Our Newsletter

It was a historic occasion. Thanks to the support of our members it was a great success..

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Congratulations also to Cen Fox for his marvellous effort in organising our Radio Play Competition. Cen managed to present five brand new plays written by local authors and they were wonderful. Keith McGowan has presented some of the plays in his midnight to dawn programme on 3AW. Etceteras was very impressed by the standard of the writing and the actors who took part. Community radio stations throughout Victoria will also broadcast the plays. David Small was our distinguished adjudicator.

Thanks to our members who attended but we need to increase the attendance next year. Well done to all involved.

Our new storage, rehearsal and set building premises at the Fleigner Hall, 31-39 Highland Avenue, Clayton North is really shaping up to be a winner. The hall is shared by Peridot, Players, Babirra and Encore. We will have to bump into our new theatre in Cooke Street Clayton for each show, but with our strong support I am sure we will maintain the high standard of Encore Theatre.

A meeting was held after Over The River And Through The Woods finished to get feedback from cast, crew and front of house on how they saw the first production at our new venue. It was good meeting with about 15 in attendance. A list of improvements were drawn up with items that we could address and some that will be passed onto council.

You have probably seen our old theatre is now just a hole in the asphalt in the car park. Time marches on but the memories linger on.

Thanks to Carolyn & John Gunn for their wonderful support on their theatre programme Curtain Up on 3CR. Thanks also to all the community radio stations who publicise our shows.

In the recent season of Damn Yankees, for The production Company, at the State Theatre there were two cast members who had started out in non professional theatre. Matt Heatherington who did shows with CLOC and Melissa Langton who worked with Festival Theatre Company were onstage and stealing the show.

We thank Cheryl Threadgold for the marvellous publicity we get in her column, Community Theatre, in The Melbourne Observer. The coverage of our opening night was brilliant. It is a great paper and available at all good newsagents for only two dollars.

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Edna Bartlett is directing our entry in the Monash One Act Play Festival which will be on September 19th to 21st at the Unicorn Theatre, Lechte Road, Mount Waverley.

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Our Charity Nights are tremendously popular and it is a marvellous opportunity for the cast to test the play with an audience reaction.

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Check out our website at www.encoretheatre.com.au - Our webmaster is now Cen Fox.

The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.

Any gossip or news? Please send them to kevintrask@bigpond.com

by Joe DiPietro

Encore Theatre

Directed by Edna Bartlett

Reviewed by Jill Watson for TheatreCraft- 27 June 2008

At last the new venue of Encore Theatre! The reception area is large, the stage a reasonable size, seating, acoustics and sightlines excellent. A great new era for Encore.

The set is the living room of the Gianelli home in New Jersey; old-Italian New York. Furniture was well chosen including an ancient radiogram and lots of appropriate pictures and ornaments. The story line revolves around Nick Cristano, who sees both sets of his Italian grandparents each Sunday, when they all meet at his maternal set - Aida and Frank Gianelli.

There are quite a number of spotlight moments with each cast member, commencing with Nick downstage left, when he explains a bit about his grandparents. (Congratulations to Russell Allsop for plotting these spotlights so accurately). I liked the introductory music - all sound worked well, designed and operated by Graeme Moore.

The main message is that Nick loves the family and understands their strong feelings (`tengo famiglia') but he is irritated by their tenacity and feels they are holding him back. The opening scene is one of frustration for him (and the audience - good build up in the writing) as he tries to make an announcement while the grandparents rabbit on, going off at tangents and generally not appearing to be listening to him. He finally manages to tell them that he is accepting a promotion at work which involves him moving to Seattle. This goes down like a lead balloon and you can sense the various plans being plotted to keep him in New York. It doesn't help that his own parents have moved to Florida and his sister elsewhere in the US.

Emma Cristano comes up with the matchmaking idea to invite Caitlin O'Hare, the daughter of a friend, to join the family the following Sunday. This scene was highly amusing, with Nick getting more and more uptight as the grandparents misunderstand information and think Caitlin is a vet (she is a nurse). Nick urges her just "to run with it". Nick tries to date her but she is so unimpressed with his shouting at his grandparents, she refuses. Nick has an anxiety turn, is taken off to the hospital and ends up staying for some days at the Gianellis'. This stay enables him to find out a lot more about his respective grandparents' younger days. It causes Nick to remark that he had previously thought of his grandparents' lives in black and white, but now it was in colour.

This is a warm work, showing Nick's coming of age. He knows he has to make the move, but it is a great wrench for him. The four grandparents were well portrayed. Mary Kappner caught the essence of Aida Gianelli, who thinks everything can be cured by eating. She is a wise, compassionate lady, who understands Nick better than he realises. Michael Knuckey gave us an outspoken, sometimes irritable Frank Gianelli, with a heart of gold. Joan Krutli did particularly well as Emma Cristano, the more sophisticated of the ladies, with a calm exterior hiding great determination to keep her grandson in New York, John Davies as Nunzio Cristano portrayed a quiet, gentle man, who makes the ultimate sacrifice of not telling his grandson he has cancer, knowing it would prevent him from moving on. Alicia Kidd as Caitlin O'Hare showed us a girl of great spirit and compassion, who knows her own mind - a nicely judged performance. Adrian Gertler as Nick Cristano was excellent - he holds the whole thing together and never went over the top, which could have been very easy to do.

I thoroughly enjoyed the evening and congratulate Edna and crew.

ON PERFORMING FOR THE FIRST TIME AT THE CLAYTON COMMUNITY THEATRETTE

When I was first asked to write my impressions and evaluations as one of the first performers on stage at the new Clayton Community Centre Theatrette, I thought "hullo, this is going to be difficult".  How to separate my definite bias towards it from an objective assessment of the venue. Anyway, here goes.

Firstly my bias. I was cast as the character Aida Gianelli in Encore's first production Over the River and Through the Woods. This production is a warm and moving and funny play about family ties and generational differences but we all got off to a decidedly chilly start in our rehearsal space at Fleigner Hall. By "we", I mean our director, Edna Bartlett and her assistant, Lorraine Foxall and the six cast members with Anne and Bill Rendall as always in the background..

As the weather progressed from May through to June, the increasing cold took toll on us all, despite our layers of clothing. I personally favoured parka and ugh boots and I cannot recall a rehearsal where there was not a member afflicted by one or more symptoms of the common cold. I am certain that one could hang a side of beef in that rehearsal space for a week with impunity.

But, despite these cool store conditions, there was no absenteeism. Troupers to the end!

I also think that for long-term Encore members, the loss of our permanent venue and the necessity to adapt to sharing a rehearsal and storage space for the first time was an added difficulty. But I feel we adjusted with good grace and humour and the past became indeed another country.

Inevitably the bump-in day arrived and, during that last week in June, we all shifted not only to the new venue but into another climate altogether. The theatrette embraced us with such warmth not only because of its perfect climate control but because of its diminutive size which enclosed us in its newness as did the smell and glow of its wood panelling and lighting. To the cast, any new difficulties that became apparent as we settled in to become the first group to perform in this venue were secondary to this one fact.

We were warm! We could shed layers. We could change costumes without developing goose bumps. Well, this heightened response to first entering the Clayton Community Theatrette deals with my bias. On an objective level, there are shortcomings. These are due largely to budget constraints on the planners, despite the hours of discussion between them and the Encore Theatre Company. But, being the adaptable company we are, I know that each successive production will see us coping better with these. For me personally it will always be a warm and embracing experience to be part of this venue. I found its performance space comfortable and intimate in relation to the audience whom I knew were also comfortable and warm.

I will always cherish the fact that I was able to play a role in Encore's first production in such a little jewel of a theatre. I know we will continue, as always, to offer good theatre, but now we can offer added comfort and modern facilities to our patrons and members and actors.

May our company grow because of this.