Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets
DIRECTION / Matthew Lutton
15 SEP – 8 OCT 2017
Merlyn Theatre
★★★★½ 'Stylish and soulful, wild and disturbing and darkly funny' — The Age
A naïve hunter travels to a crossroads in the dead of night to conjure the devil. He’s willing to bargain almost anything in exchange for magic silver bullets that will never miss their mark. But the devil makes cunning deals—just when you think you can have it all, you may have unwittingly given it all away.
Who else could write a macabre musical about a pact with the devil, but Tom Waits and William S. Burroughs? Cry-in-beer ballads meet 1920s jazz and gritty beat poetry, in a carnival of addictions. Black Rider is a spectacle that pulls the audience into the dark and decadent depths of the underworld.
Malthouse Theatre and Victorian Opera team up to create a theatrical fantasia with some of Australia’s greatest seducers, including Meow Meow, Paul Capsis and Kanen Breen in a production that is part vaudeville, part opera, and all dance with the devil.
PRODUCTION PARTNERS AND SUPPORTERS
A co-production with Victorian Opera. Presented in association with Melbourne Festival.
©2005 St. Rose Music Publishing Co., Inc. Used by Permission.
Key Image: Zan Wimberley
Images: Pia Johnson
DIRECTION /
Matthew Lutton
ORIGINAL MUSIC & LYRICS /
Tom Waits
CAST INCLUDES /
Kanen Breen, Paul Capsis, Jacqueline Dark, Winston Hillyer, Le Gateau Chocolat, Meow Meow, Richard Piper & Dimity Shepherd
MUSICAL DIRECTION /
Phoebe Briggs
MUSIC SUPERVISION /
Iain Grandage
SET & COSTUME DESIGN /
Zoë Atkinson
LIGHTING DESIGN /
Paul Jackson
SOUND DESIGN /
Jim Atkins
SOUNDSCAPE DESIGN /
Jethro Woodward
CHOREOGRAPHER /
Stephanie Lake
STAGE MANAGER /
Lisa Osborn
ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER /
Luke Hales
ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER/RADIO MIC TECHNICIAN /
Jess Frost
SCENIC ARTIST /
Patrick Jones
ORIGINAL DIRECTION /
Robert Wilson
MUSIC & LYRICS /
Tom Waits
TEXT /
William S. Burroughs
ORIGINAL MUSICAL ARRANGEMENTS /
Greg Cohen and Tom Waits
DRAMATURGY /
Wolfgang Wiens
Event & ticketing details
Accessibility
Performance Times
PREVIEWS
OPENING NIGHT
TIME TO TALK
AUDIO DESCRIBED & TACTILE TOUR
Event notes
DURATION /
1 hour, 40 minutes (no interval)
WARNINGS /
Contains drug references and some violent imagery.