Essendon Theatre Company

“Sugar” is trying to finish a book. To make ends meet she reluctantly agrees to take on work as an anonymous advice columnist. In a series of connected vignettes, “Sugar” gets to know several different people and their plethora of personal problems – and in turn, they (and the audience) discover some of her deepest, darkest secrets. Trigger warning: this show contains themes of sexual and child abuse, addiction and pregnancy loss.

Bernard is planning a romantic weekend with his chic Parisian mistress in his charming converted French farmhouse, whilst his wife, Jacqueline, is away. He has everything organised. Suppose everyone's alibi gets confused with everyone else's. An evening of hilarious confusion ensues as Bernard and Robert improvise at breakneck speed.

Neil Simon's crazy comedy of an upscale dinner party run amok sees the fashion and fur fly when two glamorous guests arrive at a house to an unexpectedly absent host. The speculative stories of what might have happened spin out of control as more guests arrive. Zany consequences arise as the highbrow crew frantically tries to keep track of the increasingly outrageous tales while trying to protect their own self-pretentious reputations.

The story revolves around the last days of Willy Loman, a failing salesman, who cannot understand how he failed to win success and happiness. Through a series of tragic soul-searching revelations of the life he has lived with his wife, his sons, and his business associates, we discover how his quest for the "American Dream" kept him blind to the people who truly loved him. A thrilling work of deep and revealing beauty that remains one of the most profound classic dramas of the American theatre.

The workshop is designed to provide students with an opportunity to observe a live rehearsal, participate in directorial feedback and a Q&A session with the cast and crew. The current production for ETC is ‘Death of a Salesman’ which will be opening on June 17th. This experience is open to all Buckley Park College senior students with an interest in theatre.

Chicklet Forrest, a teenage tomboy, desperately wants to be part of the surf crowd on Malibu Beach in 1962. One thing getting in her way is her unfortunate tendency towards split personalities. Among them is a black check out girl, an elderly radio talk show hostess, a male model named Steve and the accounting firm of Edelman and Edelman. Her most dangerous alter ego is a sexually voracious vixen named Ann Bowman who has nothing less than world domination on her mind.

The play is a children’s pantomime loosely based on the Ancient Greek Comedy “The Birds” by Aristophanes.

The play is a musical reconstruction of incidents relating to the East End murders which took place between Friday, August 31st and Friday, November 9th, 1888, set in a Music Hall and the surrounding streets, as performed by the inhabitants of Whitechapel.

Lewis lives in a housing commission suburb on the outskirts of the city, Melbourne with his single mother, sister, and grandmother, who is rapidly approaching senility. Lewis' obsessions with aliens masks his own adolescent confusion about the changing world around him. Lewis' world changes forever when his itinerant father, Eric, suddenly returns home, and Lewis discovers his best friend, Dulcie's heartbreaking secret. The three-act play is set in 1962, the year of the Cuban missile crisis.

Over the course of 2018, a number of local writers have been workshopping and developing a series of original one act plays under the mentorship of Award Winning Playwright Michael Olsen. Our second season for the year will involve the performance of three of these unique pieces in preparation for submission to the One Act Play Festivals.

It's 1942, and two of Hollywood's biggest divas have descended upon the luxurious Palm Beach Royale Hotel - assistants, luggage, and legendary feud with one another in tow. Everything seems to be in order for their wartime performance...that is, until they are somehow assigned to the same suite. Mistaken identities, overblown egos, double entendres, and a dog named Mr.Boodles round out this hilarious riot of a love note to the classic farces of the 30s and 40s.

It's a hot July day at the Good Shepherd Funeral Parlor and Martin Lamb, the mortician, is presiding over the wake of the late Walter Porteus. His dream of a perfect wake is undermined by his son Jimmy, and by the conniving, contentious Porteus family, who are already clashing over the will. To further inflame matters, the air conditioning breaks down, the wrong body turns up in the casket and then a mysterious mourner appears and then things really start to get interesting.

A bewildered young man is questioned by a ruthless investigator, who circles like a predator, forcing him closer and closer to an awful admission. A compelling investigation of truth, consequences, and the ultimate value of human life.

Workshop Outline - Essendon Theatre Company - 2018 Join experienced playright Michael Olsen to learn the fundamentals of playwriting over 8 weekly sessions starting Tuesday 17th July 2018. Course Outline: 1. Introduction: 2. Character: 3. Plot: 4. Dialogue: 5. Actors, Directors & getting your work on: 6. Review 7. Cold reads 8. Monthly workshops commence

A Series of one act plays.

The Mount Home for Retired Theatricals is an unusual place - more like a country house hotel than a home for the elderly. So when Walter Neville arrives, he is overjoyed to find some of his best friends in residence. All is well until the serial womaniser goes missing - apparently on the run from Russian gangsters. The ladies decide that "He who pays the bills" must be rescued - but how to go about it? What follows is a truly daft journey into the world of eccentric luvvies!

Two cops. Three crooks. Eight doors. Go. In a cheap motel room, an embezzling mayor is supposed to meet with his female accountant, while in the room next-door, two undercover cops wait to catch the meeting on videotape. But there's some confusion as to who's in which room, who's being videotaped, who's taken the money, who's hired a hit man, and why the accountant keeps taking off her clothes.

This bitingly satiric black comedy, which enjoyed a long off-Broadway run, begins with Helen and John deciding their newly born child is a girl and naming it Daisy - which leads to all manner of future emotional and personality problems because Daisy is actually a boy. Brilliantly treatrical and wildly hilarious, the play charts the saga of daisy's struggle to establish his identity.

A Children's Pantomine: The Pirate Princess tells the story of Evalina, a princess who would much rather be a pirate than a princess

Madagascar is the haunting story of a mysterious disappearance that changes three lives forever. At three different periods in time, three Americans find themselves alone, in the same hotel room overlooking the Spanish Steps in Rome. Their stories spill out, weave back and forth – each contradicting, clarifying, deepening what the others say – becoming strands of one gripping and disquieting tale.

This play centers around Leonard Vole after he is arrested for the murder of Emily French. Emily made Leonard her heir, which casts suspicion on Leonard after her murder. Leonard’s wife is then asked to testify which she agrees to do, but not in the defense of her husband but as a witness for the prosecution. As with all of Christie’s work, the audience will be left speechless when the intricate web is unraveled.

ETC is turning 40 and we would like YOU to join us to celebrate. Join us for a birthday celebration Date: Saturday 15 October 2016 Time: 7.30 pm Venue: Keilor East RSL - 12-22 Hoffmans Rd, Essendon VIC 3040 Cost: $60 per person (2 courses) RSVP by Saturday 1 October 2016 to 0422 029 483 Come dressed as your favourite ETC character you have either seen or played. Further detail to follow.

Stephen Febble is tired of the world and is now faced with a family gathering that he wants nothing to do with. When Stephen’s daughter and son-in-law come to stay dragging their incontinent dog with them, it makes him turn quickly to both sarcasm and the bottle. When Stephen’s wife Virginia organises a dinner party and invites the neighbours, it all becomes too much for Stephen to handle.

Pulitzer Prize winner Theresa Rebeck brings us a risque’ comedy that follows the lives of four aspiring writers who are desperate to make it big. Calling on the help of international literary figure Leonard to help guide them to make them better writers, some of the group thrive and some fall from the fast moving vehicle. Leonard’s unorthodox direction sends the group head first into broken alliances, broken promises, broken hearts and the weapon is sex.

The play is a comedy set during a 1980s ostentatious wedding reception at a Knoxville, Tennessee, estate, five reluctant, identically clad bridesmaids hide out in an upstairs bedroom, each with her own reason to avoid the proceedings below. As the afternoon wears on, these five very different women joyously discover a common bond with each other more than any of them do with the bride in this wickedly funny, irreverent and touching celebration of the women’s spirit.

Bernard thought he could easily cope with his three air hostess fiancees. It was all a question of timetables and a reliable, down-to-earth maid who never forgot to change the photographs in the bedrooms. Only when the “Super” Boeing takes over is he landed with a triple problem on his hands. His old school friend, Robert, arrives unexpectedly in Paris and joins the jet set in a hilarious whirl of confusion and matchmaking.

You have all heard the story but this pantomime comes with a twist.

ETC is holding this Fundraising Event to raise money for new lighting for their future productions.

A divorced couple who are on their honeymoon with their new spouses, discover that they are staying at the same hotel and their rooms are next door to one another. Despite an extremely rocky relationship, they soon realise that they still have feelings for one another. A witty marital farce that should get those laughing muscles nice and sore.