Rough demo pilot for a musical podcast set in a medieval fantasy world grappling with the outbreak of The Bubonic Plague.

We hope to eventually produce a series with the core cast of characters travelling about the medieval globe, interacting with the musical storytelling cultures of diverse lands as guest performers join for each episode, along with guest co-writers and co-composers.

We’d like to thank the following creatives for their work during previous developments of the many versions of what became Catchy: Jill Ohayon, Millicent Sarre, Ellis Dolan, Lachlan Barnett, Annabel Matheson, Juliana Nixon and Chris Asimos.

While very much a rough pilot, we still recommend you listen through headphones or stereo speakers.

DIRECTOR, ACTOR, BOOKWRITER & CO-LYRICIST Phillip Kavanagh

MUSICAL DIRECTOR, ACTOR, COMPOSER/LYRICIST Cadence Chaos

ADDITIONAL VOICES Jacqy Phillips, Taylor Nobes, Kate Cheel.

Caulfield baker Elysheva Scroogeavitz is determined not to let anything get in the way of fulfilling customer demand for her Bubby’s famous Polish gingerbread. Not her family’s impending Chrismukkah celebrations; not her contractions and imminent labour; and certainly not the ghosts who’ve suddenly shown up in her kitchen. But the Rein-Dybbuck of Chrismukkah Past, Gingerbread Golem and Lilith Claus have other ideas, and Ely’s about to get an unexpected lesson in the importance of making time for the ones we love.

As part of MTC’s NEXT STAGE Writers’ Program, writers-in-residence Elise Esther Hearst and Phillip Kavanagh drew on their own backgrounds to create this hilarious, playful re-telling of the seasonal time-travelling classic. Directed by Sarah Giles, and starring Natalie Gamsu and Evelyn Krape, A Very Jewish Christmas Carol is a celebration of fun, family and faith – in ourselves and in each other.

DIRECTOR Sarah Giles

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR Cassandra Fumi

SET DESIGNER Jonathon Oxlade

COSTUME DESIGNER Dann Barber

COMPOSER & SOUND DESIGNER Jed Palmer

LIGHTING DESIGNER Richard Vaber

ADDITIONAL COMPOSITION Jude Perl

VOICE AND TEXT COACH Matt Furlani

FIGHT CHOREOGRAPHER Lyndall Grant

INTIMACY COORDINATOR Cessalee Stovall

POLISH TRANSLATION AND LANGUAGE COACH Krystyna Duszniak

YIDDISH TRANSLATION Rebecca (Rivke) Margolis

YIDDING LANGUAGE COACH AND SONG TRANSLATION Freydi Mrocki

DIRECTING INTERN (VCA) Kathryn Yates

SET DESIGN INTERN (VCA) Ishan Vivekanantham

COSTUME DESIGN INTERN (VCA) Louisa Fitzgerald

STAGE MANAGER Whitney McNamara

DEPUTY STAGE MANAGER Meg Richardson

ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER Brittany Stock

REHEARSAL PHOTOGRAPHER Charlie Kinross

PRODUCTION PHOTOGRAPHER Pia Johnson

MARKETING CAMPAIGN PHOTOGRAPHER Jo Duck

DRAMATURGS Sarah Giles, Jennifer Medway

DESIGN CONCEPT CONTRIBUTOR Jonathon Oxlade

ACTORS Natalie Gamsu, Miriam Glaser, Emma Jevons, Evelyn Krape, Jude Perl, Louise Siversen, Michael Whalley

It’s 18th-century Peru. An ancient Incan rope bridge collapses sending five strangers plummeting to their deaths and unleashing a fabulist’s tale of conspiracy, seduction and betrayal. In this thrilling reimagining of Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer-winning novel, Adelaide’s celebrated Brink Productions brings their unique theatricality to a daisy chain of stories and coincidence that leads five strangers to meet their fate. The incomparable Paul Capsis, in an extraordinary act of theatrical shamanism, inhabits the role of the Perichole, the greatest actress of her age, as she draws the audience into an epic narrative that ultimately reveals her own heartbreaking story.

THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY © 1927

The Wilder Family LLC

DIRECTOR Chris Drummond

MUSIC DIRECTORS Slava and Leonard Grigoryan

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR Taylor Nobes

DESIGNER Jonathon Oxlade

LIGHTING Gavin Norris

SOUND Lachlan Turner

MUSICIANS Slava Grigoryan and Manus Noble

ACTOR Paul Capsis

‘Interview: Chris Drummond,’ Glam Adelaide:

What drew the team at Brink to Thornton Wilder’s novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey?

“Douglas Gautier, who is the CEO and Artistic Director of the Adelaide Festival Centre, gave it to me because he’d seen another book adaptation we had done. It’s a small novel, but it’s a big story with lots of different characters. In the book, the stories are centred around the theatre in Lima and there is this wonderful actress that is a constant character through all the stories. We decided, instead of a large cast period drama, what if Paul Capsis plays the actress and embodies all of the characters, telling all of these community stories, but ultimately telling her own?” says director Chris Drummond. “It was really exciting when we came to this decision, especially when we started to think about Peruvian and Spanish music. We invited Slava Grigoryan to provide the music, and Phillip Kavanagh to write the script; he was really the perfect writer. Thornton Wilder was rather young when he wrote the original book, only around 28, so having a younger writer was a good way to go about our creation as well. It all really flowered out of that original idea of what would happen if Paul Capsis told these stories, surrounded by music and Phillip’s writing, and we went from there.”

“Playwright Phillip Kavanagh and director Chris Drummond have done something extraordinary. This exotic epic with its theological undertones has been transfigured into a single-handed theatre piece which speaks to our current preoccupation with life’s fragility and the fickleness of fate.” – InDaily

“This is a satisfyingly bold adaptation by playwright Phillip Kavanagh for Adelaide’s Brink Productions and is staged with superb direction by Chris Drummond. They indulge the whims of Camila Perichole – she is a diva, after all – to give the play a very contemporary grounding. It somehow feels authentic and modern, not just a theatrical curiosity or period piece.” – Arts Hub

As One is a dark and ridiculous comedy about tribal belonging, brought to you by the company that presented Deluge in the 2016 Adelaide Festival of Arts. 

It was an experiment—written for the theatre, directed for Zoom—presented to audiences live from the homes of the six cast members via Zoom webinar over three performances between 5th and 7th of June 2020.

Across three acts, six characters’ lives are thrown from bad to worse, as they find themselves entangled in a web of connection so convoluted the play could only be set in Adelaide. 

There are births, death, marriages, plane crashes and shark attacks.

Also, there are songs.

DIRECTOR Nescha Jelk

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR Rachel Burke

DESIGNER Meg Wilson

COMPOSER & SOUND DESIGNER Will Spartalis

CAST Kathryn Adams, Shabana Azeez, Yasmin Gurreeboo, Jacqy Phillips, James Smith and Rory Walker

‘Tiny Bricks returns with an iso-play developed and performed via Zoom,’ The Adelaide Review:

A theme of communities and connections is particularly relevant to a play Kavanagh says is “about the competing ‘tribes’ we belong to, how that shapes our moral identity and how we deal with competing ethical quandaries”. “It felt really pronounced right now – it was strange how everything I’d written felt like it was being put through the lens of the pandemic in a strange way,” he explains.

“shrewd and funny in its gently excoriating portrait of middle Australia.” – Witness Performance

Elle and Steve are desperate to move into a gated community. Elle can’t sleep. They’re worried their neighbours might be planning something sinister. Surely the walls of the community will keep them safe. But Elle hears a noise in the night.

With more and more Australians moving into gated communities, suburbs becoming cultural microcosms of division and an increasing sense of distrust disseminated by press, politicians and social media echo chambers, 'Little Borders' imagines how far someone might go to get a peaceful night’s sleep.

DIRECTOR Dominic Mercer

SET DESIGNERS Charlie Edward Davis & Jeremy Allen

COSTUME DESIGNER Isabel Hudson

LIGHTING DESIGNER Emma Lockhart

COMPOSER & SOUND DESIGNER Clemence Williams

PRODUCER Dino Dimitriadis

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR Joseph Brown

CAST Lucy Goleby & Brandon Mcclelland

‘Phillip Kavanagh’ Q & A, Australian Stage:

The play has a satiric tenor – what do you adore most about the satirical?

For this play, a satirical tone opened up so many possibilities for both the subject and its theatrical treatment. I was able to revel in the grotesqueness of the characters; they are joyfully horrible. But at the same time as mounting this satiric attack-exposing the absurdity of these powerful, privileged characters being crippled by fear of victimization-I was able to bring the play's menace to the surface. For me, the play is at its most interesting when the satire is almost forgotten, and we're compelled to feel just how palpably real Elle and Steve's fear is.

It underlies an allegorical reading for the play's setting. The borders are drawn around their suburb, but they also extend and contract. As the borders allegorically extend to the edges of the country, Elle and Steve grow to represent a nation in fear of invasion from a menacing, threatening Other. As the borders contract to the personal space, they surround Elle and Steve as individuals, incapable of sharing the extent of their crises even with each other, as they each escape to the private sanctuary of soliloquy.

“A long time coming but worth the wait, Phillip Kavanagh’s 2011 Patrick White Playwrights’ Award-winner finally gets its premiere. Director Dominic Mercer’s understated, impeccably crafted production does it full justice.” – Sydney Morning Herald

“The play resonates with an alarming accuracy, even though the events that unfold are very dramatic and extreme.” – Suzy Goes See

“A pure gem of theatre making … Says Mr Kavanagh in the notes to the newly published text: 'At the time of writing it felt speculative--a satirical world we could soon end up inhabiting if our political discourse continued on its rhetorical path of division; if we were encouraged to give over to fear and panic; if the violence we perpetrated outweighed anything that was aimed at us.' And, when one reflects where we are as a culture - civilisation - in 2017, that is what seems to have, more than less, manifested, and it makes this play and this prescient playwright worth attending to.” – Kevin Jackson’s Theatre Diary

“There is another giant in the room at Old 505 in Newtown. The playwright Phillip Kavanagh won the Patrick White Playwrights’ Award for Little Borders in 2012 and this World Premiere production five years later has prompted a respected Sydney arts journalist to ask why it has taken so long. And why so many similarly prestigiously awarded plays never see a stage. I add my voice to that call because this production proves that witty, insightful, relevant Australian work can entertain and disturb in equal measure! Just what I want really.” – Sydney Arts Guide

Little Borders is published through 8th Buffalo Press.

John saw his brother Michael die. He seems to have forgotten it, until now. His brother Peter saw it too, but remembers things differently. Together, they revisit the past in search of a common truth. But this search has terrifying, unexpected consequences for them both.

Griffin Production:

DIRECTOR Lee Lewis

DESIGNER Tobhiyah Stone Feller

LIGHTING DESIGNER Benjamin Brockman

COMPOSER & SOUND DESIGNER Daryl Wallis

STAGE MANAGER Isabella Kerdijk

CAST Jack Finsterer, Alfie Gledhill, Anthony Gooley

NIDA Brave New Word Season:

DIRECTOR Sarah Giles

DESIGNER Dann Barber

LIGHTING DESIGNER Issy Stadler

STAGE MANAGER Shannyn Miller

SOUND DESIGNER Aaron Ng

CAST Joshua Anderson, Darcy Brown, Jake Speer

‘Replay,’ Australian Arts Review:

“Memory is the key to who we are,” says Kavanagh. “Our identity is shaped by the events of our past – our triumphs and failures, our happiness and sorrow, our pride and regret. But the past is malleable, our memories are constantly reconstructed, and we don’t truly remember the major events that shape us, but remember remembering them.”

“Kavanagh deftly employs the tight, spiralling logic typical of science-fiction to his family drama, challenging the audience to consider the murky waters of action, reaction, and consequence that stem from every choice.” – Aussie Theatre

“the dialogue is gorgeously written throughout the entire play — a simple and very natural use of language” – Daily Review

”Kavanagh is a playwright to watch and the deceptive gentleness of his writing hides a haunting complexity.” – The Australian.

Replay is published through Currency Press.

In this frantic world of rapidly rising information, our brains are reshaping and our souls are transforming.

Deluge sees five plays run simultaneously as ten characters attempt to find meaning and connection without drowning in the flood. An act of treason. A one-night stand. A prophetic speech. A gamer trolled. A life derailed.

The dam has burst.

DIRECTOR Nescha Jelk

PRODUCER Ben Roberts

SET & COSTUME Elizabeth Gadsby

LIGHTING DESIGN Chris Petridis

SOUND DESIGN Will Spartalis

STAGE MANAGER Alex Hayley

CAST Stuart Fong, Lucy Fry, Antoine Jelk, Ashton Malcolm, Rebecca Mayo, Julie Nixon, Eliza Oliver, Jim Smith, Andrew Thomas, Alex Woollatt

‘Deluge a class act in Adelaide Festival,’ In Daily:

“It’s a really ambitious project,” says Kavanagh . . . “Since 2013, we’ve workshopped and collaborated with all previous and current actors and cast members to flesh out the five storylines which will converge together in an exploration of the information overload we all face on a daily basis.

“Our studies at Flinders not only gave us some great training, but created a close, collegiate clan of creative minds to bring this play to fruition.”

. . . Deluge explores how our lives are overrun by technology. It is described as being akin to “being in the middle of a text message conversation, while watching a video on YouTube, while scrolling through Facebook, while your housemate tries to engage you in conversation, while you’re reading an article online”.

The concurrent stories features a relationship between two strangers, a young man delivering a prophetic speech he hopes will change the world, an online game taking a deadly turn, a US soldier with a dark secret in Iraqi, and a young woman seeking absolution in God.

“This is high-end performance art, and a great experience for all those who are open to new forms and boundary-pushing.” – In Daily

“This is a play which future generations might look back on and gain an understanding of what it was like to be alive in 2016.” – Glam Adelaide

“How interesting and/or important the words of a particular character appear to you will unavoidably affect the choices you are forced to make while experiencing Deluge (and will likely be affected by other factors, such as where in the audience you decide to sit). The approach taken here will challenge you to question - and reflect on - the reasons why we absorb some sources of information while ignoring others.” – Stage Whispers

“Deluge never claims to capture the breadth of lives of those under thirty. Rather, it opens the curtain, ever so gently, into a generation of people making grand missteps, grand achievements or just plodding along their path. Multiple narratives are shown to be possible and of worth. …Perhaps, then, while I wished for fear, this gentleness is the most refreshing and gratifying thing about Deluge. It never tries to be a think piece.” – The Lifted Brow

Orgon leads a blissful, happy life. His extravagant and wealthy lifestyle is perfectly complemented by a marriage to a much younger woman. His daughter is engaged and his son is in love. But when he welcomes the deceptively slick Tartuffe into his family, he unwittingly injects his home with a lethal dose of chaos. Nothing is off limits as Tartuffe exploits Orgon to pilfer his fortune and attempt the seduction of his wife and his daughter. Can the family fight back before it’s too late?

First performed in 1664, Molière’s side-splitting classic combines adultery, betrayal, seduction, lies and deceit with the precisely organised chaos that is known as farce.

DIRECTOR Chris Drummond

DESIGNER Michael Hankin

COMPOSER Alan John

LIGHTING DESIGNER Nigel Levings

CAST Paul Blackwell, Rachel Burke, Antoine Jelk, Alan John, Guy O’Grady, Nathan O’Keefe, Astrid Pill, Jacqy Phillips and Rory Walker

‘Playwright Phillip Kavanagh gets under Tartuffe’s skin,’ The Adelaide Review:

Having adapted the script for Brink and State Theatre Company over the course of a year, Kavanagh says the story’s themes are eternal and relevant to today’s political climate. Hypocrisy and ambiguity, it seems, never go out of style. Politicians at home and abroad, Kavanagh says, have a lot in common with the titular huckster.

“We’ve had a succession of leadership [in Australia] where issues are presented as something we need to take a really hard moral stance on,” says Kavanagh, “and then suddenly the opposite position is the one we need to take a stance on. I mean if you look at climate change policy, and asylum seeker policy, arts policy, there’s a lot of digging that needs to be done before you can understand what someone stands for other than power.”

Political developments in the US are also mirrored in Tartuffe, Kavanagh says, though not by design. It would seem that real-life characters like Donald Trump are kindred spirits with the play’s fictional lead. “Trump is lurking within the heart and soul of this production,” says Kavanagh.

“We keep coming back to Trump as a figure who has been able to gain so much power without us ever being sure what he believes in,” he says. “He’s so good at tapping into people with extremist views and stoke that fire, and that’s something that’s so inherent in the Moliere.”

“Phillip Kavanagh’s brilliant adaptation of Molière’s play is a resounding success: the script is a gift for actors with its witty puns, lewd innuendo, modern references and quality satire which shifts seamlessly from light farce to serious drama in a blink.” – InDaily

“Tartuffe is an unstoppable force of nature. Every aspect of this production – from Kavanagh’s adaptation, to the opulent set, to the cast – is irresistible. Perhaps not for the easily offended, faint of heart, or weak of mind.” – Glam Adelaide

“A new adaptation by Phillip Kavanagh, which includes a nod to Christopher Hampton’s 1983 prose version for the Royal Shakespeare Company, this Tartuffe has more than its share of additional pop culture and political in-jokes, ooh-er double entendres, zany asides and goonishness.” – The Australian

Jesikah follows the rise and fall of its eponymous character; as her online notoriety burgeons, Jesikah's real life starts to become alarmingly unstitched. Supported by her sometimes less than helpful 'BFF' Denise, Jesikah goes to increasingly extreme lengths to convert internet celebrity into real life adoration. But in the world wide web things are not always what they seem . . .

DIRECTOR Nescha Jelk

SET & COSTUME DESIGNER Olivia Zanchetta

COMPOSER & SOUND DESIGNER Will Spartalis

CAST Kate Cheel, Elizabeth Hay

‘Jesikah Study Guide,’ State Theatre Company of South Australia:

Only a very few people actually achieve enduring fame. Yet the new meritocracy of celebrity promises otherwise. In this age of narcissistic individualism, children are raised on the mantra 'I Am Special'. But let’s briefly deconstruct this phrase. The Macquarie dictionary defines “special” as “distinguished or different from what is ordinary or usual.” If everyone is special, then, the word loses all meaning.

“This work for young people is telling them your lives are relevant, your stories are relevant, the theatre is a place where your voices can be heard. It's an exciting development.” – The Guardian

“This is a production that breathes youthful exuberance, grounded in a level of maturity through deft direction by Nescha Jelk, Kavanagh’s writing and the performances of Cheel and Hay” – Aussie Theatre