Prospect Park Productions - A Play and A Programme

MEDIA RELEASE

Dunedin-based Prospect Park Productions is commencing 2019 with two projects, a new work and the launch of an exciting redevelopment of a programme for new and emerging theatre writers.

Le Sujet Parle: And Then He Shot Me is acclaimed playwright, and current Burns Fellow, Emily Duncan’s newest work and will be premiered during Dunedin Fringe Festival in the Otago Museum’s Beautiful Science gallery. Le Sujet Parle (the subject speaks), featuring striking design from local legend Stephen Kilroy, and an award winning script (Playmarket’s Plays for the Young, 2014), is an exploration of what lies behind an image. Audience members are invited to move around the space while the live performance, image and sound weave around them, merging the lines between what is seen and the seen. Duncan says, “I wrote LSP to explore how photographic subjects' lives are captured, augmented, and contrived within the confines of the 2D image frame, and the show is an invitation for audiences to investigate these notions in an immersive theatrical setting."

Aligning with Prospect Park Productions kaupapa of supporting and developing emerging performing artists, a special preview showing of the production will also be available for high school students. Tickets must be pre-booked via the company directly for this showing.

This kaupapa is integral to Prospect Park Productions’ long term strategy and the launch of the redeveloped mentorship programme in April will form one of the pou that gives the company’s long term vision its strength and sustainability.

Having received funding from the Dunedin City Council, Prospect Park Productions is pleased to signal the return of the Fortune Theatre’s 4x4 Programme in a new format and with a new name and extended kaupapa.

Kilkelly says, “It's still aimed at local new and emerging writers as 4x4 was. What's critical for us (among other things) is that writers are held in a way that works best for them - i.e. the personnel and processes for each writer will be tailored to what the writer understands their specific needs are. We’ve been working on this for the last six months and we’re really looking forward to getting it live.”

The pair are eminently qualified to develop and institute such a programme. Duncan has an extensive history of dramaturgy, directing and other work in theatre practice, and her work has received many awards and accolades, including a Doctorate and her being the Burns Fellow 2019.

Kilkelly has produced specialist writing development platform, Breaking Ground, for Māori, Pasifika and Indigenous writers the last four years. She also produces masterclasses (writing in English, writing in Te Reo, dance, directing, acting) for high school students during Kia Mau Festival, and she has also worked on the development and production of many new works over her career.

More details about the new programme will be available in early April after the official launch, at which time the application process will also open.

LE SUJET PARLE: AND THEN HE SHOT ME

Written and directed by Emily Duncan

Presented by Prospect Park Productions

Performed by Kelly Hocking and Orion Carey-Clark

6pm, 22nd-24th March 2019 as part of the Dunedin Fringe

The Beautiful Science gallery, Otago Museum

Suitable for ages 13+, limited capacity.

While real people are out there killing themselves or other people, the photographer stays behind his or her camera, creating a tiny element of another world: the image-world that bids to outlast us all - From ‘On Photography’, by Susan Sontag.

The characters speak their truth, but is it fallible? What do you miss? What do you misinterpret?

Prospect Park Productions is proud to present the premiere experience of Le Sujet Parle: And Then He Shot Me, an immersive theatrical exploration of what lies behind. Staged in the Beautiful Science gallery (Otago Museum), we invite you to move around the space, while the strands of performance wrap themselves around you. Innovative and provocative, Le Sujet Parle weaves live performance, image and sound to immerse the viewer and merge the lines between what we see and the seen.

Featuring striking design from local legend Stephen Kilroy, and an award winning script (Playmarket’s Plays for the Young, 2014) by current Burns Fellow, Emily Duncan, Le Sujet Parle is not to be missed.

About Prospect Park Productions

Prospect Park Productions was founded in 2016 by Dunedin natives, producer H-J Kilkelly, and playwright Emily Duncan, who bring together decades of combined theatre experience. Prospect Park Production’s first production, Hold Me, played to sell-out houses at BATS Theatre and Emily received a Best New NZ Playwright nomination in the Wellington Theatre Awards for the script.

Shaken, set in post- 2011 earthquake Christchurch, garnered a best actor award in the 2016 Short + Sweet Festival (Wellington).

In 2018, Kilkelly and Duncan launched the multi-award winning three-part thriller podcast, Dark Dunedin: Heaven Looks On during the Dunedin Fringe Festival, and premiered the critically acclaimed Eloise in the Middle at Dunedin Public Art Gallery (winner of Best Script and Outstanding Performance, Dunedin Theatre Awards 2018).

Prospect Park Productions delivers professionally developed and presented performance art (theatre, podcast, visual), and facilitates a platform for new and emerging local playwrights.

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