SEARCHLIGHT

The Empty City
The Human Company

Venue: Piano Bar
When: Wed 29 Feb 09:45 AM - 10:45 AM
Genre: Theatre
Main Audience: Children/Primary
Producer: Katrina Torenbeek
No. in touring party: 4

Empty City

What if for one day only, everyone disappeared and the city was yours?

Tom and his Mum are shopping in the city. Dragged past anything interesting, Tom is bored, stuck between Crockery and a hard place. Things escalate when everyone disappears, leaving only their shoes. The city is Tom’s and Tom’s alone. He adventures through the urban wilderness. He eats chocolate, plays the dummy in a fashion shop, rocks the city with his own kind of music and confronts his biggest fear.

The Empty City is based on 2008 Children's Book Council of Australia's Notable Australian Children's Book by David Megarrity and Jonathon Oxlade (Hachette Livre, 2007). Directed by David Fenton, The Empty City employs a unique combination of projected image, original music, animation and physical performance. Playing with the fantasy of a child’s experience of being let loose to explore a city at whim, one performer takes a remarkable kaleidoscopic journey through a constantly shifting urban and emotional landscape. This provocative live, aural and digital performance work is an unforgettable adventure for children 4-10 and their families.

"Like any first-class art or great children's book, The Empty City expertly treads that fine line between playful ambiguity and tight thematic focus." - Courier Mail, 2007.

The Human Company

The Human Company creates innovative, contemporary performance work exploring the convergence of live and digital performance. The Empty City artistic team includes:

David Fenton, who has directed over sixty professional productions throughout his 22 years in the industry and has held significant artistic positions in Australia and overseas.

David Megarrity is a writer, composer, musician, performer, theatre-maker and recipient of the Brisbane Lord Mayor’s Performing Arts Fellowship. His innovative theatre works including Backseat Drivers, Ukulele Mekulele, Show, and Lily Can’t Sleep have played around Australia and overseas.

Luke Monsour is a filmmaker, multimedia artist, writer, musician and actor, and currently lectures at Griffith University's Film School in film and digital screen production. As a filmmaker Luke has created commissioned documentaries, short films and music videos.

Jonathon Oxlade is a theatre designer, illustrator and puppeteer. Jonathon has created work for some of Australia’s leading companies and festivals including Out of the Box, QTC, Windmill Theatre and Brisbane Festival.

Lucas Stibbard is a theatre maker and actor whose credits include boy girl wall (Helpmann Award Nomination), Drag Queensland, Elephant Gun, An Oak Tree, Grug, Hamlet, Eating Ice-cream With Your Eyes Closed, The Cherry Orchard and The Real Inspector Hound.

Photo: Ray Pittman