Each exhibitor creates their work using a common yet versatile medium – paper. Continuously intriguing, the medium is flexible yet strong and utilised in myriad ways by artists all over the world. Animated, crushed, folded, torn, twisted, cut, punctured, burnt and stitched.

Image: Function by GRAHAM HAY Craft Journals and other documents 11 x 25 x 25cm Photo courtesy of Victor France

Weaving together elements of text, image and sound A Little Room is a startling visual and aural performance piece. Writer-animateur Michelle St. Anne has created a work of heightened detail that will transport you between the ephemeral world of memory, and the not so present.

A Little Room takes you into the lives of three women at different stages; sharing the joys and agony of new found love… and of love lost. Caught in a web of their own making, they wait for the spell to break. These are their stories.  Stories about the struggle to cope, about temporary instability, and how memory is instrumental in finding comfort.

From the company that brought you Man 40 seeks Woman with Good Legs and Billie, a girl a swing and underpants returns to Melbourne with A  Little Room which enjoyed  a highly successful debut in 2011 at CarriageWorks Sydney; running this March at fortyfivedownstairs for two weeks only.

Performed by Susan Miller, Kate Gorman, Michelle St Anne, Gabrielle Quin.

Created by Michelle St Anne, Designed by Joel West, Lighting by Michelle St. Anne and Jared Lewis, Film and Sound by Jared Lewis, Music by Alister Spence Trio (with permission).

We can’t quite believe it ourselves, but it’s true! Our first production at 45 Flinders Lane, which opened on January 29th 2002, was Sailing on a Sea of Tears – and now, hundreds of exhibitions and performances later, we’re still going strong…

We’re celebrating ten great years on 25 February with a performance party that will include many of the early musical performers here, featuring Fiona Roake, Faye Bendrups & Guillermo Anad (tango piano & violin) Michael Dalley (Urban Display Suite) Benn Bennett (Black Bag Comedy Festival) singer Henry Manetta, the inimitable Moira Finucane, star of Gotharama, The Burlesque Hour, Carnival of Mysteries…and more to be announced!

It’s going to be a night of revelry and we’d love to see you there. Tickets include a welcome drink on arrival and profits from ticket sales go to our sparkling performers.

No directorial tricks.
No flashy concepts.
No bloody mobile phones.

Just Shakespeare.

Recently returned from the southern hemisphere’s only recreated Elizabethan theatre – The New Fortune in Perth, Western Australia – Nothing but Roaring’s production of Shakespeare’s historical masterpiece imaginatively recreates the world of Shakespeare through the power of his words and using the conventions of his theatre.

Starring Tom Considine (MTC, STC, Playbox, State Theatre of SA) as the irrepressible rogue Falstaff and a cast boasting a hundred year’s combined theatrical experience, Nothing But Roaring present Henry IV, Part I in “original practices” – all-male, period costume, audience-included – Shakespeare.

Written by William Shakepseare.
Adapted and Directed by Rob Conkie, Designed by Romanie Harper, Stage Management by Harriet Gregory, Production Management by Remi D’Agostin.
Featuring Tom Considine, Bob Pavlich, Chris White, George Lingard, Rob Conkie.

This production forms a unique Shakespearean double-bill with The Zoey Louise Moonbeam Dawson Shakespeare Company’s all-female production of Romeo and Juliet. These exciting productions pair to reveal Shakespeare’s “infinite variety” to a modern audience.

Juliet Capulet is 13. And she is getting older every day…

The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet is an all-female, psychological examination of one of literatures most famous – and youngest – heroines. Featuring a cast of six young women – one of whom plays Juliet and five of whom play Romeo – it re-imagines Shakespeare’s iconic love story within the erotically-charged world of teenage girls.

Dangerously contemporary and morally provocative, Zoey Dawson’s groundbreaking production tackles Romeo and Juliet’s underrepresented but volatile themes of violence, youth suicide and the sexualisation of children.

Written by William Shakespeare.
Adapted and Directed by Zoey Dawson, Designed by Zoe Rouse, Sound Design by Claudio Tocco, Stage Management by Harriet Gregory.
Featuring Carolyn Butler, Brigid Gallacher, Devon Lang Wilton, Laura Maitland, Naomi Rukavina and Nikki Shiels.

This production forms a unique Shakespearian double-bill with Nothing But Roaring’s all-male production of Henry IV, Part 1. These exciting productions pair to reveal Shakespeare’s “infinite variety” to a modern audience.

Set in a Melbourne of the near future, and in the wake of mass flooding, TWO BY TWO follows a couple and a sick woman who have been denied passage on the Ark. The play charts their final hours, as the trio fights over the one thing that could get them a ticket – a baby, found floating in the water.

Inspired by the Noah’s Ark story, TWO BY TWO deftly weaves the political and the personal, the domestic and the apocalyptic. With a bold design evoking a slowly flooding room, the play explores what it would be like to be left behind, and how it feels to be pushed to the margins of society.

TWO BY TWO is for anyone with a brain, a heart, and an umbrella.

Developed with support from the Malcolm Robertson Foundation.

Written by Dan Giovannoni, Directed by Stephen Nicolazzo, Designed by Emma Kingsbury, Lighting by Katie Sfetkidis, Dramaturgy by Amelia Evans, Artwork by Jake Preval.

Performed by Gary Abrahams, Paul Blenheim, Zahra Newman.

From Sara Pheasant, the director of last year’s fabulous Ladies Prefer Brunettes, it is presented in conjunction with the Women’s Circus. Not to be missed – Leggings Are Not Pants is circus gold!

A Premier Event of the 2012 Midsumma Festival.

Finucane & Smith, the purveyors of the seductive, subversive, and electrifying are back…and this time they’re opening Pandora’s Box! Get ready for the unleashing of the wild ones led by a jaw-dropping Moira/Medusa in the anarchic, archaic, erotic and unforgettable THE GLORY BOX!

All Time Favourites! Wild New Acts!

These legendary, genre-defying acts have set critics raving and 70,000 audience members around the world in raptures. Winner of 6 theatre awards, critically acclaimed in ten languages, this is a travelling emporium that fuses demi-monde nightclub with jaw-dropping cabaret, insolent and exotic live art and seductive spectacle.

‘Beginning as a one year project, my passion for the beauty of the country and the people saw it evolve into a 6 year odyssey…’

Join us this Saturday 4 February from 1:30pm for an artist talk with Kristin Diemer incorporating photographs and memorabilia from the McKenzie farm. The discussion will be followed by a special solo performance by musician and personal friend of the artist, Helen Davey. While away your Saturday afternoon at fortyfivedownstairs, we would love to see you there.

Image: Final Barley Harvest

Strike a pose, get into the groove and express yourself as Madonna opens her heart!  Written and directed by Dean Bryant [Prodigal, Liza (on an E), Britney Spears: The Cabaret].

The controversial smash hit of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, and a Premier Event of the 2012 Midsumma Festival.

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