Theatre: Love and Money

By Dennis Kelly

Directed by Matthew Dunster

Set designer Patrick James Howe

Performed by WAAPA Third Year Acting students Charlotte Davenport, Nicholas Starte, Grace Smilbert, Andreas Lohmeyer, Ayeesha Ash, Joel Horwood, Bill Thompson, Emilie Cocquerel and Kirsty Mariller

Roundhouse Theatre, WAAPA

June 14 - 20, 2013

Nicholas Starte and Ayeesha Ash

I imagine Perth Theatre Company’s AD Melissa Cantwell sitting, a little sadly, in the audience at Love and Money, Dennis Kelly’s savage, sharply realized tragedy about exactly what its title suggests, knowing that her company – which specializes in work with this play’s provenance and stance – could never put a cast of the size it requires on a professional stage in this town.

It’s to our great benefit, then, that WAAPA, our precious nursery of theatre talent, can, and does.

More than that, it's had the great good fortune of having the accomplished English actor/writer/director Matthew Dunster here to direct.  He took the Young Vic production of Love and Money all the way to an Olivier Award nomination. Dunster's experience goes much of the way to explaining the assurance and balance of the play’s staging, and the confidence and courage of its cast of Third Year Acting students.