Queensland stories offer life, death and a few laughs for Queensland Theatre in 2021
When Queensland Theatre unveils its 2021 program on Sunday expect some treats with a couple of ripping plays set in South east Queensland and another about sex and true love.
QLD News
Don't miss out on the headlines from QLD News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Two of the predicted hits for Queensland Theatre next year include a play set in a Toowoomba funeral parlour and another about a boy growing up in the wrong suburb in Brisbane.
Return to the Dirt, written by and starring Steve Pirie, is an honest and surprisingly uplifting invitation to discuss something we don’t like to discuss. Um, death, that is. And we think we can say with some safety that this is the only play so far to be set in a Toowoomba funeral parlour.
Of course the story of the lad from the wrong suburb is Boy Swallows Universe, the stage version of journalist and author Trent Dalton’s obscenely popular novel of the same name. The question on everyone’s lips has been - who plays Eli Bell, the boy who triumphs over tragedy in the stage version?.
We can reveal now that the role will be filled by young Brisbane actor Joe Klocek, 25, who says he’s thrilled to have got the gig.
“I am absolutely over the moon about being cast as Eli because I loved the book,” Klocek says. “I’m excited to be performing the first iteration of Eli Bell with Queensland Theatre because it’s where I started so it’s a really cool full circle for me.
“I can’t wait to take him to stage. It’s a huge responsibility. There’s so many moments in Boy Swallows Universe that I know because I grew up here in Brisbane. Eli sounds a lot like me.”
Klocek started in the Queensland Theatre Youth Ensemble when he was in grade 12 at Kenmore State High.
Trent Dalton’s latest novel All Our Shimmering Skies a magical portrait of Australia
He has had stage roles and been on screen including in the ABC TV series Nowhere Boys and he played a monarch soldier in Pirates of the Caribbean and is also in the film The Dry which comes out in January.
Queensland Theatre artistic director Lee Lewis says she’s happy that Boy Swallows Universe can now be staged next year with 50 per cent capacity audiences after it was cancelled this year.
She said it was wonderful that a young locally trained actor was playing the lead role.
“It’s a wonderful reflection of the pathways open to our young artists,” Lewis says. “We cannot wait to turn the lights back on in our theatres in 2021.”
Also on the program for season 2021 is Triple X, starring “trans-Queen” Glace Chase, who also wrote this play about love, entitlement, hypocrisy and the realities of true love in the 21st century.
We can also reveal that Australian theatre and cabaret legend Robyn Archer is also on the bill with Robyn Archer: An Australian Songbook and award-winning playwright Suzie Miller’s work Prima Facie will also be staged.
It’s a one-woman show about a defence barrister who finds herself on the wrong side of the system,
The rest of the program will be announced in an online launch tonight. To register to view that and for more info once the full season is revealed visit queenslandtheatre.com.au