To create a gem, you need pressure, time and white hot heat. That’s why Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull and Queensland Theatre Company’s Actors Studio are perfect partners.

Daniel Evans marshals an ensemble cast of ten acclaimed Brisbane actors in this contemporary retelling of a play with grand themes that resonate down through the ages. When famed but fading theatrical diva Irina Arkadina brings her entourage – including her lover, the writer Trigorin and tortured avant-garde playwright son Konstantin – to seek solace at her brother’s country hideaway, she unwittingly sets alight a powder keg of repressed emotions. Flames of passion are ignited and extinguished, and the soaring ambitions of this family and the people they love, are tested against life’s brutal realities.

The combined skills of a stellar cast take centre stage in QTC’s Actors Studio production. The enduring brilliance of the text is emphasised in this stripped-back, raw experience that cuts to the heart of the heartbreak in a classic play about all the things which still fascinate humankind – family, power, sex, fame and passion.