Summer of the Seventeenth Doll
A beautifully observed, humorous, and poignant play!
Plays and playwrights go in and out of fashion but some endure and speak to each subsequent generation. Lawler’s much loved tale of Queensland cane cutters and Melbourne barmaids has endured, not through nostalgia, nor because it spawned a new age in Australian writing, but because the characters and their dilemmas are so true, so beautifully observed, so humorous and so poignant.
A triumph at its 1955 Melbourne premiere, it was followed by a national tour and hugely successful season in London’s West End where it won an award for best new play.
For sixteen years two Queensland cane cutters have worked the punishing routine up north in the sugar cane fields for seven months of the year and travelled back to Melbourne to meet up for five months of partying and romance with their barmaid girlfriends. This seventeenth summer everything is different. One of the barmaids has ‘settled down’ and married a city bloke so a replacement date has had to be found. This ‘off-season’ proves challenging for them all.
This production will be directed by the award-winning Denny Lawrence whose history with HIT includes many successful productions including Shirley Valentine, Always…Patsy Cline, Educating Rita, Glorious! Hotel Sorrento and most recently, My Brilliant Divorce. Denny will be supported by a highly-experienced creative team.
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“This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body”