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A Soft Tread production in association with Sign of the Acorn.
Writer & Performer Jonny Hawkins
Co-conceiver & Director Nell Ranney
Set & Costume Designer Isabel Hudson
Lighting Designer Nick Schlieper
Sound Designer Steve Toulmin
Lighting Associate Morgan Moroney
Company Stage Manager Tanya Leach
Touring Technical Director Marcus Kelson
Originating Production Manager Lachlan Steel
Producer Jo Dyer
A Note from the Creators
By Jonny Hawkins & Nell Ranney
It’s an honour to watch a person engage with something they truly love. Something that is uniquely theirs alone. A hobby, a pet or a curiosity. Perhaps an in-depth understanding of something we once found entirely mundane. When a person shares their passion, it can be infectious. Suddenly, something we had no previous knowledge of becomes rather important to us.
This is the story of Maureen and her friends, and our relationships with other elders. We want to share with you the people who’ve had a profound impact on our lives, who taught us about joy and delight in the intimate spectacle of a living room.
This show is about the beautiful and edifying experience of listening to the wisdom of older women who’ve had the courage to live dangerously enough to be themselves without shame, even when the world appears to be looking the other way.
While Maureen: Harbinger of Death is a mix of fact and fiction, inspired by Jonny’s relationship with their dear friend, it has also been informed by writers Helen Garner and Joan Didion, beacon of style Iris Apfel and the artist Leonora Carrington.
We are delighted you have chosen to come along to meet Maureen, and we’re sure you’ll leave with new appreciation for the world around you and the gift of life, even amongst its harsher details.
“Sometimes it seems to me that, in the end, the only thing people have got going for them is imagination. At times of great darkness, everything around us becomes symbolic, poetic, archetypal. Perhaps this is what dreaming, and art, are for.” - Helen Garner, Everywhere I Look
Jonny Hawkins
Writer & Performer
Jonny Hawkins is an actor, writer and DJ. They studied Acting at WAAPA, where they won the Burton Award for outstanding Shakespearian Performance, and they have subsequently won awards including the Sydney Theatre Critic’s Best Newcomer Award. Their appearances across film and TV include Mr Inbetween, Stan’s The Other Guy, Les Norton, the ABC’s award-winning RIOT and the mini-series Peter Allen: Not the Boy Next Door. As a writer, their short film Joy Boy won Best Film at Melbourne’s Queer Film Festival and Best Screenplay at Vivid’s Fresh Flix. Maureen is Jonny’s first full-length play.
Jonny is also one of Sydney’s best loved DJs and founder of The Dollar Bin Darlings, preaching disco and love all over Australia.
Nell Ranney
Co-conceiver & Director
Nell Ranney is a director and producer of original and multi-disciplinary theatre work. Her credits include the Sydney premiers of TUESDAY by Louris van de Geer (Belvoir) and She Rode Horses Like the Stock Exchange by Amelia Roper (KXT), and she is currently leading creative development of GRLZ by Victoria Haralabidou (supported by Australia Council of the Arts). Nell was Associate Director for Debra Oswald’s solo performance Is There Something Wrong With That Lady? (Griffin Theatre), and in 2018 she was appointed the Baylis Assistant Director at the Old Vic in London for SYLVIA (Old Vic/ ZooNation) by Kate Prince. Her previous roles in artistic programming include Program Manager of The Garden of Unearthly Delights from 2018-2020 and Artistic Associate of Belvoir from 2016-2017.
Isabel Hudson
Set & Costume Designer
Isabel Hudson is a Set & Costume Designer whose recent work includes Winyanboga Yurringa (dir. Anthea Williams) and Every Brilliant Thing (dir. Kate Champion) at Belvoir, and Jess & Joe Forever and TUESDAY as part of Belvoir’s 25A program. Her past credits include designing set and costumes for The Rise & Fall of Little Voice at the Darlinghurst Theatre, The Shifting Heart (White Box Productions), The Walworth Farce (dir Kim Hardwick), A Girl Is A Half Formed Thing (dir. Erin Taylor), You Got Older (Kings Cross Theatre dir. by Claudia Barrie) and King of Pigs (Red Line productions dir. By Blazey Best). In 2018 Isabel was the Winner of Best Independent Scenic Design at the Sydney Theatre Awards. She is graduate of the NIDA Design Course (2015), holds a Bachelor of Arts (Screen and Sound) from the University of New South Wales (2012) and was awarded the William Fletcher Foundation Tertiary Grant for emerging artists in 2015. Isabel is also a lecturer for the Design for Performance program at NIDA.
Nick Schlieper
Lighting Design
Nick Schlieper designs for all of the major performing arts companies in Australia and works regularly in Europe and the USA. He is one of Australia’s most highly awarded designers having received six Melbourne Green Room Awards, six Sydney Theatre Awards (two for set design and four for lighting), the inaugural 2013 Australian Production Designers Guild Best Lighting Award, as well as five Helpmann Awards and in 2016 a Nomination for Best Lighting and Best Set (with Simon Phillips) for North by Northwest (MTC and Kay and McLean Productions). His credits include War of the Roses for Sydney Theatre Company performed at Sydney Festival and Perth Festival; Priscilla Queen of the Desert in London’s West End; Dissocia, Elling, The City and A Streetcar Named Desire for Sydney Theatre Company (Sydney, Washington and New York) and Poor Boy for Sydney Theatre Company and Melbourne Theatre Company. Nick has also designed lighting for Scheherazade for the Australian Ballet, the acclaimed Cinderella for Royal New Zealand Ballet and several pieces for Bangarra Dance Theatre, including Bush and Sandsong.
Steve Toulmin
Sound Designer
Steve Toulmin is one of Australia’s most sought-after composers and sound designers for theatre. He has worked with the country’s most acclaimed companies and directors and has had his work tour nationally and internationally – most recently with Blanc De Blanc playing at The Spiegeltent in Christchurch. His credits as Composer and/or Sound Designer for theatre include numerous productions for Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir, Bell Shakespeare, Queensland Theatre Company, La Boite Theatre Company, Malthouse Theatre and Sydney Festival. For Strut & Fret he has designed sound for Blanc De Blanc, Love Riot, Funhouse, Life The Show, Blanc De Blanc Encore and his independent productions include Prehistoric, After All This, Queen of Wolves, Me Pregnant, Rommy, Porn.Cake, Trapture.
About Soft Tread
Soft Tread is a producer of theatre and film led by Jo Dyer, former Executive Producer of Sydney Theatre Company, General Manager of Bangarra Dance Theatre, CEO of Sydney Writers’ Festival and Director of Adelaide Writers’ Week. It produces the annual Wharf Revue and The Gospel According to Paul, a one-man play about the political legacy of Paul Keating written by and starring Jonathan Biggins, which premiered to great acclaim before touring nationally. Other notable productions include super-group magic show Band of Magicians, which headlined at the legendary Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas after premiering at the Sydney Festival, and an international season of legendary performer Meow Meow at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in December 2019.
Soft Tread’s films have also travelled widely. Its debut film, Lucky Miles (2007), won the Sydney Film Festival’s Best Film Award and its most recent feature film co-production with Windmill Theatre Company, Girl Asleep (2016), had its international premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival before screening at film festivals across Australia and the world, including Sydney, Melbourne, Buenos Aires, Toronto, New York, London and Seattle, where it won the Best Film Award.
Festival for the Future
Adelaide Festival is proudly Carbon Neutral and you can help us reduce our impact on the environment further! This year, Adelaide Festival has partnered with Reforest and Trees for Life to support the Mannavale farm bushfire recovery project in Adelaide Hills.
Plant one for the planet as part of your Adelaide Festival experience. You can learn more about the project, take action and track your impact here.
Your contribution through Reforest will help repair the damage caused by both bushfires and historical land clearing, and help Trees for Life plant a range of native species to restore an area of forest habitat for native wildlife.
