NEWK. The John Newcombe Story
Starring Damian Callinan
Wednesday 24 April 1:30pm
NEWK,
written by award-winning Australian playwright Kieran Carroll and
performed by three-time Barry Award nominee and star of the hit film The
Merger, Damian Callinan, traces the life of the great
Australian tennis champion of the 1960s and 70s, John Newcombe.
Set
in 2014 at Newk’s 70th birthday in Sydney, Newcombe’s journey travels from
naïve 1960s schoolboy to the #1 player in the world in the 1970s, to his
time as Davis Cup Captain, to the stroke he suffered in 2003.
Numerous
well-known guests drop by to celebrate his special day and share the
memories. Both drama and comedy, the play portrays a highly determined and
ambitious man burning through a quickly changing world. Aware he’s putting
his family second emotionally while conscious of providing for them
financially, the play exposes the exhausting schedules that even players
of yesteryear endured. Volatile off-court politics are also rife as the
game moves into full blown professionalism.
The play also captures
hilarious moments from some of Newcombe’s numerous commercials and
business enterprises: Cinzano, bananas, Canon cameras and K-Tel tennis
instruction albums!
NEWK. The John Newcombe Story is
a grand story about wanting life to be a huge ride, where rest is
secondary and finally how that zest and appetite for life never disappears
but needs to be tempered!
Duration: 60 minutes with no
intermission
Member: $10
Full: $20
Concession:
$17
Group 8+: $15
