We have COVID-contingency cast members. This process means that should any cast or crew be unwell, our contingency cast will step in to ensure the safest environment for the company and audience. The front of house team will ensure audience are alerted to any changes before each show. Reasons To Be Pretty is a true-to-script presentation of Neil LaBute’s first Broadway play. Producer, actor, and Mill Theatre overseer, Lexi Sekuless, wants the production to reflect Canberra’s performing arts environment, whilst showing off what the newly created space can house. Wait im so pissed. Truly. It’s not that men can’t write about women but wait actually no they can’t, not about this stuff. Not about beauty, something that is so fundamental to being a woman, so un-understandable if you haven’t lived through it. Every seat in the house has a great view, and a different view. Patrons walk through the set to find your seats, adding to the intimacy of the space. This means, late arrivals or patrons who leave the theatre before intermission or the end will NOT BE ADMITTED TO THE THEATRE. Presented by Jeffrey Richards, Jerry Frankel, Gary Goddard Entertainment, Ted Snowdon, Doug Nevin/Erica Lynn Schwartz, Ronald Frankel/Bat-Barry Prods., Kathleen Seidel, Kelpie Arts Llc., Jam Theatricals, Rachel Helson/Heather Provost

reasons to be pretty begins the last of LaBute's trilogy of plays (see links below) about the undue influence physical appearance with a bang-up fight between its protagonist, Greg (Thomas Sadoski) and his girl friend Stephanie (Alison Pill). The outraged cusses put David Mamet's status as the "F" word champion at risk (though a count has LaBute trailing Mamet's November 106 to 169). As with its predecessors, reasons to be pretty continues the author's exploration of what lies beneath the surface of contemporary America within the context of the relationships between lovers and friends.Pablo Schreiber nails the bravado coverup of the bullying Kent so that you want him to get his comeuppance even as you wish he could gain some insight before he becomes forever trapped inside this stereotype of the macho male. Sadoski's Greg is wonderfully likeable but also has you wanting to nudge him to get his nose out of the book long enough to not just use his literary bent as an escape, but to do something with his intelligence. Will Kent get his comeuppance? Will Steph get over her rage and move on with her life? Will Greg muster up enough the get up and go to take something life changing and positive out of the ill-chosen remark without which his 4-year relationship might have gone on another indecisive and non-life changing years? Will Kent get his comeuppance and will his marriage to Carly survive? It's well worth a trip to the Lortel Theater to find out. In 2011 it was produced in London at the Almeida Theatre with a cast including UK actress Billie Piper, Kieran Bew, Siân Brooke and Tom Burke. [5] It opened to critical acclaim on the press night, November 17, 2011, with reviewers claiming it 'was one of the best theatre productions' they had seen in 2011. The performing arts industry took a hit during the height of the pandemic,” Lexi says. “It created a collective low resilience amongst performers and made it difficult to commit to a performance even post-Covid.”

Director Terry Kinney keeps the confrontations tense, volatile and mostly unpredictable — whether it’s the awkwardness of long-term male friends with nothing in common beyond their history or the timid mutual explorations of former lovers, negotiating unhealed wounds while gently testing the depths of residual affections. The bristling scenes between Steph and Greg are especially strong, from their first raw screaming match to her bilious public humiliation of him by reading a list of his physical flaws; from their distant but rueful unplanned meeting to Steph’s final, painfully shy attempt to ascertain if there’s any way to salvage their relationship. But the playwright also displays an unusually thoughtful side in this work while providing more complex characterizations than usual for him. While each of the four characters is given surprising aspects, it’s the perpetually befuddled Greg, who alternates between typically jerkish male behavior and genuine vulnerability and sensitivity, who most fascinates. Credit must especially go to Sadoski, who invests his performance with a compelling soulfulness. Michael Attenborough's production cleverly transmits this exceptionally inflected play. Tragedy is perky and jagged. The delivery is twangy. Mark Henderson's lighting is unflinchingly fluorescent. The design by Soutra Gilmour is snazzy: a trailer swivels round between episodes to show different faces. The only fault is over-emphatic, explanatory music accompanying each episode; all that is needed is a searing silence and the terrible screech of the buzzer summoning people to work.

About Me

Dairy Road is being developed by Molonglo, with a long-term vision for an interconnected and diverse neighbourhood that emerges over the next 10 years. A productive refuge where many often-separated parts work together as one ecosystem. Here, light industry, working, living, recreation, retail and entertainment will be undertaken in a restored landscape. When pregnant Carly airs her suspicions about her husband to Greg, he at first tries to stay neutral, then gets trapped by the rules of male loyalty into lying to corroborate Kent’s alibi. But when Greg refuses to continue covering for Kent, friction between the two guys deepens, causing the differences between them to become irreconcilable. The little remark that turns into a big deal —polarizing the Steph-Greg, Carly-Kent, Greg-Kent relationship — is part of some macho talk between the guys. Kent's comments about a very pretty new employee has Greg misexplaining his less beauty-conscious attitude towards Steph. If only we could edit our remarks before they slip off our tongues! But Greg's straight from lung to tongue utterance is unretrievable and unfortunately overheard by Carly, for whom the word ugly is a red flag that makes her feel honor-bound to report what she heard to her friend Steph.

Cast: (*for actors reprising original roles) *Thomas Sadoski (Greg), Marin Ireland (Steph),* Piper Perabo (Carly) and Steven Pasquale (Kent).

Universally appealing, the plot centres around four young working-class friends comprising two couples who recognise their increasing dissatisfaction with their lives, and each other. A misunderstood comment about the attractiveness of one of them sparks a captivating series of musings. The plot and the age of the characters intends to resonate with young people, as well as those who are still growing in life, in (or out of) a relationship, and beyond. The newness of the Mill Theatre and the Players Ensemble model, combined with the limited opportunities for the development of theatrical arts in Canberra, see the production team admit to some of their own growing pains in the initial stage of casting. Bob Crowley's design makes a palace out of dereliction, a place in which the walls give distress a good name. Plaster curls decoratively down long walls; opal windows seem to let in a grey-green light; the effect is not so much tenement as verdigris ballroom. In the early scenes the echoing elegance of the space drains away the desperation which encircles the play and makes sense of its plunges from despondency to hilarity. Space also causes gigantism in the actors. Some of that settles down. The plan for the set is a kind of ‘industrial minimalism’, with concrete walls, raw materials, and brutalist style furniture,” Tim explains. “The intimacy of the space will allow the audience to be seated up close to the play’s colourful characters, permitting an immersion into their lives as we follow their journey. It is 1183 and the Aquitaines are gathering for Christmas: "Shall we hang ourselves or the holly?" Henry, a robust, roistering and commanding Robert Lindsay, has invited his wife Eleanor to come out of prison (where he put her, for trying to bump him off) for the occasion. Lumley, milking every reference to wrinkles and vanity, pawing the air as if it were her pet, turns herself into Queen Patsy.