→ SUGARLAND

→ What to expect

→ Post Show Q&A

→ Write a review

SUGARLAND SUGARLAND SUGARLAND SUGARLAND

SCHOOLS SCHOOLS SCHOOLS SCHOOLS

AUDIENCESAUDIENCESAUDIENCESAUDIENCES

WHAT TO EXPECTWHAT TO EXPECTWHAT TO EXPECTWHAT TO EXPECT

→ Sugarland is an exploration of the

lives of young people living in

Katherine. It is the result of writers

Rachael Coopes and Wayne Blaire

visiting the town over +ve years and

listening to the stories of the people

who live there.

→ In the weeks prior to opening at

ATYP the show was performed in

Katherine for the community in which

it was developed. It also played at the

Darwin festival.

Listen to the interview with our

cast and creatives on radio

national

→ Don’t miss our behind the scenes

experiences: watch the

videos and download our

education resource pack

for ideas about how to

introduce Sugarland to

your class.

https://

www.atyp.com.au/whats-

on/productions/sugarland

→ Sugarland Deals with themes of

SELF HARM

→ Some of the scenes in Sugarland portray a

graphic depiction of the lived experiences of

the young people of Katherine. This includes

a scene in which the characters play a

‘choking game’. The game involves one

person choking the other person until they

pass out, in order to achieve a ‘rush’ or

‘high’.

→ One of the characters in Sugarland self-

harms in the form of cutting her arm. This is

portrayed in the form of make-up scars on

her arm. There is no blood and she does not

perform the cutting on stage.

→ Sugarland contains EXPLICIT

LANGUAGE.

→ The language the characters use

throughout the performance includes

expletives.

→ Sugarland contains DRUG USE.

→ Scenes include characters smoking,

sni8ng, smoking marijuana.

→ TEACHERS we advise that you

unpack these issues both before

and after seeing the performance.

Please use our resource

SUGARLAND: THE BIG ISSUES

To assist you with this.

Please don’t hesitate to contact Adèle or

Lisa if you have any questions or concerns.

→ ATYPATYPATYPATYP LearningLearningLearningLearning

Phone: 02 9270 2400

Fax: 02 9251 3909 or

Email:

education@atyp.com.au

www.atyp.com.au

POST SHOW Q&APOST SHOW Q&APOST SHOW Q&APOST SHOW Q&A When preparing for the Post Show

Q&A it is a good idea to:

→ Read the Program:

Director’s notes give you a nice

insight into the intention of the

piece.

This show is unique, it is based on the

stories of young people in the town of

Katherine NT. One of our writers is an

actor in the show. You will be able to

gain an insight into how the play was

written and developed.

Think about the following topic areas:

→ DEVELOPING CHARACTER

- How did the writers develop the

characters?

- How similar are characters to real

people? How much is +ction?

- How did the cast develop depth of

character?

- Identify two characters

that stood out in your

mind? Why were they so

memorable?

- Do any of the actors identify with

the character they are playing?

Why/Why not?

→ CREATING AN ENSEMBLE

- How did the cast and directors develop

techniques to work as an ensemble?

- What was the rehearsal room like?

- How has being on tour inIuenced your sense

of ensemble?

→ ACTOR-AUDIENCE RELATIONSHIP

- How did the actors prepare for making

connections to the audience?

- How did the community in Katherine react to

the play?

- What was the role of the audience in the

performance?

→ APPROACH TO TEXT

- How did you approach the text as an

ensemble? What did you do in the rehearsal

room to explore the text? Did the text change

in rehearsal?

→ ask your questions

via twitter

@atyp_theatre

#atyp_sugarland

POST SHOW Q&APOST SHOW Q&APOST SHOW Q&APOST SHOW Q&A

ELEMENTS OF ELEMENTS OF ELEMENTS OF ELEMENTS OF

DRAMADRAMADRAMADRAMA

→ SPACE

- Why did the director/ actors use the

stage space as they did?

- What did you think about the way

the space was lit? How did the

designer make choices about the

lighting?

- How does the set trtansform the

space?

→ MOVEMENT

- How eLective was the use of

movement? Why?

→ SYMBOL

- What are the symbolic elements of

the play?

- How we gonna +x

country? What does this

mean?

→ MOOD/ATMOSPHERE

How was sound created for the piece?

How did sound contribute to the

atmosphere/mood of the work?

Where were the high points in the

performance?

→ FOCUS

- How did the director draw your focus to the

action he most wanted you to see?

- How do the actors work to maintain focus

throughout the entire show?

→ THEME

- How did the play explore the theme of loss?

- How was the theme of self harm

approached. Was it done well?

→ ask your questions

via twitter

@atyp_theatre

#atyp_sugarland

WRITING REVIEWSWRITING REVIEWSWRITING REVIEWSWRITING REVIEWS

A review is an important part of theatre

criticism. It gives an account of the

production with the writer's opinion of the

success of the performance.

HOW TO WRITE A REVIEW:HOW TO WRITE A REVIEW:HOW TO WRITE A REVIEW:HOW TO WRITE A REVIEW:

You may wish to approach your review

writing by following guidelines:

− State the details of the production,

where, when, by who.

− A synopsis of the plot (without giving

away the ending!!!).

− Background of the play, importance of

the production (is it the +rst

production of the play? Has it been

performed many times before?).

− Information about the style, genre of

the piece.

− Analysis of the mood and atmosphere

created by the cast/designers.

− Analysis of the choices made by the

director.

− Analysis of the

performances by the actors.

− Analysis of set, costume,

lighting and design aspects and

how these relate to the themes

of the play.

− Your personal opinion supported by

examples to justify your opinion.

− Recommendation and / or overall

rating.

YOU HAVE A GO:YOU HAVE A GO:YOU HAVE A GO:YOU HAVE A GO:

Become an ATYPATYPATYPATYP theatre critic!

Use the scaLold opposite to write a review

of SugarlandSugarlandSugarlandSugarland. Send it to

adele@atyp.com.au we'll publish well

written reviews on our website.

When reviewing try to:

− Paint an accurate picture of the

production for someone who has not

been there.

− Give a personal opinion about the

success of the performance.

Remember make it concise and clear.

Try to write your review in 300 words

We look forward to receiving your reviews!

Keep reading for more reviews of

SugarlandSugarlandSugarlandSugarland

→ Send your reviews

to adele@atyp.com.au

we'll publish well

written reviews on our

website.

IN a chilly, vast studio at Sydney’s Walsh Bay

Wharf precinct, a group of five young actors are

doing vocal exercises, shaky octaves floating over

the clash and boom of the Sydney Youth Orches-

tra rehearsing next door. Dubs Yunupingu, 17, a

striking teenager and scion of the famous indige-

nous family, playfully swings a booted foot at an-

other member of a prominent Australian arts

family: Hunter Page-Lochard, son of Bangarra’s

artistic director Stephen Page. The pair, part of a

cast of six rehearsing a new play, Sugarland, by

the Australian Theatre for Young People, bounce

around the room like rubber balls, fuelled with

restless, glittering energy.

A sense of playfulness dominates the proceedings —

it’s all fluffed lines, comical faces, and jokey asides

(“Settle,” theatre director Fraser Corfield warns with

a benign smile) but there is gravitas as Yunupingu —

“a lucky accident” in terms of casting finds, says Cor-

field — delivers a solemn, heartfelt monologue about

the past, memory and childhood. She stumbles, and

Corfield steps in. “Come on, you can do it, just like in

the workshops, remember? Pretend we’re children

and you’re telling us a story.”

There’s a lot to be done before Sugarland, ATYP’s

first fully professional production since 1978, is pre-

sented to the community in the Northern Territory’s

Katherine, and then at the Darwin Festival ahead of

its Sydney debut, but Corfield is confident in the

power of his young cast and the story itself.

Sugarland tells the tale of five disparate teenagers and

their lives in Katherine, focusing on the unlikely friendship

between feisty indigenous teenager Nina (played by

Yunupingu) who is on a search for a house of her own (she

lives with 12 others), and troubled white RAAF brat Erica

(Elena Foreman), a new arrival in town. Their social group

includes a cocky, charismatic Iraqi teenager (Narek Ar-

man), a white Australian (Michael Cameron) and an Abo-

riginal youth (Page-Lochard).

Co-writers Rachael Coopes (Art House) and Wayne Blair

(Bloodland, The Sapphires), who created Sugarland out of a

series of residencies in Katherine during two years from 2011,

have seamlessly knitted together vastly differing stories, cul-

tures and topographies: one minute you’re listening to the typi-

cal minutiae of teenage life — -iPhones and social media, Jay-

Z, hip-hop and schoolyard romances — the next you’re diving

down a bleak rabbit hole of poverty, domestic dysfunction, racism and self-mutilation. (“Your whole arm will get infected

and fall off during the Wet,” Nina scolds Erica as she examines

Erica’s angry gashes.)

Overlaying it all is the rich, exotic skin of Australia’s remote

tropical north: all through the play are references to bloated

water buffalo carcasses and crocs, brolga dances and the hu-

mid, clinging creep of the seasonal rains. This layered detail

comes from close observation, says Coopes who, with Blair,

spoke at length to Katherine teenagers, youth workers and

teachers, doing workshops and harvesting “sometimes shock-

ing” real-life stories that found their way into the script.

Perhaps the most enjoyable, if tricky, challenge, she says, was “trying to find the universality of it all” in a wildly diverse

patchwork of subcultures. “Obviously this play is about the life

of a teenager in the Northern Territory, but at the end of the day

they are teenagers who are talking and listening to the same

stuff, who have the same issues — though the stakes are so

much higher — as kids in Brooklyn, or Japan or Sydney.”

Another key challenge was trying to capture the roiling emo-

tional ferment of adolescence. “I think we tend to forget how

big these stakes are when you’re young ... the really huge, hard

stuff happens then, not later.”

Coopes and ATYP director Corfield say doing a work such as Sugarland has focused their attention on the dearth of works

on stage and screen telling stories of a young Australia that

doesn’t fit the usual sanitised, culturally homogenous urban

template.

For Coopes this is where the joy of the project lay, the chance

to present a slice of life — remote, wildly multicultural — for-

eign to most of Australia but that exists, in all its rich diversity,

outside the boundaries of our gaze. “These were kids for whom

English was their third or even fourth language. They were

Katherine kids, kids from Iraq, RAAF kids, all with extraordi-

nary stories and subcultures — this is the Australia we live in,” says Coopes, who drew on her own childhood experiences of

spending school holidays on RAAF bases with her father.

“Katherine is such an extraordinary melting pot of cultures, so

just in terms of indigenous communities, there are saltwater

people, freshwater people, desert people, and then you’ve got

the Indonesian community, and then the RAAF kids, so it’s

very diverse for a town of only 10,000 people,” Corfield says.

“That was the purpose of the show, to show this world.

“ATYP has run programs in indigenous communities across the

country, including at Tennant Creek, Palm Island, Katherine,

the Pilbara, for many years, and people not from there are often

shocked as it’s so different from what they’re used to. There’s a general lack of awareness, and so the purpose is to try to create

a bit of insight into this other Australia.”

Australian Theatre for Young

People targets younger audi-

ences with Sugarland

Coopes says this is “also a story of belonging and how to

find it. There’s this sense of community which you get in

many small towns, a sense of what’s important — when

you’re worrying about how you need a house, you’re not

sweating the small stuff. It’s about family, and being

together at home, in country, whatever that means to

you, wherever you’re from.”

She was keenly aware of the delicate challenge of

portraying teenage life — pop music and social me-

dia, relationship dramas and school politics —

against a wider landscape of deep social dysfunction

so sadly common in communities across Territory. It

could not be ignored, but at the same time she didn’t

want to adopt a heavy-handed, polemical approach.

“Look, it’s the landscape of their lives and it abso-

lutely informs their lives and the decisions they make

and how they feel about themselves and therefore

who they are. But at the same time, I didn’t want to

go in all [heavy]. In effect, however, in trying to

avoid writing a political play, it kind of ends up being

one.”

Corfield, who is co-directing Sugarland with Ban-

garra’s resident composer David Page, has big plans

for ATYP, Australia’s oldest and largest national

youth theatre group with a string of well-received co-

productions such as 2011’s -Silent Disco. Playwrights

under commission or recently produced include Kate

Mulvaney (Medea,The Seed), Ross Mueller

(Construction of the Human Heart), and Lachlan

Philpott (M. Rock). “Building works that can tour

nationally — that’s the next step for us.”

Corfield, who has been ATYP director since 2009, is

also passionate about the need to raise the profile of

youth theatre in Australia: he is frustrated that there

is, in his view, a thriving commercial industry that

supports young audiences and artists working in film,

television, digital media, visual arts, music, literature

and other art forms, but not so much in theatre.

Young adult theatre is marginalised, he says. At a

time when young adult fiction (thinkTwilight to The

Hunger Games), for example, has become a booming

cultural force and growth market in Australia and

internationally, why should it continue to be a poor

cousin?

“I think there is a lack of confidence in the ability of

young people to tell stories in the theatre in a sophis-

ticated way. It’s that old chestnut: when a profession-

al theatre company does a show with a teenage char-

acter, they’ll cast a 27-year-old in the role,” Corfield

says.

Teenage life can be a deep, complex and rich creative

wellspring but too often its stories are dismissed “as teen-

age angst”, he says. If done well, it can resonate with a

vast audience “because we’ve all been there. It’s perhaps

the most powerful time of your life, shaping your hopes

and values and ideals.”

Corfield wants to make theatre as appealing to young

people as live music, film and other forms of entertain-

ment. The first contact with theatre for many Australian

students is being taken to see a Shakespeare play: for

some it inspires, for others, it deadens.

“I think we do a dangerous thing in theatre, we tell some-

one something is a classic, and you know what? There are

pieces of theatre I’ve grown to love since becoming an

adult. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is an ex-

ample, but when I was in school I didn’t get it, and if

you’re told that this is the best the art form can be, you

won’t have an interest in it. By contrast, you look at

something like Blackrock by Nick Enright, which is such

a profound piece that continues to be studied in school

because teenagers get the stories and the characters.”

So is there a case for rejigging the curriculum, making

sure that the classics are balanced with contemporary

pieces? “Absolutely. There’s a reason why almost every

teenager loves music — there’s a truckload of music for

them to listen to that specifically speaks to them. It might

not speak to the kind of people leading our major cultural

institutions but it doesn’t need to. It generates a love of

the art form which then extends to different areas. And I

think there’s an opportunity in theatre that we haven’t

seized yet, the opportunity to create a body of work that

speaks to people in their teens and early 20s that can en-

gender a love of the art form.”

Corfield says Australia needs to establish a more dynamic

culture of theatre for, and by, young people that also ap-

peals to a wider market. Good examples to emulate in-

clude Belgium’s Ontroerend Goed, with internationally

successful works created by young people but intended

for adults.

“Australia is taking a while to get its head around it, but

internationally there are companies who do this. We tend

to very much box things — professional theatre for young

people is one thing, professional theatre is another, and

theatre with young people in it is a completely different

thing again. So the idea that you could have a fully pro-

fessional show that engages young as well as adult audi-

ences, and with young people on stage is quite a new con-

cept, and it’s going to take some time to get entrenched.

But that’s the direction for us.”

Sugarland opens at Darwin Festival on Tuesday then

travels to Sydney from August 29.

h�p://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/australian-theatre-for-young-people-targets-younger-audiences-with-

sugarland/story-fn9n8gph-1227024187880