Montague Basement is an Sydney-based independent theatre company launched in 2014.
Like so many independent companies Montague Basement began as a name to stick on a Fringe show. After collaborating together frequently in the Sydney University Dramatic Society (SUDS) Imogen Gardam and Saro Lusty Cavallari began work on their first independent collaboration Procne & Tereus as part of the 2014 Sydney Fringe. After the show’s warm response from audiences and critics Montague Basement began to establish itself as a company in 2015 with All About Medea at the Sydney Fringe and Hamlet at PACT Theatre.
After launching the company through their own collaboration Montague Basement expanded to collaborate with other young artists throughout Sydney. 2016 saw the presentation of eight different works, an unprecedented feat for an unfunded and unhoused independent company. This season saw two new works by playwright Charles O’Grady (Kaleidoscope, Telescope), Lusty-Cavallari’s original work The Big Bruise, an ambitious three-show residency at the Sydney Fringe (Tammy & Kite, Metamorphoses, Crave) and a double bill of radical reworkings of two Shakespeare plays (Macbeth and Taming of the Shrew).
Since then Montague Basement has remained a continued presence in Sydney independent theatre - both as a platform for emerging artists and as a home for Gardam and Lusty-Cavallari’s continued collaboration, branching out to include two interstate presentations with The Public Domain Opera at the 2018 Melbourne Fringe and Kim Ho’s The Great Australian Play at Theatre Works in 2020. See our Past Shows to see what else we’ve been up to.
For any enquiries about getting involved in any area of production or presenting a previous Montague Basement show please don’t hesitate to get in touch. To stay up to date on all news about upcoming productions please subscribe to our newsletter.
CO-FOUNDER/CO-DIRECTOR - IMOGEN GARDAM
Imogen Gardam is the co-director and co-founder of Montague Basement. She has produced all of the company’s seventeen productions since its inception in 2014. Imogen Gardam is the Associate Producer, Programming at Griffin Theatre Company. Prior to joining Griffin, Imogen worked at Bell Shakespeare as Executive Assistant and Artistic Administrator from 2015. Imogen is a graduate of Media and Communications from the University of Sydney, and has previously worked for Hopscotch Features, Entertainment One Australia and The Festivalists. Imogen was the 2018 winner of the Rose Byrne Scholarship for an Emerging Female Leader in the Arts, and is a Board Director for Theatre Network NSW of which she was appointed Deputy Chair in May 2019. Imogen has been published in Lumina Journal, Audrey Journal, Honi Soit and on Four Three Film.
CO-FOUNDER/CO-DIRECTOR - SARO LUSTY-CAVALLARI
Saro Lusty-Cavallari is the co-director and co-founder of Montague Basement. After extensive work with the Sydney University Dramatic Society he made his independent debut writing and directing Procne & Tereus at Tap Gallery for the 2014 Sydney Fringe. Between 2015 and 2017 Saro directed six plays in Sydney including the original works All About Medea (Old 505, Sydney Fringe 2015) and The Big Bruise (107 Projects, 2016), Shakespeare's Hamlet (PACT, 2015) and Macbeth (PACT, 2016), Sarah Kane's Cleansed (PACT, Sydney Fringe 2017) and Elana Costa's new Australian work Before Lysistrata (KXT Theatre, 2017). With Montague Basement he also dramaturged and designed Australian playwright Charles O'Grady's Kaleidoscope (KXT Theatre, 2016) and Telescope (Sight and Sound Festival, 2016). He made his Melbourne directorial debut with the new devised work The Public Domain Opera (The Butterfly Club, Melbourne Fringe 2018). In 2019 he directed the original devised work Nosferatu: A Fractured Symphony (Old 505 Theatre, 2019) and an immersive production of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Blood On The Cat's Neck (KXT Theatre, 2019). In 2020 he returned to Melbourne to direct the world premier of Patrick White Award-winning playwright Kim Ho’s The Great Australian Play at Theatre Works. He has been directorial secondment for Peter Evans (Richard 3, Bell Shakespeare), Leticia Cáceres (Emma Matthews: The Space Between, Arts Centre Melbourne) and Eamon Flack (The Life of Galileo, Belvoir). He recently completed his Masters of Directing for Performance at the Victorian College of the Arts.
MONTAGUE BASEMENT’S REPEAT OFFENDERS (2 OR MORE SHOWS)
Robert Boddington
Sam Brewer
Lucy Burke
Christian Byers
Alex Chalwell
Hannah Cox
Grace Deacon
Laura Djanegara
Alex Francis
Lulu Howes
Charles O’Grady
Sophie Pekbilimli
Kurt Pimblett
David Potter
Jem Rowe
Michaela Savina
Eleni Schumacher
Annie Stafford
Caitlin West