AustLit

'Country Song is a beautiful, musical, witty and warming journey that celebrates the healing power of music. It will take you on a heartfelt journey with toe-tapping tunes and larger-than-life characters.

'Jimmy Little is waiting backstage. He¹s been asked to perform the national anthem, in front of an audience that love him and his music. He is an Australian icon; an entertainer first and foremost. But what does it mean to sing this song now? Does it matter? Who is he really singing for?

'In Country Song, Jimmy is whisked on a fictional road trip to his past as his story weaves through the history of major social changes of the 1970¹s. Along the way we hear stories of singers Auriel Andrew, Bobby McLeod and Lionel Rose in this tribute to the era and the music that was a soundtrack for a generation. Once a smiling, cheeky child of Vaudevillians, now a poster boy for Indigenous performers, Jimmy takes us through the thoughts of an artist who must weigh up the political power of his voice. Filled with well-known tunes, Country Song is a beautiful, musical, witty and warming journey that celebrates the healing power of music.

'Acclaimed actor and musician Michael Tuahine came up with the original idea for Country Song after being inspired by Walk the Line. Reg Cribb won the 2013 Rodney Seaborn Playwright's Award for New Work.'

'Rex drives a cab and has never left Broken Hill in his life. When he discovers he doesn't have long to live, he decides to drive across the heart of the country to Darwin, where he's heard he will be able to die on his own terms; but along the way he discovers that before you can end your life, you've got to live it, and to live it you've got to share it... ' (Production summary)

'It's the beginning of the 1980s boom in Western Australia. Larrikin brothers Ray, Brian and Peter Mickelberg spend their days abalone fishing, flying planes, looking for adventure and developing new ways of making money. Their most bizarre venture? Selling a huge fake gold nugget "The Yellow Rose of Texas" to tycoon Alan Bond.'

Source: Channel 9 (http://channelnine.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8377376). (Sighted: 5/4/2013)

'1942. The world is at war. Singapore has fallen to the Japanese army. Darwin has been bombed. The arrival in Australia of United States troops - black and white - provides a ray of hope. But it's an uneasy alliance. Boundary Street follows the story of three African-American soldiers in Brisbane. Off duty, they head to the Dr Carver Club, a jazz club set up especially for African-American servicemen.

The promise of new, exotic music and dancing attracts many Australians, including "respectable" white and Indigenous women. Prejudices are dispelled and genuine friendships blossom, but then the simmering racism erupts violently.' Source: www.bsstc.com.au (Sighted 09/03/2011).

'250 kilometres apart, two 16 year-old girls walk into two police stations to make a confession. A confession of a crime so unimaginable that the full extent of what they are saying only slowly dawns on the police. And in their hometown, nothing will ever be the same again. What drives two teenage girls to commit a crime that has shaken their home town to the core and shocked the entire country?

Exploring the rural subculture of drugs, alcohol and the alienation of today's youth, Reg Cribb weaves a disquieting tale of crime and inhumanity.' Source: www.bsstc.com.au/ (sighted 14/10/2011).

'Invoking the expansive, isolating beauty of rural Australia, Reg Cribb’s epic new play is about a man ravaged by drought, family secrets and love.'

'The Murray family have been farming the land along the Darling River for five generations. For Tom Murray, it’s all he’s ever known. When his childhood friends Lucy and Billy reappear, deep friendships are tested, and secrets, long buried, are finally awakened – Tom must make the long journey down-stream to reconcile past wrongs and to fight for his wife.' (Source: Griffin Theatre Company website)

Based on the stage musical of the same name by Jimmy Chi and the band Kuckles, Bran Nue Dae is set in 1969 and follows Willie, a young man who struggles to find a balance between the three things that drive his life: his love for his girl Rosie, his respect for his mother, and his religious faith. Willie's uncomplicated life of fishing and hanging out with his mates and his girl in the idyllic world of Broome is turned upside down when his mother returns him to the religious mission for further schooling and entry into the priesthood. After being punished for an act of youthful rebellion, he runs away from the mission on a journey that leads him to meet his 'Uncle Tadpole' and eventually return to Broome. Along the way, Willie and Uncle Tadpole meet a couple of hippies, spend the night in gaol, and meet a gun-toting roadhouse operator, while managing to stay one step ahead of Father Benedictus, who wants to bring Willie back to the mission.

'In the outer suburbs of an Australian city, our greatest bush poet, Daniel Gartrell, sits and rots. In a house covered with cockatoos and dark secrets, the only person to enter his self-imposed exile is his damaged daughter Sarah.

Until the arrival late one night of Craig Castevich, an aspiring young actor. Craig has been cast to play Daniel in a biographical film. Daniel dances him through a psychological minefield as the actor obsessively pursues his desire to unearth the key to the poet's haunted past, hidden within his most famous, but unfinished poem, Mt. Ragged.

By turns darkly humorous and intensely gripping, The Haunting of Daniel Gartrell follows a man's descent into the dark corners of this country's soul.' Source: /www.perththeatre.com.au (Sighted 28/07/2008).

'On a hot summer's night two bored and restless ex-cons travel on the last train to Fremantle. A beautiful young law student enters their carriage, seemingly unaware that the guards are on strike, but the balance of power shifts when two other passengers join the train. Told in real time using one claustrophobic location, Last Train to Freo is a tense psychological drama about five people who discover they are not who they think they are.'

Source: Australian Film Commission website (http://www.afc.gov.au/filmsandawards/filmdbsearch.aspx?view=title&title=LONFRE&area=title&type=Feature&genre=Psychological). (Sighted: 13/06/2006)