AustLit

'Some objects possess mysterious powers. They can take us back in time. They can remind us of someone. They can make us emotional—joyful, wistful, homesick.

'Objects can also imply drama. When you hear the words ‘window’ and ‘cricket bat’… what do you think of?

'A short chamber performance for a solo performer and a curious audience, Window, Cricket Bat comes to life within the exhibition space of Happy objects at the Australian Design Centre. Become a guest at the glamorous luncheon of one of the world’s most famous playwrights—evoked with nothing more than a well-loved souvenir and a cracking story.

'Produced in a unique collaboration with Griffin, the Australian Design Centre’s Happy objects is a celebration of ‘stuff’—material items that are often imperfect, and always deeply symbolic of the lives we lead. Accompanying the exhibition, Window, Cricket Bat is a delightful journey back to London in the 1980s, penned with fond humour by playwright Hilary Bell.'

Source: Griffin Theatre.

'If you’re a first generation Australian woman. If you’re the daughter of a black mother. If you’ve inherited their pain—of escaping the horrors of third world conditions, of carrying physical and emotional trauma, of reckoning with an unfamiliar western frontier that regards you as ‘other’—then you’ll know how difficult it is to ask for permission to heal.

'How can you balance your history with your unwritten future? How can you inhabit an individual identity when you’ve inherited the truths of your ancestors? How can you open your arms and feel the sunshine on your skin when secrecy and shame drain the colour from your parents’ eyes?

'Mother May We is an epic poem forged from interviews with ten powerful artists who identify as BIPOC. Poet Mel Ree rhapsodises about intergenerational trauma and marries ancestral and modern truths in a truly epic and cathartic performance. Peppering playful performance art with humbling, hard truths, Mother May We is a motivational manifesto for holding the pain of the past in your body, and overcoming it to shine like a sunbeam.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Shoshana, 12 years old, is about to celebrate her Bat Mitzvah, which will welcome her into the hallowed halls of Jewish womanhood. Miriam, double her age, is the teacher helping Shoshana prepare for her big day.

'However, one question keeps stopping both student and teacher in their tracks: what even is a Jewish woman? A is for Apple is an irreverent, impertinent romp through the Old Testament’s patriarchs and matriarchs, in search of role models. Jessica Bellamy’s (Shabbat Dinner) inventive new play asks how women can rewrite the myths that formed them, and create a version of ‘woman’ that embraces contradiction and complexity. A is for Apple relishes in genre-blending and cultural translations to ask lovingly provocative questions and welcome everybody into the tribe.

'So, load up on Genesis, cue up some Missy Elliott and get ready for a night at the theatre that will leave you empowered and renewed.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'There’s no crueler thing you can say to an actor than ‘Don’t quit your day job’. Fortunately, thanks to cover bands and theatre restaurants, Ash Flanders never needed one. But after years of glittering appearances on stages and in school gyms across the country, Ash unceremoniously finds himself seated at a computer terminal in a decidedly un-sparkly corporate office. No longer an acclaimed playwright and performer, Ash is now a legal transcriptionist—typing the words of suspected criminals who are not nearly as fascinating as TV suggested.

'As Ash painstakingly types out the narratives of petty crims, he begins to interrogate his own poor choices. That thing he did in an abandoned carpark. The visit to the horse knackery. Those people at the old folks home. All of it in service of one thing: making people laugh.

'But as his own transcript unravels, Ash realises it’s about making her laugh. His toughest audience. A heavy-drinking, chain-smoking behemoth named Heather Flanders. And her health is getting so dire it’s, well… laughable.'

Source: Griffin.

'Once in a blue moon, in the middle of nowhere, two teenage boys meet under a lemon tree. After a rough start, a fragile friendship fruits into a heady romance. Ty and Neddy fall madly in love, as teenagers are wont to do.

'If history would just unfurl a little differently, the boys might have a beautiful future ahead of them. But without knowing it, Ty and Neddy are poised on the brink of a world that is about to change forever. It’s the early 19th century. Ty is River Mob. Neddy is Mountain Mob. And the earth they stand together on is about to be declared ‘Australia’.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Coming home from her sister’s funeral, Grace decides that at 87 years old… her time has come. She’s done with it all. She’s ready to leave the party.

'Her daughter, Dorothy, decides her mum is just depressed. She makes it her mission to show Grace the beauty of living. But Dorothy is divorced. Stuck in a dead-end job. Estranged from her own daughter, Suzie, who lives halfway across the world. Soon, Dorothy starts to worry that her mum might have the right idea.

'Pushing up daisies. Kicking the bucket. Ghosting the Party. The euphemisms are endless. For a phenomenon so certain and all-encompassing, humans are terribly good at looking for ways to avoid talking about death. It’s easy to forget that the concept of ‘checking out’ can be complex, contradictory—funny, even. Especially when an old lady with a bone-dry wit is involved.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'At a golf course on the edge of a regional town, a reluctant group of young people are employed to keep watch over a landed spacecraft. The UFO sits, silent, with lights flashing—for minutes, hours, days. But just when they are ready to give up...

'UFO is a new live-cinema sci-fi theatre work performed on a 1:8 miniature golf course, using exquisitely detailed figurines of the actors.'

Source: Australian Performing Arts Exchange.

'You’ve walked past it. Maybe through it. Down the end of Victoria Street, opposite St Vincent’s Hospital—Green Park. It’s picturesque by day, a little eerie by night. And it’s where Warren and Edden are meeting, as a prelude to their Grindr hook up.

'One of them doesn’t look like his photo. There’s an age gap between them (but what’s a decade or three?). And one is harbouring a dangerous secret. In an hour’s time, both will leave the park profoundly transformed.

'Google Maps lists Green Park as “Good for Kids”. But just a few decades ago, that definitely wasn’t the case. For decades, the Wall opposite the park was where rent boys plied their trade for curb-crawling Johns. The public toilet was a spot for secret all-hours hook ups. When the cops dismantled it, in 1988, a cabal of drag queen nuns—the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence—built a shrine to a chunk of its urinal. These details are becoming lost to time. But in Green Park, Warren and Edden will be pushed together—and apart—by forces of Sydney’s history that neither of them can comprehend.

'In 2021, Griffin is leaving its home at the SBW Stables and wandering down the road to the real Green Park. Outside the rotunda, audience members will be outfitted with a set of headphones. And together, they will eavesdrop on playwright Elias Jamieson Brown’s finely wrought Darlinghurst noir. To everyone else, the two men talking on a bench might not look like much. But in the gloom of the setting sun, you’ll experience a dangerous psycho-sexual collision… in a very public place.'

Source: Griffin Theatre Company.

'In alpine Victoria, on Gunaikurnai country, a flock of sheep are found with their throats torn open. A woman, a farmer’s daughter, is on the hunt—looking for feral dogs. Rifle at her side, she camps down, thinking she’s alone.

'But she’s not.

'From deep between the eucalypts, a dingo watches her. Heart beating through skin. Bristling with hunger and grief. Waiting for the slightest show of weakness. From Picnic at Hanging Rock to Wake in Fright, the greatest works of Australian Gothic tease a uniquely antipodean horror from the anxiety of living on stolen country.

'In a work of startling poetry, tenderness, and violence, Andrea James (Sunshine Super Girl) and AWGIE-winner Catherine Ryan ratchet this anxiety to epic proportions, in a bloody confrontation between two elemental forces, played out on contested territory.'

Source: Griffin Theatre Company.

'It’s one of those suburbs where the houses all match, the gardens all match, the cars, the dogs, and the people all match. But in the stucco sprawl of Paradise, the Petersen family don’t quite match.

'While her folks are back in Johannesburg, Zadie is holding the family fort. This means keeping her little sis away from bush doofs—and smiling when her nice white neighbours try to touch her hair.

'Then, in the middle of the night, someone starts pelting their house with oranges. Just once. Then twice. Then night after night after night. Maybe it’s nothing. Or maybe someone in Paradise wants them out.'

Source: Griffin Theatre Company.

'When her mother dies an orphaned girl is left alone in Singapore, in a home that is now terrifyingly empty. To make matters worse, she’s now in the care of her estranged brother—her new legal guardian—and he’s not exactly up to the gig. For one, he’s only a few years older than her. And two, he’s a gangster. Like, an actual one.

'The future he sees for their atypical family-of-two is lined with gold. And Chanel. And Miu Miu. And Balenciaga. But his new dependent is less sure about this. What is the trade-off for living in this kind of luxury? What should be kept in this world, and what should be offered to the next? As it turns out, their late mother has some strong opinions on the matter.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The year is 2079. Artificial Intelligence and humans coexist harmoniously. That is, until the appearance of an exceptionally clever AI named Neutron Finch. On the first day of kindergarten, Neutron reads the entire literary works from the history of humanity. This grabs the attention of other AIs at the school, and they start withdrawing from their human buddies.

'One night, a group of sixth graders is summoned to the oval. The AIs now know about and want souls. It’s then up to the ‘secret six’ to solve the greatest existential question of all time within a week. Will their soul-searching provide the answers they need to stop the AIs becoming humanity’s worst nightmare?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'FEAR. Of losing the only place he called home.

'In this raw and captivating one-person show, comedian and performer Oliver Twist uses his exceptional storytelling abilities to reflect on his time as a refugee and to unpack what his life looks like now.

'Refusing to be defined by a turbulent past, Oliver uses personal anecdotes, drama and humour as an antidote to trauma.

'FEAR is a vibrant and emotional journey that patiently proves there is light at the end of the tunnel.'

Source: Griffin Theatre Company.

'The latest show from award-winning writer Phil Spencer is a notebook’s worth of stories about the gentle art of cowardice, tiny acts of fuck-you-mate, and why Patti Smith is the absolute boss of it all.

'Penned over the best part of a decade, No Standing. No Dancing. looks back over Phil’s life with reckless abandon: from the 17-year-old ratbag he once was to the emotional and neurotic 34-year-old father of two he’s proud to be today.

'It’s an autobiography-meets-love-letter to indie music, an examination of parenthood (and public pool hygiene) and a primal scream to reawaken the punk inside us all.'

Source: Griffin Theatre Company.

'As a lapsed playwright, creator of the Offspring TV series, former Junior Champion Hypochondriac and floundering novelist, what should her next move be? And what motivates people to write or create more ‘stuff’ anyway? Shame? Fear of death? The hope of more sexual offers?

'For now, Debra plans to seize control of the Griffin stage: the exact location she fell in love with theatre, aged 11, and the place her plays Mr Bailey’s Minder and The Peach Season came to life.

'In a funny and excruciatingly honest one-woman show, Debra tells stories about her neurotic childhood, clumsy romantic history, and the anxieties and joys of the writer’s life—all in the hope that the audience can help her work out what comes next.'

Source: Griffin Theatre Company.

'In Thirroul, Emily sits on the beach with her sort-of-ex-sort-of-not boyfriend, trying to figure out how to deal with her unwanted pregnancy.

'In Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Jana goes out to get groceries and slams into the day-to-day reality of the European refugee crisis.

'Superheroes is a play about two women on opposite sides of the world living small lives in a time of big politics. It’s a play that parallels two very different lives to ask questions about what it means to take responsibility for your actions, and what it means to change your mind.'

Source: Griffin Theatre Company.

'Set in an Australian university, student and aspiring journalist Nikki Gonçalves is on a collision course with Jo Mulligan, the first female Master of the oldest college on campus. A complaint is made, loyalties are divided, and both women find themselves embroiled in an online media storm where there are no certain winners.

'On the surface, Wherever She Wanders is about the rape culture often reported at Australian university colleges. But it’s also a play about activism in an era when anyone with access to a smartphone can have a political voice, and the resulting removal of nuance from difficult conversations. It is about how unsafe it is to be a woman. At a party. Walking home. Online. Anywhere. But mostly it’s about the increasing disconnect between the politics of female baby boomers and millennials: young women trying to tackle the complexities of systemic and relatively invisible sexism, and an older generation of women who are being implicated as part of the very problem they’ve spent their lives trying to solve.'

Source: Griffin Theatre Company.

'Lukas isn’t in a good place. He hasn’t been for some time.

'His friends Claude, Song and Dylan decide they can’t sit by and watch anymore. Tenderly and with great patience, they start to tell each other stories. Of the moments they all met. Of the times they were complete idiots and the happiness they’ve shared together. They tell these stories because they know their friend Lukas also needs to tell his. His life depends on it. A gentle soul with a love for ancient night skies, Lukas has fallen into a deep and complicated grief. One that he can’t pull himself out of. He can feel history repeating and black holes opening up. But this isn’t who he is. In fact, he doesn’t even recognise the person he’s become.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'A celebrated federal judge.

'His son, a born-again Christian.

'His daughter, a Border Force officer.

'Her partner, the captain of a Border Force ship.

'His other daughter, a left-wing activist.

'His wife, who has worked all her life to keep the family together.

'Saba, an asylum seeker on the run from Nauru.

'On the eve of his birthday, is it too much to expect his wife and three children celebrate with him?'

Source: Griffin Theatre Company.

'To win, you just need to believe in the rules. And Tessa loves to win, even when defending clients accused of sexual assault. Her court-ordained duty trumps her feminism. But when she finds herself on the other side of the bar, Tessa is forced into the shadows of doubt she’s so ruthlessly cast over other women.

'Winner of the 2018 Griffin Award, Prima Facie is an indictment of the Australian legal system’s failure to provide reliable pathways to justice for women in rape, sexual assault or harassment cases. It’s a work of fiction, but one that could have been ripped from the headlines of any paper, any day of the week, so common you could cry.

'Turning Sydney’s courts of law into a different kind of stage, Suzie Miller’s (Sunset Strip, Caress/Ache) taut, rapid-fire and gripping one-woman show exposes the shortcomings of a patriarchal justice system where it’s her word against his.

'Maybe we need a new system.'

Source: Griffin Theatre Company.