrances from the moody songstress herself.

From the gender bending early days as one half of 80′s sensation Eurythmics through to her stunning solo career, her bittersweet lyrics share the confessions of her triumphs and her heartbreak. Featuring unforgettable songs like Why, Love is a Stranger, Walking On Broken Glass and There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart).

Image by Chris Parker.

Melbourne’s very own Diva extraordinaire – the feather ruffler, the rabble rouser, the cabaret provocateur Yana Alana, takes to the stage with her first solo show (with two people in it).

Between the Cracks traverses the private places and deepest holes of this multi- award winning diva as she opens up and bares all in this bent night of blues, burlesque and blame.

Directed by Anni Davey, performed by Sarah Ward & Louise Goh.

‘Whether you’re a long-term fan, or have never seen her perform, you’ll never regret seeing Yana Alana, up-close and rather personal. She is a pure force of nature (a blue one, of course), full of wit, a delightful lack of self-dignity, and laugh-out-loud moments’ – Aussie Theatre review, February 2013.

Warning: nudity

Image by Peter Leslie .

Finucane & Smith return from storming Australia, London, Sweden and Paris with their wild winter institution, The Glory Box, and this time we plunge you into Paradise. Seductive spectacle, live art exotica and jaw-dropping cabaret.

Empress of Provocative Variety MOIRA FINUCANE, Goddess of Dark Butoh dementia YUMI UMIUMARE; Parisian dance siren HOLLY DURANT.

WITH GORGEOUS GUEST STARS! Exclusive and live from London! Cult cabaret diva, infamous red hanky stripper URSULA MARTINEZ and wild child of new-circus JESS LOVE! What a PARADISE of dangerous dames!

This is one Glory Box you cannot miss!
5 weeks only! Hurry!

The catwalk tables are ALWAYS the first to go! And this year, for the first time, we introduce The Glory Box Seats! Front and centre, champagne, special treats, lavish attentions, what better way to spoil someone you love! stay tuned!

SPREADING THE JOY
We here at Finucane & Smith believe in spreading the joy, we believe in people’s rights to a safe home, an education, to equal rights. And because of all of that 88c of your ticket will go to Amnesty International who work for basic human rights all around the world, to support the right to joy.

GROUP BOOKINGS
We offer a 10% discount for groups of 6 or above valid on Catwalk and General Tables for all performances including preview.

Click here for ticket type and seating information.

View Glory Box: Paradise media release here.

Image: Moira Finucane, Finucane & Smith’s Glory Box courtesy of Jodie Hutchinson with Elissa Northrop and Rebecca Hayes.

For his first exhibition at fortyfivedownstairs, Stephen Williams continues his exploration of the tree’s role in contemporary art. In a series of multi-panel paintings, trees float in a shifting white space. Evocation and mystery have taken precedence over traditional depiction of landscape elements such as ground and sky.

Stephen’s paintings reference Japanese screens while exploring minimalist responses to flatness and space, form and restrained use of colour. Linkages to abstraction, monochromes, eastern and western artistic traditions are apparent.

These works also explore the symbolic potency and responsive properties of white. Stephen says, in The Sum of All Things, “for me white is an embracing unifying concept linking the masculine and the feminine, energy and stillness, the physical and the metaphysical.”

Image: White #2 (detail), 2012, acrylic on canvas, 1220 x 3960mm

Paul Newcombe’s upcoming exhibition is a culmination of his artistic ‘double life’, working in both visual arts and performance theatre in his early career. The exhibition is a continuation of Newcombe’s most recent exhibition at Melbourne’s G3 Artspace, Compositions In Paint (27 March – 23^rd April).

These works are as various in colour as the colour spectrum itself. This is no parameter set by the artist and no predetermined end to the painting. Nor is there an apparent ‘subject’ of these paintings, no obvious figure or horizon line, but colour and mass played optically against  the circle and square.

Of  Newcombe’s latest work, independent art curator Kirsten Rann, says: “In Compositions in Paint: This is the End, we witness the finale of two years of discipline and endurance Newcombe has committed to this project – part of an ongoing experiment with Process Art.”

Watch a video showing the performance of Newcombe painting his largest work over 8 weeks.

Image: Carnivale, 2012, acrylic on Canvas, 100cm x 100cm; Vapour, 2012,  acrylic on Canvas, 170cm x 170cm

The dark side of mateship

Multi award-winning playwright Patricia Cornelius has created a dynamic new Australian play – Savages – which takes a tough look at masculinity and misogyny amongst a pack of ordinary young men.

Premiering at fortyfivedownstairs, Savages is a cautionary tale about a group of men who don’t really know themselves or what they can become.

Four friends embark on the holiday of a life time – but their excitement is soured by anger, bitterness and the disappointment of their own lives … as the pack forms, the dark side of mateship takes over.

With Savages, Patricia Cornelius frankly confronts the realities and nuances of contemporary life with engaging characters and poetic text.

Directed by Susie Dee and featuring Mark Tregonning, Lyall Brooks, James O’Connell and Luke Elliot, the premiere of Savages is produced by leading Melbourne independent arts organisation fortyfivedownstairs and presented in its unique basement theatre.

“tonight’s the night – got to be tonight … the first night – sets the tone for the other nights”

View our in-house production page for more details.

All images by Sarah Walker.

CURRENTLY POSTPONED

Highly acclaimed Streeton Trio return for their second performance at fortyfivedownstairs in 2013. Formed in 2008 in Geneva, Switzerland, from three of Australia’s leading young musicians, the Streeton Trio is the first Australian ensemble to be selected for the prestigious European Chamber Music Academy, where it has been in residence since 2010. The trio’s second album, “Elation” (2012), was featured as CD of the Week on ABC FM, 3MBS, 2MBS, Radio National and SBS Radio and received great acclaim from Limelight magazine; (June 2012)

“Australia’s most internationally successful trio makes a welcome return to Melbourne for this rewarding program.  Intensive European studies have given the Streeton Trio the rare sheen of true excellence – complemented by their warm and expressive onstage charisma,” – Musica Viva Australia 2013

Program:
W A Mozart: Piano Trio in E major, K.542
Elena Kats-Chernin: Calliope Dreaming
Elena Kats-Chernin: Russian Rag
P Tchaikovsky: Piano Trio in A minor, Op.50