Run by: Maria Contact:By Form Since: January 2011 Host:FanFusion Fans Online:
All graphics and original content belong to Cate Blanchett Source. Other photos and text belongs to their respective owners. No copyright infringment intended. This is an unofficial website - we have no official affiliation with Ms. Blanchett or her management.
There are so many articles written about Cate and Andrew leaving STC and here is one for you to read:
“It’s been an interesting experiment but enough is enough.”
This was the thinking at the Sydney Theatre Company about the departure of Cate Blanchett and her husband, Andrew Upton, as co-artistic directors.
It is believed the decision by the couple and the STC board was mutual. Blanchett and Upton will leave next year after the end of their second term in charge.
Advertisement: Story continues below
The STC’s general manager, Patrick McIntyre, said Blanchett and Upton, a playwright and stage director, had always wanted an orderly succession and would like to work with the new artistic director rather than dump a 2014 program on them.
After a long successful time with Sydney Theatre Company it seems like its the time to pass on to other projects:
Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton are to step down as artistic directors of Sydney Theatre Company at the end of next year.
STC general manager Patrick McIntyre last night confirmed to The Australian that the company has engaged a recruitment firm to appoint a new artistic leadership.
The pair have been joint directors of the company since 2008, when they succeeded Robyn Nevin.
Rumours of their intended departure gained momentum this week amid a report that Blanchett may star as Cleopatra opposite Richard Roxburgh in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra.
STC said British director Declan Donnellan had conducted workshops with company actors last week. A spokesman said that Antony and Cleopatra was one project being considered.
Blanchett has brought undeniable lustre to STC productions she appeared in, such as A Streetcar Named Desire, Uncle Vanya and The War of the Roses. Upton has written original plays and adaptations for the company, including an acclaimed Uncle Vanya.
The pair have revitalised the Wharf Theatre and are making it an environmentally sustainable building.
Unlike in previous years, Blanchett is not appearing on the Sydney stage this year. She will appear with the company in Uncle Vanya in New York and in a European tour of Gross Und Klein.
The pair’s contract as co-artistic directors is through to 2013.
It is one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies but its scale is so epic and the roles for its two lead characters are so dependent on an electrifying sexual chemistry that it is rarely performed. The most famous pairing of Antony and Cleopatra was Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in the 1963 film Cleopatra, which wasn’t actually based on the play, and one of the most recent high-profile stage productions was in London in 1998 starring Helen Mirren and Alan Rickman, though his performance as Mark Antony was panned for having the charisma of a tax accountant.
But last week in Sydney, Cate Blanchett and Richard Roxburgh took on the roles of the blistering Queen of Egypt and the beguiled Roman ruler in a two-day workshop at the Sydney Theatre Company with a view to a full-scale production in Sydney at the end of next year, followed by a European tour. If the production proceeds, Blanchett’s turn as Cleopatra is likely to be one of the most anticipated theatre performances of the decade – anywhere in the world.
The workshop last Thursday and Friday, which involved 13 other actors, was arranged for the British theatre director Declan Donnellan and designer Nick Ormerod, who will stage the play for STC if a full production goes ahead. Donnellan and Ormerod came to Australia with their acclaimed theatre company Cheek By Jowl, which is staging Tis Pity She’s A Whore this week at the Sydney Festival. It is believed the STC production will go ahead only if Blanchett and her husband, Andrew Upton, decide to retire from their co-artistic directorship of the company; their contract ends in November next year. It is understood her role as Cleopatra is intended as her STC swansong.
Cate was at the ‘OASIS Homeless Short Film competition Awards’ on December 9 in Sydney. And here is some of her words about the competition:
“Well, I’ve had a major connection with Oasis since I saw the first documentary that was screened here at the Sydney Theatre about three years ago. But obviously being a parent and I now have a son who is moving into his teenage years. He’s just turned 10, and you’re acutely aware as a parent who’s able to provide a certain amount of safety and privilege for your children just how many children don’t have that same experience, so I think your heart reaches out to children who are in dire circumstances.”
Theatre in Sydney is experiencing an “underground swell” with promising writers creating works in a “Kamikaze way”, according to Cate Blanchett.
“It feels like it’s coming alive in Sydney again, which is very exciting,” the actor said. “I think there are a lot of interesting boys coming out of NIDA, but there are also … some interesting theatre makers – groups of people who are getting together to create work off their own bat and do it in quite a Kamikaze way.”
On Friday, Blanchett announced the winners of the inaugural Oasis Homelessness Short Festival Competition for young people at the Sydney Theatre. She applauded their creativity: “They all took a different perspective and they really tried to shake themselves out of their own experiences and place themselves into the shoes of the almost 50,000 homeless youth that are in Australia.”
A Queensland student, Warrick Beanland, from Harrison State High School, was awarded the top prize for his short animation Homeless, winning $7000 for his school.
Blanchett, who is co-artistic director for the Sydney Theatre Company with her husband, Andrew Upton, said the future of theatre hinged on an “ongoing conversation” with actors and writers around the world.
One conversation has been with a former co-star, the American actor Kevin Spacey, who is currently starring in the Sydney season of Richard III, which ends today.
While here, Spacey saw Blanchett perform in Botho Strauss’s Gross und Klein at the Sydney Theatre.
Cate Blanchett and Benedict Andrews share the curious complexities and pleasures of bringing Botho Strauss’s Gross und Klein to the stage.
When Cate Blanchett and Benedict Andrews emerge from the rehearsal room at the end of another long day, they are still deep in conversation. It’s week six. The pair share an intensity and intellectual curiosity that is sometimes hard to keep up with. But their passion for theatre and its audience is crystal clear. As they prepare the biggest production of the year for the Sydney Theatre Company, they find time to eat, laugh and share their thoughts on each other’s craft – both embarrassing and inspirational.
LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: There’s a new push to integrate drama right across the school curriculum instead of as a stand-alone subject, and one of Australia’s most famous actresses is at the campaign’s forefront. Cate Blanchett has joined forces with a Sydney University academic to run a drama program in schools to help teachers find their inner thespian and students improve their literacy. Natasha Johnson reports.
NATASHA JOHNSON, REPORTER: At Haberfield Public School in Sydney’s inner-west, this is how you’d expect to see children to learn about literacy. And this is how they learn when there’s drama in the classroom.
A new interview with Cate and Andrew by TimeOut (Australia):
Sydney Theatre Company’s 2012 season encompasses Dylan Thomas, Ingmar Bergman, Tim Winton and Eliza Doolittle. Darryn King speaks to Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton ahead of their fourth season as co-artistic directors of STC.
Who are you wearing, Cate?
Cate: Who am I wearing? I’m wearing wool which is really awful on a day like today.
Even one more event and you can read a blog about this event it has some interesting quotes on Cate:
Finally, prompted by taunts from my photographer, I walked up and asked Cate Blanchett a question: “did you consider playing anything this season?” And how could I not ask? Madame de Merteuil in Les Liaisons Dangereuses might as well have been written for her!
“Oh no! Pam Rabe was just born to play that part – thank you darling” a waiter refills her glass. We then go on to talk about the line-up of plays. Face to Face – a risky and decidedly complex adaptation of the Ingmar Bergman film, and hubby Andrew’s labour of love with Simon Stone – is one her favourites. “In fact I really would have loved to have been in it, but I can’t take all the plum roles now can I?”
Laughter. Effortless grace. Tres tres Aussie chic – that’s Our Cate.
The Hobbit: There and Back Again (2013)
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
Hanna (2011)
STC 2012 Season
Gross und Klein (2012)
Uncle Vanya (2012)
