A low-fi homage to the cheesy, over-the-top silly-ness of Gilbert and Sullivan's original masterpiece. It's the chance they've been waiting for. The rest of the cast are held up in traffic, doubled over with food poisoning, have been eaten by the orchestra zombies (or maybe someone forgot to call them), and now there is no other option. May and Alia are going to have to perform the whole of ‘Pirates of Penzance’ BY THEMSELVES. With nothing to fall back on but funny voices, silly hats and hastily cobbled together sock-faced co-stars, what results is a lighthearted, clowning, puppeteering musical which condenses 2 Acts of 'Pirates' into a 50min musket-blast of awesome. ONE SHOW ONLY!
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Alia Vryens
(Creator - Performer)
Alia Vryens is a performer, producer, director, writer and is the founder of Theatre Cartel:- a new independent theatre
resourcing organization in Melbourne, Australia. Notable projects include performing in ‘American Astronaut’ with New
Holland Theatre for Melbourne Fringe Festival 2011, ‘The BFG’ & ‘Witches’ with RMIT Union[Arts], directed by Lynne Ellis
and ‘The Talking Vagina’ with Theatre in Bars as part of Melbourne Fringe Festival 2008 and Melbourne Comedy Festival
2009. Her writing credits include ‘The Suitcase and the Storm’ which was commissioned by St Martins’ Youth Theatre in
2008, ‘Shindai: The Art of Japanese Bed Fighting’ which was performed with St Martins’ Youth Theatre 2007 and RMIT
Union[Arts] 2008 and ‘Dragon vs Hero’ performed as part of Snatches 2008. She premiered a re-boot of ‘Shindai’ called
‘The Art of Bed Fighting’ at the 2012 Candle Ends Festival. Alia starred as Edith in the 1997 Upwey High School production of Pirates of Penzance.
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Eva Johansen
(Director)
Director (in absentia) Eva Johansen is a successful radio comedian (co-host of Triple R’s sketch comedy show Lime Champions), a rambunctious burlesque emcee (Kunst ist Scheisse), a cabaret singer (The Last Tuesday Society) and a trained character actor. Her work with renowned cabaret group The Caravan of Love has toured internationally and garnered a Green Room Award nomination and a 4.5 star review from industry stalwart, Helen Razor. Eva’s recent solo show in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival included a stand out performence at Upfront, the all-female comedy gala and was heralded as “a triumph” (chortle.com). Eva is delighted to be involved in this production of Pirates which is the first to be performed as it was originally intended; with two women and some sock puppets.
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Gabriel Lu
(Composer)
Composer/Piano (in absentia) Gabriel Lu has trained classically in piano since he was three. He completed Grade 8 in both piano and theory of music under the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM, London) and has performed for his local music school in Malaysia numerous times during his time there. His favourite pieces include Frédéric Chopin’s Fantasie-Impromptu, Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, and most anything by Nobuo Uematsu (man behind Final Fantasy game music). Also a self trained vocalist, Pirates is his first piano performance since 2004. Gabriel starred in the Mazenod College production of Grease in 2005.
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May Jasper
(Creator - Performer)
May Jasper is a writer, producer and performer. She founded SNAFU Theatre with Sam Wilson in 2002, and was the
producer for their productions, three of which were part of previous Melbourne Fringe Festivals, (‘Death’s Variety Hour’
2005, ‘Month of Sundays’ 2007 and ‘Beginning of the End’ 2008). May has written five plays, and co-written two others
with Sam Wilson, including SNAFU’s latest play ‘Murder at Warrabah House’ which went to Edinburgh Fringe Festival in
2011. Her play ‘Speaking’ was shortlisted for the MUDFest script contest in 2003 and produced by La Mama Theatre in
September 2009. May’s most recent play ‘not a very good story’ (a one-woman play in which she also performs)
premiered as part of Platform Youth Theatre’s Month at La Mama in 2012, and recently had a full La Mama season in
February 2013.
May starred as Ruth in the 1998 Geelong Grammar School production of Pirates of Penzance.
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Tim Beresford
(Composer)
Composer/Bass (in absentia) Tim Beresford is a self-taught guitarist who has dabbled in an eclectic mix of musical styles throughout his 28 year life. At high school he completed Grade 8 classical piano (ABRSM, London), but moved onto more contemporary genres picking up the electric guitar with fanatic enthusiasm. He played guitar/keyboard in the Green Bay High School jazz band, as well as guitar/vocals and his own thrash metal band Entropy. His musical endeavours have evolved through various thrash/death metal bands, to his current jazz-fusion band The Shortest Fuse. He has most recently been writing and recording own compositions and is enjoying learning the subtle art of mixing/mastering. Check out www.facebook.com/shortestfuse
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