Merrigong Theatre Company and Christine Dunstan productions will present TIM

Merrigong Theatre Company and Christine Dunstan productions will present TIM, at Illawarra Performing Arts Centre 16 – 19 August as part of its premiere regional tour. TIM a novel written by Australian icon Colleen McCullough and has been sensitively adapted for the stage by acclaimed playwright Tim McGarry.

An unorthodox relationship develops between Mary, a career-driven business executive in her mid-50s, and Tim, a handsome 25-year-old labourer with a mild intellectual disability. Tim has grown up in a small but loving, working-class family who have tried to shelter him from the cruelness of the world. What begins as a chance meeting between them, soon develops into a life-changing relationship with shattering consequences.

Merrigong Theatre Company’s Acting Artistic Director, Leland Kean, said, “Colleen McCullough’s Tim, is an icon, and one of the greatest Australian novels of all time. It is so wonderful to present this work adapted for the stage by the brilliant Australian playwright and Theatre maker, Tim McGarry.”

TIM features a stellar cast with Ben Goss, a young man with a disability and recent graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, in the title role. Joining Ben on stage will be Valerie Bader, Akkshey Caplash, Jeanette Cronin, Andrew McFarlane and Julia Robertson.

Whilst Tim’s disability is never labelled in the play, it is a constant, underlying theme. Embedded in the story is the importance of embracing differences, opening oneself to the fullness of life and the opportunities it has to offer. Filled with notions of love, loss and acceptance, and set in the modern day, this seminal Australian story has been sensitively adapted for the stage by playwright Tim McGarry.

Tim McGarry recently adapted Trent Dalton’s Boy Swallows Universe for Queensland Theatre/QPAC and has recently created a new work for the Australian Chamber Orchestra. Between 2005-2017 Tim was a Creative Director and Producer at Monkey Baa, one of Australia’s largest touring companies for young audiences. He has facilitated countless workshops for students and teachers throughout metropolitan, regional, and remote school communities and has worked extensively supporting people with a disability living in residential care.

Colleen McCullough is regarded as one of Australia’s most successful novelists, best known for her second novel The Thorn Birds and for her Masters Of Rome series, a fictionalised account of Rome in the age of Julius Caesar. She remains one of Australia’s highest selling authors with over 80 million books sold worldwide, 30 million of which are for TIM, and translated into 30 plus languages. She penned TIM in 1974. First entitled Not The Full Quid, this beautiful work has spawned two movies, the first starring a very young Mel Gibson.

TIM will be directed by Darren Yap, with Set Design James Browne, Costume Design Lucy M Scott, Lighting Ben Hughes, and Sound Design Max Lambert.

TIM is Produced by Christine Dunstan, Christine Dunstan Productions.