Will Drummond is bewildered. All the old certainties are coming apart. His parents are suddenly old, theatre is not what it used to be, people around him are losing their minds and losing faith, the world is shrinking, and what does it even mean to live in a society any more?
Once in Royal David’s City is big and small at once, tumbling from the 50s to the present, from West Berlin to Byron Bay, from brief encounters to the cycles of history. It is about mothers and sons, lost innocence, omnipresent death. It is about rage. It is about the brilliant possibilities of theatre.
MICHAEL GOW’s plays include the Australian classic Away, Toy Symphony, The Kid, On Top of the World, Europe, Sweet Phoebe, Live Acts on Stage, 17 (for the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain), and Once in Royal David’s City. His plays have been performed in Poland, the Czech Republic, Vietnam, Japan and all over the US. Gow has been Associate Director of Sydney Theatre Company and Artistic Director of the Queensland Theatre Company. He has directed for all the major Australian theatre companies as well as Opera Australia, Australian Theatre for Young People and the Lincoln Centre’s New Visions New Voices programme. Gow’s awards include two NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, two Sydney Theatre Critics Circle Awards and an AFI Award for writing the ABC miniseries Edens Lost. His most recent play Once in Royal David’s City premiered at Belvoir in 2014. In 2015 he directed a remount of his production of The Magic Flute for Opera Australia and his translation of Mother Courage and Her Children premiered at Belvoir. 2016 saw two critically acclaimed productions touring under Gow’s direction with Voyage to the Moon (which he also wrote the libretto for) with Victorian Opera / Musica Viva and The Pearlfishers for Opera Australia.
| Cast Info | 4F, 4M |
| Genres | Drama |
| Themes | - |
| Audiences | Adult |
| Extent | 80 |
| Edition | CTS |
| Size | 137 x 210 mm |