It's A Secret!

Club House Productions

Club House Productions is a theatrical brains trust – a collective of crafty and disobedient theatre artists, led by award-winning actor Bec Massey. Club House is where serious artists go to play together – making theatre at the highest level in an independent and unconstrained environment.

Two of Australia’s most talented and consequential contemporary auteurs are joining forces for the first time to create this new work. Director Bruce Gladwin was awarded the International Ibsen Award for 2022 for his work with Back to Back Theatre, and the Australia Council for the Arts’ Inaugural Award for Outstanding Achievement in Theatre 2015. Choreographer Lucy Guerin AO was awarded an Order of Australia and AO for her contribution to contemporary dance, the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award and the Australia Council Award for Dance 2016.

They are joined by AUGIE award-winning playwright Melissa Reeves and acclaimed theatre actors Catherine McClements, Jacek Koman, Rebecca Massey and Julie Forsyth.

    ABOUT THE PROJECT

    It is a Secret is a contemporary fairy tale, a joyously liberating theatrical adventure for all comers.

    When an ageing usher is recruited on stage to assist with a short- staffed European children’s theatre production, she discovers that to get the job done she needs to travel back in time to break the spell of her own childhood.

    Aided and abetted by her ushering colleagues, a strangely compelling Polish stage manager and a band of musicians, this journey goes someway to prove the platitude, “It takes a village to raise an old woman.” Meanwhile, the mysterious stage manager is on a quest to break his own ancient enchantment with the acting challenge of a lifetime.

    Deeply collaborative in its making, this contemporary multi-disciplinary work combines the unconscious desires of four aging actors with an anarchic band singing gypsy/folk/punk songs from the streets of Odessa and a dreamy picture book by John Burningham about a wild midnight cat party.

    This work has had a twelve-day creative development, which produced a first draft of the script and concluded in a 45-minute showing of material. Club House is looking for Australian and international festival partners to commission a full work.

    Childhood. Enchantment. Transformation. It’s a Secret is a celebration of the magic of theatre by artists who have spent a lifetime under its spell.

    Session Times
    PROFILE: Here’s Our Idea
    Friday 9 June, 11:30am AEST

    CONTACT

    Bec Massey
    bec@clubhouseproductions.com.au