A dream job for actors

USQ Alumni actors, (l-r) Christopher Hunter, Emily Curtin, Matthew A Walsh and (front) Kate Murphy return to appear as the lovers in A Midsummer Night’s Dream

USQ’s Shakespeare in the Park Festival is not only a much-anticipated event on the south east Queensland cultural calendar, but also a valuable learning experience for emerging theatre professionals.

For the past eight years, the Festival has provided USQ students with an important platform from which to launch their careers.

Who could forget Lauren O’Rourke as Lady Macbeth (2007), Christopher Hunter and Kate Murphy as Romeo and Juliet (2008), Matthew Walsh and Hannah Ellis in The Tempest (2009) or Emily Curtin as one of the Twelfth Night twins (2010)?

With performance such as these, it is no surprise that these young actors have gone-on to established solid, and in many cases, award-winning careers.

This year, in a new initiative, the Shakespeare Festival has invited seven Alumni actors to join the cast of the 2011 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

The quintessential ‘park’ play, A Midsummer Night's Dream will be retold on the Festival’s spectacular open-air stage in Toowoomba’s Queen’s Park.

Shakespeare’s beloved comedy will feature Sasha Janowicz as Oberon and Lauren O’Rourke as Titania.

A graduate of the class of 2002, Sasha has three Matilda Awards and a prestigious Helpmann Award nomination (2010) and brings with him a decade of industry experience.

Matthew Walsh, who has spent the last twelve months working in Berlin with the White Horse Theatre Company, recently returned from Germany to begin rehearsing his role as Lysander.

Audiences are sure to remember him for his lead role in the 2009 Shakespeare Festival season of The Tempest.

Director, Scott Alderdice explains that, 'by including our graduate actors in the cast, we hope to introduce a new dimension of professional practice to the festival.

'These alumni represent some of the very best theatre professionals drawn from across the past nine years of the USQ Acting Program.

'The combined talent of the seven Alumni actors is remarkable; many were favourites during their time on-stage at USQ and they have all worked incredibly hard to carve-out niches in the theatre and film industry.

'These actors will also provide invaluable mentoring to our final-year acting troupe who will appear alongside them in the production.

'This furthers our commitment to enabling emerging arts practice from among our Alumni, and in return, creates a model for the future wherein the next generation of Queensland’s leading artists will be engaged with our Festival, with our university and with our region.'

A Midsummer Night’s Dream will be performed nightly at 6.30pm from 7-9 and 13-15 October.

Gates open at 5.30pm and audiences are encouraged to come early and enjoy a picnic dinner before the show.

The Festival site is licensed for BYO alcohol and there will also be a range of on-site vendors selling picnic meals, hot drinks and treats.

For further information about this year’s Festival, visit www.usq.edu.au/shakespeare

Contact Details:
Michelle Fox, Artsworx, 07 4631 1114