THEATRE AND PLAYS
As the 21st century dawned, Ned Kelly was once again propelled onto the world stage thanks to hundreds of Sidney Nolan-inspired Kelly’s prancing around in the opening ceremony at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. This starkly contrasted with the last time Australia hosted the Olympics in 1956. Back then, Douglas Stewart’s play Ned Kelly was supposed to be included in the Melbourne Olympics list of events, but it was removed due to concerns over projecting the wrong image to the world.
![Douglas Stewart's Ned Kelly [1956]](https://www.folk2super.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Ned-Kelly-Douglas-Stewart-banner.jpg "Ned-Kelly-Douglas-Stewart-banner")
Ned: A New Australian Musical
Ned: A New Australian Musical uses an iconic Australian figure to lay bare the ugly beginnings of our nationhood. In rural Victoria in the late 1800s, it charts Ned Kelly’s transformation from a local hero into a cold-blooded criminal. When his mother is unjustly convicted of attempting to murder a policeman, Ned, his brother Dan, and their two friends Joe and Steve flee to the bush to avoid their arrest. They are soon outlawed and villainised as the feared ‘Kelly Gang’, eventually taking a final, fatal stand against the police.
By exposing the culture of crime, corruption and toxic masculinity upon which colonial Australia was built, ‘Ned’ makes us question just how much has changed in today’s society. It offers an apt reminder that social change will never be achieved through violence and arrogance and writes the female experience into a traditionally male-dominated period of our history. With a rich, haunting score and a libretto that captures the raucous humour, warmth and tragedy that audiences would expect of this iconic story, Ned: A New Australian Musical will receive its New South Wales premiere at the New Theatre in December 2018.
Quite simply the best entirely Australian musical ever.
Stage Whispers
Director/Choreographer: Miranda Middleton
Vocal Director/Assistant Director: Sarah Levins
Conductor: Hamish Stening
Repetiteur: Oliver Beard
Set Designer: Matt Hourigan
Lighting Designer: Peter Rubie
Sound Designer: Harrison Collins
Graphic Designer: Shakira Wilson
Costume Designer: Adrienne Dell
Stage Manager: Rachel Guest
Assistant Stage Manager: Jesse Aviu
Executive Producer: Hamish Stening
Opening: New Theatre
Date: 18 – 22 December 2018
Cast: Erin Bogart, Denzel Bruhn, Rowan Brunt, Siobhan Clifford, Sinead Cristaudo, Lincoln Elliott, Martin Everett, Jacqui Greenfield, Jodie Harris, Rob Hartley, David Hov, Josh McElroy, Courtney Powell, Marcus Rivera, Georgia Rodgers, Carmel Rodrigues, Cypriana Singh, Guy Webster
Ned Kelly, My Love
In 1926, Ettie Hart died in hospital, taking to her grave one of Australian history’s greatest untold love stories. Until now. Ned Kelly, My Love is a musical directed by Xavier Brouwer. It is the untold story of Ettie Hart. Recent historical research has uncovered strong evidence that Ned Kelly was secretly betrothed to the sister of his fellow gang member, Steve Hart. This is her story.
‘Ned Kelly, My Love’ is about Australia’s favorite story with a new twist, a story that has pre-occupied every Australian at some point and for centuries. Ned Kelly has been the subject matter for many of our famous artists; painters, novelists and it is possibly the most written about biography of any Australian and now there is even more reason to romanticize our nations folk hero.
Ettie Hart: Caitlin Berwick
Ned Kelly: Christian Gillet
Sergeant Steele: Emil Freund
Writer and Director: Xavier Brouwer
Set and Costume Designer: Valentina Serebrennikova
Lighting Designer: Maddy Seach
Researcher: Paul O’Keefe
Guitarist: Luke McDonald
Projection Designer: Jessica Rowland
Photographer: Michael Diakakis
Opening: Metanoia Theatre
Date: November 2016
About: Ned Kelly, My Love
Link: Childhood sweetheart Ned’s secret love
The Electric Music Show Ned Kelly
The life and times of Australia’s most infamous bushranger and his gang set to a rollicking score, a mixture of rock, broadway and vaudeville. ‘Gonna Rob a Bank, Gonna Be A Rich Man One Day, Gonna Rob A Bank. Living it the Easy Way.’ This has both great humour and great tragedy. The Electric Music Show Ned Kelly was staged in 1977/1978 in Adelaide and Sydney with words and lyrics by Reg Livermore and music by Patrick Flynn.
The opening chorus is at Spencer Street station on June 27 1880 with Police and Aboriginal trackers leaving to track down the Kelly Gang. ‘In the Bush. Give a Push. If we have to we will do it. Spill their Blood in the mud.’ Police arrive at the Kelly farm at Eleven Mile Creek there is a scuffle a Police Officer is wounded so the Kellys head bush singing the song Gang Bang. ‘Altogether bang bang, Ricochet clang rang. Let em all Hang Shining in your eye.’
At Stringybark Creek Police find the Kelly Gang in a shoot out Three Police Officers are shot dead. Police sing, ‘those Irish bandits drowning in the same Irish stew Outlawed from today. ‘The Gang realise, ‘we’re never going home again.’ On February 10 1879 they rob several Banks at Euroa and Jerilderie burning land deeds for poor farmers, ‘Gonna Rob a Bank. Gonna Be a Rich Man Some Day.’
On June 27 1880 the Gang take over the town of Glenrowan and are holding 60 people in the hotel. Police are tipped off. They sing about ‘The Blood of the Irish’, Ned’s mother has the poignant song ‘Die Like a Kelly’. And then there is the final confrontation when Ned’s amour fails to protect him from the bullets of the Victorian Police, ‘I shall not be home again. Well that’s life I say.’
Written, designed and directed: Reg Livermore
Music: Patrick Flynn
Musical direction and arrangements: Michael Carlos
Opening: Adelaide Festival Theatre
Date: 30 December 1977 – 28 January 1978
Douglas Stewart's Ned Kelly
Douglas Stewart’s play Ned Kelly was performed in 1956 at the Elizabethan Theatre Company following the successful Summer of the Seventeenth Doll. It was supposed to be performed in Melbourne during the 1956 Olympic Games. However, despite impressive set designs by artist Desmonde Downing (1920-1975), excellent reviews, and lead actor Leo McKern playing Ned Kelly, the production closed in Sydney after only two weeks. The original pencil, pen and ink sketches were supplied by Norman Lindsay to accompany the Ned Kelly manuscript.
Douglas Stewart (1913 – 1985) was a major twentieth century Australian poet, as well as short story writer, essayist and literary editor. He published thirteen collections of poetry, five verse plays, including the well-known Ned Kelly (first performed in 1942), many short stories and critical essays, and biographies of Norman Lindsay and Kenneth Slessor. He also edited several poetry anthologies. Stewart’s greatest contribution to Australian literature came from his twenty years as literary editor of The Bulletin, his ten years as a publishing editor with Angus & Robertson, and his lifetime support of Australian writers. Geoffrey Serle, literary critic, has described Stewart as ‘the greatest all-rounder of modern Australian literature.’
Writer: Douglas Stewart
Set Design: Desmonde Downing
Sketches: Norman Lindsay
Starring: Leo McKern as Ned Kelly
Opening: Elizabethan Theatre Company
Date: 1956
