2019 VCE Drama and Theatre Studies Playlist · Web viewThe extensive resources of the MTC Production departments will be used to create a detailed scenic world, which is then transformed

2019 VCE Drama and VCE Theatre Studies Playlist

The following plays have been selected for study in 2019. This playlist should be used in conjunction with requirements set out in the VCE Drama Study Design 2019–2023 and VCE Theatre Studies Study Design 2019–2023. Teachers should select play/s as required for VCE Drama and Theatre Studies Units 3 and 4 and make bookings in a prompt and timely manner.

The playlist selection panel has taken into account the requirement for texts to be appropriate for study by students in senior secondary schooling, and for texts to reflect community standards and expectations. Teachers and school leaders are advised to consider carefully the information provided about each of the plays on the 2019 playlist, which includes an indication of:

dramatic merit subject matter and themes ways in which it supports rigorous and sustained study in relation to the key knowledge

of the Drama or Theatre Studies study design advice that schools should take into consideration when selecting plays for study.

For VCE Drama Unit 3 and Theatre Studies Unit 4, students are not required to study the playscript of selected performances. However, the playscript can be a valuable learning resource in these units. Theatre companies are not obliged to provide copies of these playscripts.

For VCE Theatre Studies Unit 3, students must study the playscript and the performance identified in this playlist. The only version of the playscript students are required to study for Theatre Studies Unit 3 is the one used as the basis for the performance students will attend. In some cases this playscript will be a ‘working’ or ‘rehearsal’ script.

Teachers should be aware that plays may be added to, or withdrawn from, the list. Further updates may be provided during 2019 as, for example, production details are confirmed and/or as final scripts become available.

All financial arrangements regarding attendance at playlist performances are a matter for schools and the theatre company/organisation responsible for the production.

Selecting plays for studyWhile the VCAA considers all plays on this list suitable for study, teachers should be aware that in some instances sensitivity might be needed where particular issues or themes that may be challenging for students are explored. The information provided about each play will allow teachers and schools to make an informed decision about the play/s that are most appropriate for study by their students. The entry for each play includes:

© VCAA, 2018

http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Pages/aboutus/policies/policy-copyright.aspx

2019 VCE Drama and Theatre Studies Playlist

information about the play and the season, including, as appropriate, the play title, the playwright/s, detail of works the play is adapted from, the production company, season details – dates, venues, performance times and duration, booking details and script availability

annotations: background information about the play and personnel involved in the production, a description of the work’s dramatic merit and features of the production relevant for study

advice to schools: identifies any aspects of the play/production that teachers and others should be aware of in reviewing the text prior to selection.

The following strategies are suggested to assist teachers to select a play/s from the list:

take note of the advice provided about specific plays consult the school calendar and the teaching and learning plan for the relevant unit, and

ensure sufficient planning time will be available for attendance at specific plays familiarise yourself with the themes, context and world of the play, with particular

attention to matters identified in the advice read the playscript and, if available, information such as the director’s vision or creative

concept for the production research the playscript, the work of the playwright, director and/or company discuss issues of concern with the theatre company discuss with colleagues at your school aspects of the script or performance that may be

challenging for your students if possible, attend a preview performance identify any issues that may require additional resourcing, such as information about

different perspectives on controversial historical, social, cultural or political themes in particular plays

make your selection/s in consultation with school leaders.

Drama Unit 3 PlaylistThe following plays have been selected for study in 2019. This list should be considered in conjunction with the requirements set out in Unit 3 Outcome 3 in the VCE Drama Study Design 2019–2023 and the advice provided at the start of this document. Students will undertake an assessment task for Unit 3 Outcome 3 based on the performance of a play on the Playlist. Question/s will also be set on the performances of the plays in the end-of-year Drama written examination.

1. Mr Burns: a Post-Electric Play by Anne Washburn

Theatre Company: Lightning Jar Theatre Inc.

Season: 15 February–10 March

Venue: Fortyfivedownstairs, 45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne

Performance times: Evenings: 7.30pm; matinees (Sunday 17, 24 February; 3 March): 5.00pm

Duration: 90–120 minutes

Tickets: $40 adults; $35 concession; $32 groups 6+ with complimentary accompanying teacher; $30 previews (15–17 February)

© VCAA, 2018 Page 2



Bookings: Phone: (03) 9662 9966 or www.fortyfivedownstairs.com

According to a recent New York Times article, Mr Burns: a Post-Electric Play is one of the best 25 American plays written since the Tony Kushner epic Angels in America. Last year a production was mounted at Sydney’s Belvoir Theatre and Sydney Morning Herald critic Jason Blake gave the production four stars.

Mr Burns: a Post-Electric Play tells the story of story itself: its evolution and how humans use story to make sense of our changing world. Set sometime in the not too distant future in North America, the play opens on a group of people around a campfire. They try to recall a particular episode of The Simpsons with half-remembered lines and impressions until a sudden sound from the woods causes a reaction that makes the audience realise that this is not just a camping trip. This is a group of survivors of an unspecified nuclear disaster doing their best to maintain a sense of normality in the post-apocalyptic world in which they find themselves.

Act 2 takes place seven years later where the same group of people have formed a theatre troupe and are rehearsing the same episode of The Simpsons. They have made a functioning business out of the trade of pop-culture, buying storylines and quotes from episodes from the general public to add to their repertoire. Act 3 is set 75 years later when we see the resulting evolution of story turned into a pop-culture mash-up musical of sorts. A different group of people performs an amalgamation of commercials, songs and that same episode of The Simpsons that were first discussed back in Act 1. But by now the story of what has happened to the world has been woven into the history of the human race.

This engaging piece of contemporary theatre sustains intensive study due to its varied performance styles and conventions. Drama students will witness how a production can go beyond the reality of life as it is lived, shifting from naturalistic in Act I to non-naturalistic in Acts II and III. The actor-audience relationship is manipulated by subverting expectations in order to place an emphasis on theme rather than character or plot. The design incorporates found objects and ambient lighting.

Advice to schools:Guns are used during this performance and one character is shot. Some offensive language is used. The reading of a list of lost loved ones could be disturbing to some students.

2. The Yellow Wallpaper by Laurence Strangio with Annie Thorold

Theatre Company: La Mama Theatre

Season: 6–17 March (Wednesday: 6.30pm; Thursday–Saturday: 7.30pm; Sunday: 4.00pm; Matinees: Wednesday: 1.00pm and Thursday: 11.00am

Venue: La Mama Courthouse, 349 Drummond Street, Carlton

Duration: 60 minutes (plus 20-minute post-show forum)

Tickets: $36 VCE ticket packages for students and teachers (includes show, post-show forum, program notes and published copy of script); $25 non-VCE tickets for students and teachers (includes show and post-show forum only). There are no complimentary tickets for accompanying teachers.

Bookings: Email: [email protected]



mailto:[email protected]

http://www.fortyfivedownstairs.com/


The Yellow Wallpaper has been adapted from the 1892 story of the same name by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It is an important and powerful proto-feminist text as well as a classic gothic tale comparable to those of Edgar Allan Poe. The performance was developed through a creative development as part of the 2017 La Mama Explorations season and integrates physical theatre with text-based performance in a contemporary ‘monologue-with-self’ – a verbal and visceral dialogue with the audience.

Laurence Strangio’s works have often been selected for the VCE Drama and Theatre Studies Playlist. His productions – including Six Characters in Search of an Author, The Good Person of Szechwan and Ellida – reinterpret classic texts using spatial dynamics and contemporary performance practices. Strangio’s co-devisor and performer for this production – Annie Thorold – originally trained at Wendelsberg Theatre School in Sweden and more recently extended her studies in Melbourne and Sydney. Thorold’s training and recent performance work focus on the integration of physical theatre with text-based performance.

The Yellow Wallpaper is divided into twelve sections that chart the rest/confinement of an unnamed woman during her and her husband’s summer rental of an old mansion. The performance divides the first-person text between the inner voice of the woman and her physical self – the brightness and propriety of her inner voice being juxtaposed with the more questioning and troubled perspective of her present self.

The physical performance of ‘the woman’ ranges between the proper, controlled behaviour of a dutiful wife and the unconstrained abandon of her liberated self. Over the course of the twelve sections, the performance moves from an initial quasi-naturalistic style, through a growing blend of direct address and stylised physicality to a more contemporary physical and spatially dynamic performance.

The Yellow Wallpaper was conceived and developed as a means to draw on particular ideas within the text – particularly the woman’s desire for expression and freedom (of thought, of behaviour) – to create a work where the language and voice of the material speak through the body. Drama students will be able to analyse and evaluate ways in which the production areas of lighting, sound and costume are manipulated to enhance the performance and actor-audience relationship.

Students will see how the performance uses these theatrical means to enhance the underlying social message and to present a work that focuses positively on liberation and personal agency, a performance that actively addresses and engages its audience in the transformation of its protagonist from ‘silenced’ submission to emancipation.

Advice to schools:This production contains gothic themes that allude to mental health issues.

3. Robot Song by Jolyon James

Theatre Company: Arena Theatre Company

Season: 25 March–20 April at Theatre Works, 14 Acland Street, St Kilda.

Performance times: 11.30am and 7.00pm

Bookings: Phone (03) 9534 4879; email [email protected]

Regional tour: 27 May–9 July touring regional Victoria Bookings and tickets: For ticket pricing and bookings, contact venues directly:

Ararat Performing Arts Centre: 27 May 11.00am, (03) 5352 2181 or [email protected]






Lighthouse, Warrnambool: 4 June 10.30am and 2.00pm, (03) 5559 4999 or [email protected]

Swan Hill Performing Arts: 6 June 10.30am, (03) 5036 2384 or [email protected]

Frankston Arts Centre: 7 June 1.30pm and 6.00pm, (03) 9784 1890 or [email protected]

Geelong Performing Arts Centre: 12 June 10.00am and 1.00pm, (03) 5225 1207 or [email protected]

West Gippsland Arts Centre: 13 June 10.00am and 1.00pm, (03) 5624 2456 or [email protected]

Heyfield Memorial Hall: 14 June 11.00am, (03) 5148 2870

Hamilton Performing Arts Centre: 18 June 10.00am and 1.00pm, (03) 5573 0429 or [email protected]

Horsham Town Hall: 20 June 10.00am and 1.00pm, (03) 5382 9575 or [email protected]

Colac Performing Arts Centre: 27 June 10.30am and 1.30pm, (03) 5232 9418 or [email protected]

Drum Theatre, Dandenong: 29 June 10.00am and 1.00pm, (03) 8571 1666 or [email protected]

The Cube, Wodonga: 1 July 2.00pm, (02) 6022 9223 or [email protected]

Mildura Arts Centre: 3 July 5.30pm, (03) 5018 8330 or [email protected]

Bunjil Place, Narre Warren: 5 July 10.00am and 1.00pm, (03) 5018 8330 or [email protected]

Duration: 60 minutes

Arena Theatre Company has a 50-year history of producing works of great merit, winning awards for numerous productions over that time and touring both nationally and internationally. Robot Song stands out as one of Arena's best works, opening to great acclaim, with an audience survey of nearly 100 respondents showing that 97 per cent would highly recommend it to their friends and family. The play's use of original music, new technologies and digital puppetry makes it a good exploration of multiple forms of contemporary theatre practice, and the work is an excellent example of the writer’s skill in building tension and drama while maintaining warmth and humour throughout the work.

The key theme of this production, which features a lead character on the Autism Spectrum and who is the subject of bullying at school, makes it relevant and poignant for students today. Intensive study will involve looking at the notion of being ‘different' in today's world and the audience is definitely left with a positive sense of hope at the end of this production.

Robot Song provides an opportunity for students to explore theatrical forms in depth and accords with the new VCE Drama Study Design through its use of eclectic theatre performance styles. It features song, direct audience address, monologue, transformation, and comedy juxtaposed with more serious moments. Students will identify the production areas of puppetry, costume, props, set pieces, make-up, lighting, sound design, and theatre technologies; the last two featuring significantly.

Actor-audience relationship through breaking the fourth wall is just one of the performance skills evident in this production. Transformation of character, time and place take place throughout the performance, with the use of flashbacks being a particular feature.
















Application of symbol (i.e. via the use of the robot in the play) is a significant convention that is used throughout. Students will also be able to analyse and evaluate the dramatic elements in the production: contrast, conflict, tension, mood, rhythm, sound and space.

4. Scattered Lives by Sally McKenzie

Theatre Company: theCoalface Pty Ltd

Season: 13–31 May (with the option to extend to 7 June)

Venue: Touring into schools in Melbourne and regional Victoria (double classroom or theatre-designated space required)


Tickets: $20 (plus GST) per student with minimum group size 50 or equivalent minimum fee

Bookings: Phone 0414 330 048; email: [email protected]

Originally commissioned by the Queensland Arts Council, Scattered Lives is a deeply researched, AWGIE-nominated Australian play that has previously been selected for the VCE Drama Playlist. Drawing from diverse contemporary forms to highlight immediate social and political issues, Scattered Lives sustains intensive study both in form and content. The content is presented in an historical context, charting a range of situations and conflicts that have brought people to Australian shores from 1959 to the present day. Scattered Lives inspires students to analyse how drama can reflect social, political and historical contexts.

Employing both non-naturalistic and naturalistic performance styles, this contemporary Australian work presents a kaleidoscope of characters, which in turn provides the actors with many opportunities to apply a range of performance skills for students to analyse and evaluate. The diversity of forms exhibited in the work invite analysis of the manipulation of the various dramatic elements and conventions. They include: Epic theatre, direct address, narration, vocal rhythm, music and shadow play. Staging, props and set are minimal, allowing the focus to be on the two actors’ craft and their ability to play multiple roles.

For the 2019 touring production of Scattered Lives, the set has been re-visioned from the original and integrates the use of theatre lights and shadow play. To facilitate this, the set incorporates a screen, which is also used for the video projections. The video projections enhance the contexts and provide backstories to the various conflicts that bring refugees to Australian shores. Employed judiciously, the intermittent use of shadow play reinforces the themes of displacement and multiculturalism.

5. Pinocchio by Rosa Campagnaro, Christian Bagin and Jasper Foley

Theatre Company: La Mama Theatre and Make a Scene Theatre Arts Education

Season: 15–26 May

Performance times: Wednesday: 6.30pm; Thursday–Saturday: 7.30pm; Sunday: 4.00pm; Matinees on Wednesday: 1.00pm and Thursday: 11.00am



Tickets: $36 VCE ticket packages for students and teachers (includes show, post-show forum, program notes and published copy of script); $25 non-VCE tickets for students and





teachers (includes show and post-show forum only). There are no complimentary tickets for accompanying teachers.


This production of Pinocchio is a new theatrical adaption of Carlo Collodi’s classic story ‘The Adventures of Pinocchio’. Make A Scene is a Theatre Arts Education company with a proven track record for delivering high quality theatre performances and training in Commedia dell’Arte to schools (including VCE students) and actors around the country. The company received rave reviews for its 2016 show, a new translation and adaptation of Carlo Goldoni’s ‘The Servant of Two Masters’ (translated and directed by Rosa Campagnaro), which enjoyed a very successful three-week season at La Mama Theatre.

Pinocchio has been developed through a collaborative creative process (involving improvisation, play with masks and Commedia dell’Arte devising techniques) with the intention and artistic vision of creating theatre that is inclusive and appealing to a wide audience (particularly engaging young adult audiences); is timeless and universal in its message and themes but still relevant to a contemporary Australian audience; and is original in its design and production areas (by heavily drawing on the traditions, conventions and elements of the Italian theatrical traditions of Commedia dell’Arte and the travelling troupes of pre-modern eras). The production transports the audience (through storytelling devices, specially commissioned masks, set, costume, sound and lighting design) into the world of the travelling storyteller. It aims to inspire debate and discussion; for example, on the question of what it means to be a real boy in our contemporary society; what it means to grow up and take responsibility.

The single actor in this production is the travelling storyteller (narrator) who uses expressive and performance skills to represent a range of characters. He dexterously transforms characters using the production areas of mask, simple costume and puppets, while manipulating and engaging with the interactive set to transform the places and spaces in the story. Drama students will have the opportunity to analyse and evaluate how the actor manipulates and engages with the interactive set (playing both inside and outside the puppet booth) and how this affects the actor-audience relationship.

VCE Theatre Studies Unit 3The following plays have been selected for study in 2019. This list should be considered in conjunction with the requirements set out in Unit 3 Outcome 3 in the VCE Theatre Studies Study Design 2019–2023 and the advice provided above. Students will undertake an assessment task for Unit 3 Outcome 3 based on the performance of a play on the Playlist. Question/s will also be set on the performances of the plays in the end-of-year Theatre Studies written examination. For Theatre Studies Unit 3, students must study the script identified for each production and the interpretation of that script in performance to an audience.

1. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Theatre Company: Australian Shakespeare Company

Season: 4–23 March

Venues and dates:





Rippon Lea Estate, Melbourne: 4–21 MarchHamilton Botanic Gardens: 9 MarchSale Botanic Gardens: 16 MarchCruden Farm and Gardens, Langwarrin: 22 and 23 March

Performance times: 8.00pm


Tickets: $25 students; $45–$50 adults; $40–$45 concession; one complimentary teacher per 10 students at all locations.

Bookings: Rippon Lea Estate and Cruden Farm and Garden: www.shakespeareaustralia.com.au or (03) 8876 7511Hamilton: www.hamiltonpac.com.au or (03) 5573 0429Sale: www.thewedge.com.au or (03) 5143 3200

The Australia Shakespeare Company’s creative team (which includes Artistic Director Glenn Elston OAM) has been producing Shakespeare’s plays in the Royal Botanic Gardens since 1987. Romeo and Juliet is one of the Bard’s most popular plays and is often studied by secondary students. Its universal themes are as relevant today as they were in Elizabethan times: exploration of young love in many guises (romantic, passionate, spiritual, courtly, bawdy); exploration of hate and its destructive capabilities; purging of dark forces through love; and the role of fate and premonition in human endeavours.

The feud between the two families in Romeo and Juliet (the Montagues and Capulets) resounds today in a world that is increasingly fuelled by fear and hate of the ‘other’, providing students with opportunities to analyse the context of the written script and how it has been interpreted in the production.

The creative intention of the Australian Shakespeare Company’s new production of Romeo and Juliet is for the overall design and direction of the work to focus on the thematic contrast of light and darkness within the play by emphasising the largely romantic, comedic nature of the first two acts (prologue and other elements of dramatic foreshadowing excluded). The aim of this is to make the shift and swift descent into real violence and tragedy all the more powerfully shocking. The production draws on the style of Bollywood in its opening, with a focus on high drama, music, dance, the blending of fantasy and reality and fight scenes following the Hong Kong model with acrobatics, stunts, Kung Fu and other martial arts.

As darkness falls upon the outdoor setting, so too the cloud of tragedy begins to darken the tone and style of the play. Natural lighting gives over to harsher and more stylised lighting, casting ominous shadows across the surrounding trees and using bold colour washes. The focus narrows in as time speeds up and quickly runs out.

Students will be able to analyse the application of theatre styles in an Elizabethan/ Shakespearian production: a wide range of larger-than-life characters (melancholic lover, bravado sidekick, loving but gullible maidservant, loyal friend, authoritarian father); heightened language of both blank verse and prose; and dramatic poetry in the soliloquies. They will look out for the classic elements and conventions of Shakespearian tragedy: the noble hero; the fatal flaw; the role of fate and chance; the fall into chaos; the deaths of the protagonists; the ultimate return to social order; and the happy balance of high and low comedy – broad slapstick of physical knockabout (Mercutio, the Nurse, Peter) versus sophisticated wordplay of witty banter (Mercutio, Romeo, Benvolio).



http://www.thewedge.com.au/

https://www.edumail.vic.gov.au/owa/redir.aspx?C=cvIDSPqccTifHMClv2ZDKdGjfm0fNyJW4MaLWRh2PeSbg-u23yTWCA..&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hamiltonpac.com.au

https://www.edumail.vic.gov.au/owa/redir.aspx?C=m8JM2nxiOd4UjICunrtKJMpc70hLYg_UYZzItQvp9NCbg-u23yTWCA..&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.shakespeare.com.au%2F


2. Cosi by Louis Nowra

Theatre Company: Melbourne Theatre Company

Season: 30 April–8 June

Venue: Southbank Theatre, The Sumner, 140 Southbank Boulevard, Southbank


Performance times: Monday and Tuesday: 6.30pm; Wednesday–Saturday: 8.00pm; Wednesday and Saturday: 1.00pm

Tickets: $28 students; one complimentary supervising teacher per 10 students; $46 additional teachersMTC provides $5 tickets to disadvantaged schools and travel subsidies to outer metropolitan and regional schools to attend performances at Southbank Theatre.

Bookings: MTC Education Ticketing Officer, email [email protected] or phone (03) 8688 0963

Script: available in paperback (ISBN 978-0-86819-403-5) and eBook editions from Currency Press (www.currency.com.au/product_detail.aspx?productid=162). Schools can purchase hardcopies of the script from MTC when making a booking.

Cosi was first produced in 1992 and has become one of Australia’s most successful plays. In 2013, Louis Nowra was awarded the Patrick White Literary Award for his body of work, with the judges describing him as a ‘prolific, passionate and principled writer who has made an outstanding contribution to Australian literature across many fields’.

The play is set inside a Melbourne psychiatric institution in 1971. Lewis, a young director, takes on the task of mounting a production of Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte with the patients-cum-actors, as anti-Vietnam protests rage outside. The operatic production lurches forward, with hilarious and heart-warming results.

The extensive resources of the MTC Production departments will be used to create a detailed scenic world, which is then transformed into the meta-theatrical set for the opera in Act 2, Scene 3. VCE Theatre Studies students will witness the work of various production roles and a range of theatre technologies will be evident, and their processes explored in accompanying education resources.

Directed by MTC’s Associate Director Sarah Goodes, Cosi will employ three strategies to manipulate relationships between the actors and audience: comedy (the clashing combinations of the characters’ idiosyncrasies creates hilarious moments on stage and students may recognise some of their own rehearsal experiences); social realism (the play will be presented in a mostly realistic style, inviting the audience to observe through a fourth wall as the play unfolds) and pathos (as we get to know the characters, we share in their successes when they present the opera).

Advice to schoolsCosi is an autobiographical play, based on Nowra’s experience of working at Sydney’s Callan Park Mental Hospital. In the instances when characters talk about transgressive behaviour and use coarse language, this is consistent with disenfranchised people in a mental institution.



http://www.currency.com.au/product_detail.aspx?productid=162



3. The Violent Outburst that Drew Me to You by Finegan Kruckemeyer

Theatre Company: Melbourne Theatre Company

Season: 2 May–8 June

Venues: Southbank Theatre, The Lawler Theatre, 140 Southbank Boulevard, Southbank: 2 May–18 May

Performance times: Lawler Theatre, Southbank: 10.00am, 1.30pm and 7.00pm

Regional tour:Mildura Arts Centre: Wednesday 22 May: 1.00pm and 7.00pmBendigo Ulmarra Theatre: Friday 24 May: 11.00amGeelong Potato Shed: Tuesday 28 May: 1.00pm and 7.00pmWarrnambool Lighthouse Theatre: Thursday 30 May: 1.00pm and 7.30pm

Tickets: $28 students; one complimentary supervising teacher per 10 students; $46 additional teachers

Bookings: MTC Schools Ticketing Officer; email [email protected] or phone (03) 8688 0963


Script: available in paperback (ISBN 978-1-92500-532-5) and eBook editions from Currency Press (www.currency.com.au/product_detail.aspx?productid=3083)

In 2014, the script of The Violent Outburst that Drew Me to You was awarded Best Theatre for Young Audiences by the Australian Writers Guild. Australian playwright Finegan Kruckemeyer specialises in work for young audiences. He has received 35 awards including the International Performing Arts for Youth (IPAY) Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2015 David Williamson Award for Excellence in Australian Playwrighting, and an inaugural Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship.

Finegan has an extraordinary ability to write credible dialogue for young characters. In The Violent Outburst, he has created authentic teenage voices for Connor and Lotte, replicating the rhythms and vocabulary of youthful speech while maintaining pace and dramatic structure.

The Violent Outburst is a comedy, with a dark thread of anger that gives way to romance and magical realism. The play delivers a strong, affirming message about the redemptive power of empathy and friendship. It demands an inventive and eclectic approach to performance-making: three actors sharing 10 roles, 14 scenes across nine locations and a magical Part 2 – all within 60 minutes.

The diversity of scripted locations demands a versatile and imaginative theatre design. A sparse and non-naturalistic set enhances the performance style and allows for ease of touring. Similar considerations are given to costume and properties. VCE Theatre Studies students will be able to analyse how the production roles of lighting and sound assist with the interpretation of script for performance.

Advice to schoolsWhile some of Connor’s behaviour falls short of community standards, the play contextualises it as unacceptable, dramatises the consequences and models his self-



http://www.currency.com.au/product_detail.aspx?productid=3083



improvement. This character swears profusely until he meets Lotte and as the play progresses he matures, his speech becoming less profane and more prosaic, articulate and lyrical.

Teachers are advised to read the script before committing to this production and follow the directions about safety and wellbeing as listed on page 7 of the VCE Theatre Studies Study Design. Teachers can also contact Melbourne Theatre Company’s Education Officer for further information.

4. Cloudstreet by Nick Enright and Juston Monjo

Theatre Company: Malthouse Theatre in association with Black Swan State Theatre Company

Season: 6 May–16 June

VCE Student matinees: 14, 15, 21, 22, 28, 29 May and 4, 5 June.

VCE Post-show forums (with Director Matthew Lutton): 14 and 15 May

Other preview and in-season performances: see Malthouse Theatre website for details. NB only a certain number of student tickets will be allocated for these performances.

Cloudstreet Experience: (a) Matinees will run from 10.30am to 3.00pm. Part 1: 85 minutes; Interval lunch break: 40 minutes; Part 2: 75 minutes; Interval break: 20 minutes; Part 3: 50 minutes. A designated lunch area will be provided for students. Cloudstreet Parts 1 and 2 (b) Performances in which the show is split over two nights: Night 1: Scenes 1 to 53; Night 2: Scenes 54 to 102

Tickets: (a) Cloudstreet Experience: students $49 metro/$45 non-metro (entire show); accompanying teachers free (max 2). Subsidised cost for disadvantaged students $30 (entire show – please apply via the Malthouse Theatre booking form).(b) Cloudstreet Parts 1 and 2 performances: metropolitan students $27 per show; non-metro/disadvantaged students $25 per show.

Venue: Merlyn Theatre, The Coopers Malthouse, 113 Sturt Street, Southbank

Bookings: malthousetheatre.com.au/education

Script: Available from Currency Press

Cloudstreet was adapted for theatre in 1998, based on Tim Winton’s much loved and celebrated novel. A co-production by Belvoir Theatre and Black Swan Theatre Company toured nationally and internationally and won multiple awards. In 2019 Malthouse Theatre’s Artistic Director and Co-CEO Matthew Lutton brings this epic play to the stage for a contemporary audience.

The production uses the original text by Nick Enright and Justin Monjo with some new amendments being made to update the adaption and position the story in a contemporary light. All of these amendments will be provided to schools at the start of 2019.

Cloudstreet follows the lives of two families – the Lambs and the Pickles – forced to live together in the same rambling old house over a 25-year period. Spanning the years from World War II through to the 1960s, the play weaves their stories of fluctuating fortunes and changing relationships to tell a much larger story about life on the outskirts of one of the world’s most isolated cities, in a country that is trying to grow up.




An ensemble of 12 culturally diverse actors (including one actor with an intellectual disability in the role of Fish Lamb) play more than 35 roles, using a range of techniques for character transformation, as well as showing how the members of the families age over time. VCE Theatre Studies students can evaluate how the written script is interpreted through an eclectic range of theatre styles. Cast members regularly shift between moments of narrating the story and speaking their own character’s dialogue.

The production is staged in the vast architecture of the house, symbolic of the consciousness of Australia. Large moveable walls intrude into the space, shifting and changing to create the sense of the house as a living creature, haunting its inhabitants. The house was once an orphanage for Indigenous girls and the actors draw the history of the house onto its walls to create a permanent haunting. In other scenes the walls transform to conjure the surreal dreams of the characters, or to reveal images of World War II. As the characters enter the spirit world, the stage fills with water. When characters leave the house and venture out on their own personal journeys of discovery and nightmares, the production uses evocative lighting techniques and shadow play to transport us out into real and imagined landscapes.

Cloudstreet is a story about learning to see our history around us – in our family, and in the country – and how to learn from this history and carry it with us. It is about finding something to believe in, when so much is being taken away. It is a story of moving into a home and country that isn’t ours and trying to create a community in the face of division and hardship. It’s about war, identity, race and justice. It’s about learning to listen to ghosts. And above all it’s about finding love – in other people, in our families, in our community, and in ourselves.

Important note regarding assessmentVCE Theatre Studies students are only required to analyse the first act of Cloudstreet for assessment purposes. This act ends with the character Quick announcing he is leaving home (page 44 of the script published by Currency Press). No reference to the play beyond this point should be analysed in the written SAC or examination. However, it is recommended that students view the whole play in order to gain an understanding of the overall context of the production.

A note on the Indigenous characters in the playIn previous productions of Cloudstreet there was only one unnamed Indigenous man, plus a description of ghostly shadows that did not speak. In this production we see and hear the ghosts more prominently and some text has been added for two young Indigenous actors. They have empowered voices, even when the other characters fail to hear them. This adaptation gives voice to the history of the Indigenous orphanage to avoid the Indigenous characters being a ‘mysterious other’ and making them vital players in the story of the house.

Advice to schoolsThis production contains sexual references and occasional course language.




VCE Theatre Studies Unit 4The following plays have been selected for study in 2019. This list should be considered in conjunction with the requirements set out in Unit 4 Outcome 3 in the VCE Theatre Studies Study Design 2019–2023 and the advice provided earlier in this document. Students will undertake an assessment task for Unit 4 Outcome 3 based on the performance of a play on the playlist. Question/s will also be set on the performances of the plays in the end-of-year Theatre Studies written examination.

1. Shakespeare in Love by Lee HallTheatre Company: Melbourne Theatre Company

Season: 15 July–17 August

Venue: The Playhouse, Arts Centre Melbourne, St Kilda Road, Southbank


Performance times: Monday and Tuesday: 6.30pm; Wednesday–Saturday: 8.00pm; Wednesday and Saturday: 1.00pm

Tickets: $40 students; one complimentary supervising teacher per 10 students; $58 additional teachers

Bookings: MTC Education Ticketing Officer; email [email protected] or phone (03) 8688 0963

Shakespeare in Love is a mainstage theatre production based on the 1998 film of the same name. Renowned British playwright Tom Stoppard collaborated with Hollywood screenwriter Marc Norman to write the screenplay and Royal Shakespeare Company resident playwright Lee Hall adapted it for the stage. It premiered in London in 2014 and this is the premiere of the play in Australia, directed by Simon Phillips.

Shakespeare in Love is a historical fiction and romantic comedy. A young Will Shakespeare has writer’s block but is committed to delivering a new comedy for the Rose and Curtain Theatre. At the court of Queen Elizabeth, he finds a new muse, a feisty young noblewoman named Viola who disguises herself as a man to win the role of Romeo in this play. Before opening night, Shakespeare and his actors have to overcome death threats, politics, the plague, canine performers, lost voices, laws forbidding women on stage and the weather.

Students will witness how Shakespeare in Love recreates and celebrates Shakespearian theatre practice. The modern script features dialogue from Romeo and Juliet and other plays of the time, especially the work of Christopher Marlowe. The plot includes common Shakespearean devices: play within a play, cross-dressing disguises, mistaken identity, suspicions of adultery, sword fighting and even a ghost. Doubling roles will be a feature of the production, with six ensemble members playing 18 named characters plus other supernumerary roles.

Gabriela Tylesova is designing a multi-level versatile set with strong resonances of Tudor architecture. The set must incorporate several theatres-within-theatre and locations as diverse as marketplaces and royal palaces. Costumes are period in design and highly detailed. Props are realistic and consistent with Elizabethan world, and mix both modern props and vintage-style stage ones.





Advice to schoolsThis production contains sexual inuendos in the style of a Shakespearean play.

2. Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare

Theatre Company: Bell Shakespeare Company

Season: 17 July–21 August

Venue: Arts Centre Melbourne, Her Majesty’s Theatre Ballarat, Lighthouse Theatre Warrnambool, Mildura Arts Centre, Ulumbarra Theatre Bendigo


Performance times: Contact venues

Tickets: Arts Centre Melbourne: $30 student tickets until allocation exhausted; $40/$45 under 18 ticket price unrestricted. One complimentary supervising teacher per 20 students. All other venues: please contact the venues directly for ticket prices.

Bookings: Arts Centre Melbourne performances, book via Bell Shakespeare Learning: phone 1300 305 730; email [email protected]; website www.bellshakespeare.com.au/learning

Regional venues: Lighthouse Theatre, Warrnambool (03) 5559 499Her Majesty’s Theatre, Ballarat (03) 5333 5888Mildura Arts Centre (03) 5018 8330Ulumbarra Theatre, Bendigo (03) 5434 6100

Bell Shakespeare Company has been touring Shakespeare’s plays across Australia since 1990 and many of its productions have been included in the VCE Theatre Studies Playlist.

Much Ado About Nothing was first performed in 1598 or 1599 and is one of Shakespeare’s celebrated romantic comedies. In fact, the play remains thoroughly contemporary in story and character and has inspired countless modern adaptations. Like most of Shakespeare’s plays, Much Ado About Nothing is based on pre-existing material. In this case, Shakespeare relied on two sources – Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso and Matteo Bandello’s La Prima Parte de le Novelle. As usual, Shakespeare takes his sources and alters them, heightening and focusing the drama.

Bell Shakespeare’s 2019 production of Much Ado About Nothing is performed by 10 actors, far fewer than is required for the play’s characters. This forms a core foundation for director James Evans’ vision for the show, with all actors doubling roles, and often very deliberately doubling for characters who are radically different from one another. For example, Benedick, the central lover, also doubles for Dogberry, the clown. This experimentation with archetypes existent in the play – lover, clown, military, patriarch, and more – is explored through the use of an on-stage costume bin. Students witness performers transforming into new characters and archetypes through this extreme doubling. They see first-hand how altering voice, movement and costume impacts character, action, intention, and more. This is a fast and physical comedy that thoroughly demonstrates and challenges the range of all actors on stage.

Bell Shakespeare has a renowned, dedicated and extensive national education programme that is developed in consultation with schools. As such, all performance content is strictly assessed and designed with students in mind. If a production contains material that does not



http://www.bellshakespeare.com.au/learning



suit young audiences, school performances are adapted accordingly. Much Ado About Nothing has no material that could be considered inappropriate for student audiences.

3. Come from Away by David Hein and Irene Sankoff

Theatre Company: Newtheatricals

Season: From 20 July

Venue: Comedy Theatre, Melbourne


Performance times: Tuesday: 7.00pm; Wednesday: 1.00pm and 7.00pm; Thursday: 7.00pm; Friday: 8.00pm; Saturday: 2.00pm and 8.00pm; Sunday: 2.00pm and 6.00pm

Tickets: $55 students for groups of 12+ with one complimentary supervising teacher

Bookings: Phone 1300 889 278 or [email protected]

The Broadway production of Come from Away has become an international phenomenon, receiving numerous awards including: the 2017 Helen Hayes Awards for Outstanding Musical and Outstanding Direction of a Musical, the 2017 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical, the 2017 Drama Desk Awards for Outstanding Musical and Outstanding Book of a Musical, the 2017 Outer Critics Circle Awards for Outstanding Book of a Musical and Outstanding Director of a Musical. In addition to these awards, the key creative team and writers (Irene Sankoff and David Hein) have been acknowledged and celebrated for their huge contribution to the success of the production.

Come from Away is a sophisticated musical theatre performance. Set against the backdrop of the September 11 attacks in New York, it explores the true events that transpired when 38 planes carrying nearly 7,000 people were ordered to land unexpectedly in the small town of Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador. This was part of Operation Yellow Ribbon and it doubled the population of Gander within hours in order to host a community of international strangers.

To transform the story of Gander into a new musical, David Hein and Irene Sankoff travelled to Newfoundland in September 2011 for the 10th anniversary commemorating the pilots and ‘Plane People’ that had returned to Gander. There, they collected hundreds of hours of interviews from 16,000 stories that have now been distilled into the 100-minute show.

The director and choreographer’s direction was to create an ensemble company with all the characters standing as equal and to keep the staging simple though effective to create the different locations. The choreographer used dance to create the levels of each character. That in itself creates a new vocabulary that was fun to find and discover. The music and song in the musical are reflective of the sound of Newfoundlanders with an Irish background.

The script is narrative driven in its story telling. At times, the actor-audience relationship is manipulated so that the performance is directed to the audience, and a variety of techniques are used to break or impact the fourth wall. The actors’ connection with the audience is extremely strong allowing audience members to relate to any of the characters. Each actor transforms and plays two characters – a local person from Gander and a stranded passenger or airline official. VCE Theatre Studies students will be able to analyse and evaluate these acting and staging challenges.



https://www.edumail.vic.gov.au/owa/redir.aspx?C=sjUkRuIzPEP9jwcA_Bb_hAJIZBn8ZrARg2qcUCIHiQ-6tbEpCT7WCA..&URL=mailto%[email protected]


4. One the Bear by Candy Bowers

Theatre Company: Arts Centre Melbourne presents Hot Brown Company

Season: 7–10 August

Venue: Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne


Performance times: Wednesday 7 August: 1.00pm (student performance) Thursday 8 August: 1.00pm (student performance) and 7.30pm Friday 9 August: 1.00pm (student performance) and 7.30pmSaturday 10 August: 10.30am, 1.00pm and 6.00pm

Tickets: $25 for student performances only; one complimentary teacher per 10 student tickets; $26 for Saturday 10 August performances; from $36 for all evening performances

Bookings: For student performances: [email protected]; website www.artscentremelbourne.com.au/learn or phone (03) 9281 8000

For evening or Saturday performances please contact Arts Centre Melbourne Box Office directly on 1300 182 183 or via the website www.artscentremelbourne.com.auPlease note: Student performances will go on sale week commencing 12 November; all evening and weekend performances of One the Bear will go on sale April 2019.

One the Bear is a new work from the award-winning Black Honey Company (winners of the Total Theatre Award UK, Edinburgh Fringe, two Greenroom awards and the Helpmann Award for Best Cabaret). Black Honey Company creates works that are committed to portraying the lived experience of those fighting for social inclusion, and collaborates with artists from African, Asian and Polynesian diasporas. Written by the award-winning performer and writer Candy Bowers, One the Bear is described as a fairy tale for the hip-hop generation.

One the Bear comes to life though an extraordinary cross-disciplinary team, together with a directorial eye from Susie Dee. The production delivers a dystopic world created in consultation with teenagers from the outer-west Sydney suburb of Campelltown.

In her writer’s notes for the 2017 season at La Boite (Brisbane), Bowers wrote: ‘My journey to creating One the Bear has been a mix of exploring the themes of life with young people from the margins and my own personal herstory. I wanted to give the next generation of queens a gift but also challenge them, hold a light up and create open conversations’.

Set in a garbage tip, this is the story of a young female bear that wants more for her tribe. Garbage sparkles and catches on beams from broken streetlights as One and her best friend Ursula get up to mischief and mourn the dank life they lead. The two spit out rhymes about living under Human Hunter law and dream of the days when bears were free, eating fresh fish rather than packaged fish fingers. But what happens when One is given the opportunity to speak for her community? What happens when fame knocks at the door?

The show is written in verse and uses a variety of theatre styles that include: cabaret, political theatre, Brecht, satire, Theatre of the Absurd, spoken word, song and hip-hop.



http://www.artscentremelbourne.com.au/

http://www.artscentremelbourne.com.au/learn



Award-winning street artist Jason Wing designed the set. As Bowers states: ‘Jason Wing is this incredible political street and visual artist and his activism is matched with his aesthetic. I wanted a graffiti artist who could also conceive of the spacial needs of the stage; his work as an installation/public artist was excellent ground work for the One The Bear set design.’ Wing creates a dynamic space – an urban junkyard with bare tree branches curling towards the stage above a dumpster and a throne made from the bones of One’s mother. With video projection from Optikal Bloc, the space is transformed from constellations of stars to a stadium full of fans screaming for more from One. Optikal Bloc’s video design adds another layer to the performance, at times working to add elements to the set that extend the storytelling.

Costumes by Sarah Seahorse show the transformation of One as she moves into the celebrity world. Her costumes become increasingly ornate and further away from the Bear we first met. The costumes work cohesively with the production further highlighting themes of hyper-consumerism, celebrity and appropriation. The music and sound design by Busty Beatz sets the rhythm and drive of the piece.

One the Bear is a contemporary theatre production that gives students a very solid foundation for the analysis and evaluation of the elements of a professional drama performance.

Advice to schools:This production contains simulated (satirical) drug-taking and some coarse language.

5. Tchekov in the House of Special Purpose by Rosemary Johns

Theatre Company: La Mama Theatre

Season: 28 August–8 September

Performance times: Wednesday: 6.30pm; Thursday–Saturday: 7.30pm; Sunday: 4.00pm; Matinees on Wednesday and Thursday: 11.00am



Tickets: $36 VCE ticket packages for students and teachers (includes show, post-show forum, program notes and published copy of script); $25 non-VCE tickets for students and teachers (includes show and post-show forum only). There are no complimentary tickets for accompanying teachers.


Tchekov at The House of Special Purpose is a new play by AWGIE-nominated playwright Rosemary Johns. It involves a significant reworking of Three Sisters (1901) by Anton Chekhov. Sixteen years after Three Sisters was first produced, the Russian Revolution changed Russian society and the world forever. The death of the last Romanov Tsar and his family at the hands of the Bolsheviks was shrouded in mystery and even now, in the 21st century, there are competing truths about the story. It has been documented in letters written by the Romanov girls that they performed Chekhov in their imprisonment. This fact is the starting point for Tchekov at The House of Special.

Rosemary Johns conceived the idea for this play when visiting St Petersburg on her way to Stockholm to present at the Women Playwrights International Conference. Taking Chekov’s





play and fast-forwarding it 17 years into the future, the cast is now that of the Romanov family. However, the soldiers in their provincial house are not guests (as in Three Sisters) but Bolshevik guards who are possibly as confused about the end point of their surveillance as ‘Citizen’ Nicholas, his family and retainers are about their imprisonment.

Chekov did not write historical or autobiographical plays, and this new work is not intended as documentary theatre. Rather, just as Shakespeare used history plays to explore character dramatically and to give us commentary on human nature, the particular events of the last days of the four Romanov girls speak to what makes us human. Johns’ text is Chekhovian, or suffused with a Chekhovian melancholy and comedy, in the way that the characters are in denial – still hoping, still yearning – and trapped by forces they reluctantly struggle to understand.

This work has been specially designed (by Green Room Award winner Peter Mumford) for the Courthouse Theatre and its architectural features are part of the core of the setting. The Brechtian set – stark and austere – is subverted with illusionistic elements. The Poor Theatre aspect is reflected in the on-stage action confined to one room, where the architectural features of the Courthouse are incorporated rather than disguised. The atmospheric lighting emphasises the emotions of characters in crisis and seeks to direct the eye to where the action is most intense or relevant. In order to activate the stage space, the designer chose to enclose the audience with vertical black tabs, rather than the actors or the stage. This encourages the audience to see themselves as witnesses to what was not known, not seen historically; they are now engaged in this event that very few knew about.

Directed by highly esteemed Australian actor/director Alex Menglet (who trained as an actor in Russia) and with 12 experienced actors, this production allows VCE Theatre Studies students the opportunity to analyse and evaluate a contemporary play based on a classic one.

Advice to schools:This production contains brief nudity (rear view, male), a brief mention of sexual assault, and an authentic 1918 firearm is used as a prop, with the sound effects of guns and bombs at one point in the performance.



Documents

2019 VCE Drama and Theatre Studies Playlist · Web viewThe extensive resources of the MTC Production departments will be used to create a detailed scenic world, which is then transformed