It was Steve on Broadway who first reported about an item regarding a 2010 run of Steppenwolf’s production of Tracy Letts’ August: Osage County in Sydney, Australia. I had the news corroborated by a Steppenwolf member only a couple weeks later. However, there was no official announcement from the theatre company until today.
The production, with its superlative direction by Anna D. Shapiro and that miraculous set by Todd Rosenthal, will be setting up house at the Sydney Theatre Company for a month-long engagement from August 13-September 12. Official casting has yet to be announced but the press release mentions that original company members from Chicago and Broadway would be trekking Down Under. Much praise is due to Artistic Directors Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton for importing the production, as well as for exporting their own productions (the STC production of A Streetcar Named Desire, starring Blanchett and directed by Liv Ullmann, will play BAM this fall).
This doesn’t mark the first production of the Tony and Pulitzer prize winning masterpiece in Australia. This past summer, there was a highly acclaimed production with original staging at the Melbourne Theatre Company this past May directed by Simon Philips and starring Robyn Nevin as Violet Weston. The production received expected raves and proved such a success that it extended its limited engagement.
So far tickets are only available as part of the 2010 season ticket, but information on availability and pricing can be found on the STC website. But if you’re in Sydney this fall, Cate is appearing in Streetcar until October 17 and God of Carnage starts performances October 3.
Now here’s the big question: anybody up for a field trip to Sydney next summer…?