Sydney Theatre Company Launches 2012 Season

Sydney Theatre Company artistic directors Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton have taken inspiration from movies, novels, the preoccupations of the world and the ingenuity of local artists to create a 2012 season where you can see My Fair Lady with an Aussie soap star in place of Audrey, commune with the numerous townsfolk of Dylan Thomas's literary Llareggub and lose yourself in a magic realist world freshly sown by Tim Winton. If there's a centrepiece, it may be Never Did Me Any Harm, a new Australian work by Kate Champion and her physical theatre company, Force Majeure. Bouncing off Christos Tsiolkas's The Slap and the abundance of opinions everyone has on parenting, it promises to visit Australian suburbia, and it might not be the most polite houseguest.

Unmissable and alliterative directors Simon Stone (The Wild Duck, Baal) and Sam Strong (Speaking in Tongues) each helm a play: Stone Face to Face, a co-adaptation with Upton from the classic Ingmar Bergman film about the nightmares that come to intrude upon a woman's life; and Strong Les Liaisons Dangereuses, which casts Hugo Weaving and Pamela Rabe as its manipulative, feuding Marquise and Vicomte (yes, this story was once incarnated as Cruel Intentions).

Following in the footsteps of the phenomenal August: Osage County and Terminus, the international slot in 2012 will be filled by Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre with their Midsummer (a play with songs), apparently a romantic comedy you can enjoy without irony or shame. Outside the main stage program, there's also an all-male Pirates of Penzance and a new collaboration from Ontroerend Goed (Once and for all we’re gonna tell you who we are so shut up and listen) and STC's Residents to look forward to.

Check out the full program at the STC website.