VIRTUAL CONTEXT ROOM
RAZORHURST
A musical
Book and lyrics by Kate Mulley
Music by Andy Peterson
About the Play
In 1929, the streets of Sydney, Australia ran with blood as a pair of notorious crime bosses led their rival empires to war. The twist? These two crime bosses were women. Kate Leigh and Tilly Devine spent years battling for control of the booze, drug, and prostitution trades. This new musical traces their historical reign as queens of their domains, and asks if they were truly evil ladies - or just enterprising women ahead of their time.
World of the Play
Meet the Creators of RAZORHURST
Kate Mulley (Librettist/Lyricist) is a playwright, librettist/lyricist, producer, dramaturg and founding member of Vox Theater. Her work has been developed and performed on three continents at theaters including Luna Stage, Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center, Dixon Place, the Flea, Northern Stage (VT), Theatre503 and the Soho Theatre (London). Kate has been a Playwriting Fellow at Shanghai Theatre Academy, a Tennessee Williams Scholar at the Sewanee Writers Conference, and a finalist for the Juilliard Playwriting Fellowship. She graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in Theater and History, received an MA in Writing for Performance at Goldsmiths College, London, and an MFA in Playwriting from Columbia University. She currently lives in New York.
Andy Peterson (Composer/ Music Director) is a New York based composer, musical director, arranger and orchestrator originally hailing from the Land Down Under who mainly works in the development of new theatrical works. Composer credits include: Stalker: The Musical (New York, Chicago, [upcoming] Sydney) and Outlaw (currently in workshops). Selected Musical Director/Arranger/Orchestrator credits: OFF-BROADWAY: Red Roses, Green Gold (currently playing Minetta Lane Theatre), Atomic (Theatre Row). NEW YORK/REGIONAL: More Than All The World (Theatre for the New City), Night Tide (NYMF), Shaken, Not Stirred (The Django), Thrill Me (Luna Stage), Grindr: The Opera (CMTF), Baby Fat (La Mama). INTERNATIONAL: Sinbad: The Musical (arranger/orchestrator for the Malaysian Tour), Kiss Me, Kate (conductor for the Chinese Tour), Bare (Sydney), Pippin (Sydney). FILM: Happy Yummy Chicken [starring Taryn Manning from Orange Is The New Black] http://andypetersonmusic.com.au
Community Partners
Come early and experience our "onstage coffee shop," with coffee and tea on sale by the artfullbean!
SET DESIGN
COSTUME DESIGN
Chronology
The Truth
Weekly Publication on the East Sydney Community
Since 1908
“On 8 August 1929, Kellett Street was the site of a vicious prolonged brawl between the warring gangs of Kate Leigh and Tilly Devine that ended with shopfronts and cars destroyed, windows smashed, and a dozen combatants hospitalised with serious razor slashes and gunshot wounds.”
—Razor: A true story of slashers, gangsters, prostitutes, and sly grog by Larry Writer
“Razorhurst, Gunhurst, Bottlehurst, Dopehurst—it used to be Darlinghurst, one of the finest quarters of a rich and beautiful city; today it is a plague spot where the spawn of the gutter grow and fatten on official apathy. By day it shelters in its alleys, in its dens, the Underworld people. At night it looses them to prey on prosperity, decency and virtue, and to fight one another for the division of the spoils. The menace increases and nothing is done. Authority sleeps as though the day were not approaching when Underworld Dictators will terrorise the community with threats of certain death at the hands of their bravos.
Inadequate policing and an out of date Crimes Act are the fertilisers of this Field of Evil. Truth demands that Razorhurst be swept off the map and the Darlinghurst we knew in better days be restored.”
—Truth, September 1928
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Long before rehearsals begin for a play, designers meet with the director for Production Meetings. Here, they start to share ideas about
how the play will come to life on stage through the set, sound,
lighting, and costumes. From these discussions, they do research, create sketches, plots, and templates for how those ideas will be actualized.
Did you know? The Razorhurst set is based on a real cafe in Sydney!
INTERVIEW WITH THE CREATORS
OF RAZORHURST
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What images, sounds, ideas came to you first?
Kate: We first imagined Kate and Tilly telling their stories in a cabaret setting. We wanted the audience sitting in a bar or cabaret listening to these women sing about their lives. Tilly loved vaudeville and wanted to be a music hall star so that setting felt appropriate for them. We moved the action to a contemporary coffee shop, but retained much of the cabaret quality. One of the first songs we wrote was On the West End of London, which very much explores that side of Tilly and her conflation of prostitution and performance.
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How did you come to work together, and what is your process of collaboration?
Kate : Andy and I were introduced by Benita de Wit and immediately got along. We're both prolific and industrious artists. When working on a project, we tend to talk through our ideas a lot, with occasional breaks for gossip, chocolate and alcohol. For the most part, Razorhurst has developed with text first and Andy writing music after a version of the text has been written. We have successfully written songs while sitting next to each other at a piano or when we're in separate states sending texts and music files back and forth.
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Some of the things that intrigued us about the idea of this musical were also the things that made it challenging to write: that it was a two-character musical, and that the characters were rivals as opposed to lovers. Can you you talk about what makes that challenging? What were some of the different story or style ideas you played with as you were finding how to tell this story?
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Kate : The primary focus of a two-character musical needs to be the relationship between the two characters. Because Kate and Tilly were rivals, we had to find a way to get them in the same room and willing to do more than argue. So at first we thought we could set the show at a moment when the two of them were negotiating the terms of a truce. But the song moments in that draft felt forced and the stakes didn't feel high enough to warrant a musical. Eventually we landed on this idea of the two of them returning to Sydney as spirits with something to prove to one another and to the audience and that felt like the best way to make them sing and to keep them engaged with one another and with the audience.
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Watching you find the style and tone of the piece has been a fun process. What have been some of your inspirations in finding the tone?
Kate: I thought a lot about musicals like Chicago, Gypsy, and Cabaret and how they portray criminal behavior and ambition and the desire to entertain in women. The TV shows MISS FISHER'S MURDER MYSTERIES and PEAKY BLINDERS were inspirations as well. And then reading What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton helpful me find the emotional center of the show.
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Favorite scene, line, song, or historical anecdote that didn't make it into this draft?
Kate: We wrote Tilly this lovely swirling Bond-like number called Diamonds that doesn't have a dramatugically sound place in the current draft of the show. Sadly.
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How did you first become aware of Kate Leigh and Tilly Devine? What was it about them that stuck with you or triggered your imagination?
Andy: Last year, Kate and I were working on another Australian musical [Outlaw] with an Australian director friend, Benita deWit. Benita sent through the Rejected Princesses cartoon of the story of Tilly and Kate and something in me was really entertained and moved by the journeys these ladies took during their life. I thought "This would make a great musical". The story of these two kickass ladies felt really relevant in this age of female empowerment as they used their gender as an advantage to corner the market at the time and I knew this was a story I wanted to tell with Kate at the helm of writing it. A week later, Cheryl contacted me about the possibility of being commissioned to write a musical and asked for me to pitch some ideas. It seemed like fate so I talked with Kate about the commission who was excited by the idea. We said we definitely wanted to tell a female-centric story that didn't focus on the love of a man and so Kate and Tilly's story felt like it ticked all the boxes. We put forward the idea to Cheryl who latched onto it and thus Razorhurst was born.
Starring
Catherine made her Broadway debut in Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up? She played opposite Anjelica Huston in the L.A. production of Tamara, and she was in the L.A. company of CATS, and the national tour of Beauty and the Beast. She received a Los Angeles Dramalogue Critics' Award for her performance as Eva in Evita. She has portrayed Mary Todd Lincoln in Civil War Voices at The Midtown International Theater Festival, and The York Theater play reading series in New York City. Regional credits include Norma, in Sunset Blvd at Cohoes Music Hall, and Paper Moon, at The Goodspeed Opera House, and The Walnut Street Theater. As a company member of The Hippodrome Theater of Gainesville, Florida, she has performed in many productions including, The Great American Trailer Park Musical, The Memory of Water, The Carpetbagger’s Children, and most recently in the play, Becky's New Car. Catherine is on the advisory board of Central Alabama Theater, and has performed there in The Bikinis, as well as her one woman show, Judy Calls: The Music of Judy Garland. Currently, Catherine is based out of Weehawken, New Jersey where she shares a home with her husband and daughter.
Claire McClanahan was last seen in Luna Stage Company's 2016 production of Old Love, New Love and couldn't be happier to be back. As an actor she has appeared Off-Broadway, in regional theater, and independent film projects. Most recently, appearing in the web series, Rent a Friend (Brooklyn Web Fest, NYC Web Fest). As a writer/producer, her work has been honored at the Gracie Allen, Telly, and New England Emmy Awards and screened at the Arizona and LA Shorts Film Festivals. She has most recently completed a new documentary series with Guinness World Records / Facebook, and is developing a new narrative series with director, Tracie Laymon (recently named to IFC's list of emerging "Icons"), writer Vanessa Stewart (Stoneface, Louis and Keely: Live at the Sahara), and star, French Stewart (Third Rock From The Sun, Mom, Seinfeld, The Larry Sanders Show, Just Shoot Me, The Drew Carey Show and News Radio.) Her debut feature film, Carbon, was a semi-finalist in the 2016 Nashville Film Festival Screenwriting competition, an official project in the Big Vision Empty Wallet film/media incubator, and was a finalist for the 2017 Tribeca Film Institute All-Access and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grants. clairemcclanahan.com , carbonthefilm.com.
Claire McClanahan (Tilly Devine)
Catherine Fries Vaughn (Kate Leigh)
“But why was there unprecedented savagery in East Sydney from 1927 until the outbreak of World War II, the period that encompassed the so-called razor-gang wars? Razorhurst was the result of an ill-starred confluence of between-the-wars social conditions, well-intended but wrong-headed laws, and a truly extraordinary group of ambitious and ruthless crime entrepreneurs determined to cash in on vices beloved of Australians. Given the collision of these elements, Razorhurst could never not have been.”
—Razor: A true story of slashers, gangsters, prostitutes, and sly grog by Larry Writer
Tilly Devine
Kate Leigh
V.S.
a.k.a.
The Queen of the Underworld
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Born: Dubbo, Australia
1881-1964
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Best known for:
Selling sly grog
(illegal alcohol)
as well as
Perjury, Fencing stolen goods, shoplifting, selling cocaine
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Total convictions:
107
a.k.a.
The Queen of the Bordellos
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Born: Camberwell, London, England
1900-1970
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Best known for:
Running brothels
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as well as
Prostitution, indecent behavior, 'gingering', selling cocaine
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Total convictions:
204
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What is gingering?
​Gingering—a skill that Tilly Devine encouraged in her prostitutes—was the ​crime of picking a customer's pockets while he was engaged in the act of intercourse.
What is Razorhurst?
Razorhurst is a sensationalist nickname for the neighborhood of Darlinghurst and surrounding areas as crime rates rose.
​1881—Kathleen Mary Josephine Beahan (“Kate Leigh”) born in Dubbo, a small town in rural Australia.
1899–Kate Leigh moves to Sydney after spending several years in Paramatta Industrial School (reform school).
1900–Matilda Mary Twiss (“Tilly Devine”) born in the slums of Camberwell, South London.
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1915–Tilly Devine becomes a prostitute
in London
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1916–Tilly meets Australian soldier
Jim Devine, who she would marry the following year. They have a son, Frederick.
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1920–Tilly arrives in Australia on a war
bride ship to join husband Jim; begins working as a prostitute in East Sydney. She racks up 79 arrests in between 1921–1925. In 1925, she is jailed for two years for ‘malicious wounding.’
1927–Tilly is released from prison and uses the gender loophole in the Police Offenses Act of 1908 to become a madam. She begins a network of brothels.
1900–Kate gives birth to daughter Eileen, with petty crook James Lee or Leigh.
1902–James charged with beating and stealing from landlord; Kate receives her first charge of perjury for defending him.
1914–Kate’s current flame, Samuel “Jewey” Freeman, is part of the groundbreaking Eveleigh Robbery (the first time a getaway car was used!). She (unconvincingly) alibis him on the stand and receives a perjury conviction for 7 years. Eileen, 14, is sent to a convent while Kate is in prison.
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1919–Kate is paroled early and begins her sly-grog empire.
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Kate Leigh
Tilly Devine
Police Offenses Act of 1908
This act creates a gender-based legal loophole by prohibiting “a male person” from knowingly living on the earnings of prostitution.
The Consorting Clause -1929
With this act, it became a crime to be in the company of “reputed criminals or known prostitutes or persons who have been convicted of having no visible lawful means of support.” It carried a sentence of up to six months hard labor.
Dangerous Drug Act -1927
Cocaine had been previously sold in small amounts by pharmacists and physicians as a nerve soother. This law prohibited its sale, driving business underground.
Pistol Licensing Act of 1927
This act deals an automatic prison sentence to anyone carrying an unlicensed firearm. The Act led to the subsequent rise of “razor crime” as criminals began to carry shaving razors (straight-edge razors) as weapons instead.
1927-1936“The Razor Wars”
This period was the height of violence among the vice empires in Sydney’s underworld as they fought for control of the drug trade, territory, and settled constant vendettas. In the first three years alone, over 500 razor attacks were recorded in Sydney, with many more going unreported. It was also the height of Kate Leigh and Tilly Devine’s power—and rivalry.
Liquor Act of 1916
This act prohibits the sale of alcohol after 6 p.m., leading to a phenomenon of “the six o’clock swill” and the rise of illegal after-hours drinking locales known as “sly grogs.”
Crimes Amendment Bill of 1930
This bill provided an automatic six-month sentence for anyone in unlawful possession of a razor. Those convicted of using the razor were flogged as well as jailed.
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In 1964, Kate Leigh suffers a stroke, goes into coma, dies in hospital. Her funeral is a huge public event, and her passing is described as “a bit of good old Australian history that’s gone.”
In 1968, Tilly finally turns off the red light and goes straight. In 1970, Tilly Devine dies of cancer. Only a handful of mourners attended her cremation.
In 1936, newly minted Police Commissioner William Mackay brings Kate and Tilly to a truce to deter the gang-related violence and cocaine trade. He agrees to consider sly grog and prostitution as inherently victimless crimes and minimally police their businesses if they will cut out the violence and the cocaine—and agree to inform on each other. Violence goes down.
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World War II disrupts business models. Austerity cuts into business, then Australian men go to war and American and international servicemen arrive.
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In the 1940s and 50s, Tilly and Kate fight a war of appearances, trying to curry support and cultivate images of importance and status.
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In 1954, Kate is required to pay back taxes and is declared bankrupt. In 1955, Tilly is required to pay back taxes and loses most of her assets. Rumours abound about hidden “stashes” of jewels and cash around Sydney.
In 1955, law are changed and pubs can legally serve alcohol until 10 p.m., putting the final nail in the coffin of sly grog.
1936–1970: The Decline of Kate and Tilly’s Empires
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