TELL ME BEFORE THE SUN EXPLODES
When the sun explodes, a countdown begins. Eight minutes before all life on earth is lost. From cockroaches to cancer, to black holes and jelly, Tell Me Before The Sun Explodes is a queer exploration of death anxiety, and how the words gay and dead are used in the same sentence more than we’d like to admit.
Writer // Jacob Parker
Producer // Ella Griffin
Director // Hayden Tonazzi
Set & Costume Designer // Soham Apte
Lighting Designer // Ryan McDonald
Composer & Sound Designer // Chrysoulla Markoulli
Associate Sound Designer // Zac Saric
Assistant Director // Sophia Bryant
Stage Manager // Sybilla Wajon
Cast // Tim McGarry & Joshua Shediak
SUZY GOES SEE ★★★★
“Director Hayden Tonazzi turns Parker’s words into 70 minutes of short, sharp scenes for which our minds race to put the pieces together, as our hearts feel the involuntary pull of Parker’s ephemerally meaningful musings on desire and death”
“The production feels poetic, with a pretty wistfulness that is quite charming in its delicacy.”
“It is a portrait of rare intimacy, the kind of which any person would count themselves lucky to have experienced once in a lifetime.”
NIGHTWRITES
“Director Hayden Tonazzi honoured the emotions of the script with genuine, believable characterisations and a well-developed dynamic between the actors that reflected both the shyness of beginnings and the familiarity of endings. Additionally, though, Tonazzi drew on the thematic ruminations on time and death for a multilayered and considered production design that added significant impact.”
THEATRE THOUGHTS
“Both moments were deftly aided by Hayden Tonazzi’s direction – gently building the tension between them as we witnessed the highs and lows of that connection they always come back to.”
SYDNEY SCOOP
“Tonazzi’s deft touch, sense of tension, change, symbolism, and space felt like the work of a far older and more experienced director. My eyes will be on the horizon and ears to the ground to catch word of his next project.”
“Parker’s text and direction by Hayden Tonazzi gave the evening a very cinematic feel, the approach to design, style and conflict gave me ever so subtle whiffs of Lars Von Trier and his approach to presenting and unpacking crumbling relationships.”
