These monologues successfully captured the feeling of being 17, with all the angst and humour and romance that comes with it. These young writers are ambitious and in-tune with the concerns of their peers. The topics explored included young queer love, the pressures of high school, grappling with grief as a teenager, and young women’s relationships to their mothers.
Category: Theatre
Laneikka Denne and Parker Craig Talk About Why We Need Teenagers Writing Teen Stories
“I saw a lot of media that paraded around this expected idea of youth that was fun and good and rebellious, but in my life, I wasn’t having that… When I was coming out of high school, I was like “this sucked, and all of the media about it said it wouldn’t suck”. I was disappointed, and I wanted to write something that tells you the truth—that the teenage dream is such a lie!”
Review: Fangirls (2022) at Sydney Opera House
I truly believe Fangirls has the potential to play on a Broadway stage one day, and hope it continues to grow and improve with each iteration. Fangirls is a joyful, hilarious show that demonstrates an incisive understanding of contemporary fandom culture in the internet age, and I can’t wait to see it staged again.
Review: STC’s Chalkface at the Sydney Opera House
As a political commentary about how some of society’s most important and hard-working individuals—teachers—are systematically undervalued and overlooked, Chalkface succeeds. However, as a comedy—which the play is marketed as—Chalkface is a disappointment.
Review: Looking for Alibrandi at Belvoir
Looking for Alibrandi is a thoughtful depiction of a teenage girl torn between cultural identities, and a moving tale of mothers and daughters. Ultimately, I was disappointed by the director and designer’s use of the Belvoir space. While the production lacked the warmth of the original writing, the funny, loving lead performances of Macri and Mastrantone are a joy to watch, and it is well worth seeing.
Review: The Lifespan of a Fact at STC
The script is not subtle in its moralising about facts versus art, but it is effective. STC’s marketing evoked Aaron Sorkin, which is an apt comparison. Jim is agonisingly pedantic about the facts, and John is a pretentious egotist. Neither of them are fully likeable, and neither are 100% right or wrong— the writers let you decide where you fall. Jim and John’s battle is the clash of pragmatism and high-mindedness, a battle against what is correct, and what is dramatically compelling.
Anatomy of a Suicide: One of the Best Plays of the Year
Birch’s script is complex, ambitious, and tightly constructed. For almost all of the play, these three women and their stories of motherhood exist on stage simultaneously, defying realism in favour of compelling and abstract storytelling. Birch boldly raises big questions about fate, mental illness and intergenerational trauma.
Jacinta Gregory is Throwing Herself an Intervention and You’re All Invited
“MY INTERVENTION is basically a mini-musical where we are going through all of the reasons why I’m “fucked up” and why I deserve to have an intervention.
And it’s about mental health and your own neuroses and ego and narcissism, but it’s in a funny way, in a cute way.”
Joint Custody are Making It Up as They Go
“To me, improv feels a lot like when you’re a kid and you’re playing with your sibling or your friends, and you’re like “Okay, I’ll be the witch and you be the princess.” And then you play for two hours just off that. It feels like grow-up make believe.”
Filmmaker & Playwright, Bokkie Robertson, Talks about the Different Ways to Tell a Story
“I have a lot of opinions about things that film could learn from theatre and things that theatre could learn from film. And one of my opinions is that, oftentimes, the character in theatre is incredible. It is so far and beyond anything you see in film, but the structure and storytelling of theatre can sometimes be lacking.
I’m such a story person I’m such a structured person. If you’re wanting theatre that tells you a story, that takes you on a journey, that has a payoff at the end; come to this play.”
Aaron Cornelius Wants to Give More Opportunities to Asian-Australian Theatremakers
“There are 40 Asian-Australian emerging artists on this team. It’s important to us that the industry knows that they all exist.
Look—there are this many of them! They may not be experienced yet, but they exist!”
Amelia Pitcher Wants More Sex Workers to Write Their Own Stories
“I think that’s the beauty of theatre— instead of attacking people and saying “You need to support sex work” you can invite them to observe the reality of the world, instead of the media stereotype. And so, you start to break down that stigma that we have a society about the sex industry.
Theatre is a safe way to experience things without actually experiencing them.”
Scribbles of Stage and Screen 