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VAN BADHAM (1978 - ) |
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Nationality: Australian Email: Click here to contact Website: n/a |
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Literary Agent: Berlin Associates ANZ representative Shanahan Management Pty Ltd |
Van Badham was born in Sydney, Australia, the only child of working-class parents. As a teenager, she trained as an actor at the Philip Street Theatre. While there she began to write sketches and short pieces and was encouraged to develop her writing by drama teacher, Darrell Hilton, who also taught Nicole Kidman. At eighteen, she enrolled in the Creative Writing degree programme at the University of Wollongong and began to write full-length works for the stage. At university, her political awareness grew and she wrote less as she devoted more time to left-wing political activism. She became President of the National Union of Students in 1998. Disillusioned by her involvement in factional politics, Badham returned to writing and began to use her insights into political behaviour in her work. The Wilderness of Mirrors, about secret service infiltration of an activist organisation, won the first Naked Theatre Company young writers' competition in 1999, and was based on her own experiences of infiltration in the student movement. In 2001, Badham left Australia, frustrated by both a conservative Australian political climate and the "self-censorship" of state-funded theatre responding to the political regime. She arrived in the UK to study at the University of Sheffield and her first British show, Kitchen, was produced at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre soon afterwards. A vicious, satirical take on labour relations and global capitalism, Kitchen announced the distinctive voice, uncompromising political themes and razor-sharp wit that have become trademarks of her work. The play sold out at the Edinburgh Festival in 2002 and subsequently transferred to London and New York. In 2003, a production of her short works, Bedtime for Bastards, appeared in London and Edinburgh to great controversy. Badham's dark depiction of US Marines committing human rights abuses in an Afghani jail provoked walkouts and front-page outcry and prompted the US Embassy to issue a statement denying the play had any basis in fact. The Scotsman noted, "this play is a wonderful antidote for the dangerous, empty-headed and jargon riddled times we live in - the word audacious does not come close." Camarilla, a study of domestic terrorism and the anxieties of New Labour Britain, was a critical and popular hit at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2003, cementing her reputation as a leading proponent of contemporary political theatre. "Stunning," wrote Johann Hari in The Independent "She makes a dazzling, terrifying case that has to be answered. Badham predicts that a new generation of Baader-Meinhof Gangs may be about to rise. If they do, she will provide their most eloquent and dangerous voices." Badham has since won numerous awards in both Australia and the UK and her work is now performed all over the world. In 2004, her short play An Anarchist at Dinner won Best Play at the Short & Sweet International Short Play Festival in Sydney and transferred to The Sydney Opera House, while Nikolina premiered in Edinburgh and won her the Fringe Report Playwright of the Year Award and a commendation in the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Awards. More recent plays have included Petrograd (about the death of Soviet idealism), Persae (an anti-Iraq-War adaptation of Aeschylus' The Persians) and the award-winning Black Hands / Dead Section (about Germany's Baader-Meinhof movement), as well as radio dramas for the BBC. She returns to the University of Wollongong every year to run a specialist theatre-writing summer school. Van Badham's plays are typically concerned with the politics and legacy of violence, dichotomies of middle- and working-class values, the social roles of women in Western society and the relationship of art to history.
Quotes:
"Try being a capitalist prick when your shit's on fire" - Black Hands / Dead Section
."The middle-class fetishize violence because they've never had to live with it" - Black Hands / Dead Section
"Offer people a choice between their principles or their job and it doesn't matter what they take because either way they're broken." - Kitchen
"No sweetness, no service" - Kitchen Typical conservative - uses his own frustrations as an excuse to dump shit on the rest of the world. - Camarilla
"When a government makes non-violent political action untenable, they make violent political action inevitable." - Van Badham
"It is my own experience of violence that makes me so opposed to its political use. That goes equally for terrorism as for the imperialist wars of Western states." - Van Badham
"Structure is more important than content in the transmission of information."- Abbie Hoffman
Plays by Van Badham
All My Honey Sunsets | ||
| 1st Produced: | University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia | 1995 | ||||
Company: | University of Wollongong company | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #44372 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Monologue play (five monologues) | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | Five monologues capture the climate of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Australia in the mid-nineties. An ex-speed-addict, a newly separated husband, a homophobe returned from a sex holiday, a former Christian with a newborn baby and a professional footballer player discuss the ways in which HIV/AIDS has touched and transformed their lives. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Anarchist At Dinner, An | ||
| 1st Produced: | Short & Sweet International Short Play Festival (Newtown Theatre), Sydney | 2004 | ||||
Company: | Short & Sweet Company | |||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | - | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #52215 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Short, comedy (metatheatre), 10 mins One Act | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 3 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Winner, Best Play and Best Writer (Comedy), Short & Sweet International Short Play Festival, 2004 | |||||
Synopsis: | Four urbane and materialistic Sydneysiders superficially confront their vacuousness in anticipation of the arrival of a long-lost friend with radical political beliefs. A satire on the conventions of Australian bourgeois theatre, An Anarchist at Dinner sets the dinner guest up as the perfect stool-pigeon for the affirming of bourgeois values. The anarchist, however, is not merely coming to dinner. She is bringing a gun. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Bang on the Nerve | ||
| 1st Produced: | 2004 | |||||
Company: | Theatre 503 | |||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | - | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #44336 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Comedy One Act 40 min | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | 2nd place, International Student Playscript Competition, National Student Drama Festival, UK, 2005 | |||||
Synopsis: | Elle and Louis are young artists and good friends with disastrous careers and more-than-disastrous relationships. While Louis, the musician-turned-theatre-restaurant-minstrel moons over the loss of his girlfriend, Elle the filmmaker-turned-learning-support-assistant rails against the sins of her exboyfriend. The conversation, naturally, turns to sex and a blistering confrontation erupts between the romantic young man and the bitter young feminist about the gender politics of sexual freedom. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Bedtime For Bastards | ||
| 1st Produced: | 2003 | |||||
Company: | ||||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | - | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #1513 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Three Plays | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Kitchen/Capital/Morning On A Rainy Day | |||||
Synopsis: | see individual plays for synopses | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Biographical Details | ||
| 1st Produced: | - - - | - - - | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | - | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #130864 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | 20 min Dramatic monologue | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | Biographical Details is a dramatic monologue that explores the violence lurking in and around an apparently 'white, urban and bourgeois' life. Trawling through a collection of photographs from her past, from her suburban Sydney christening through her expulsion from high school to her years as a political activist and beyond, the performing auto-biographer examines the incidents of violence - some comic, some cynical, some harrowing - that hide behind the seeming banalities of the photographs. Biographical Details is one young woman's journey from innocence to experience, and from anger to outrage. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Black Hands / Dead Section | ||
| 1st Produced: | MacOwan Theatre, London | 2005 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | - | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #44337 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Epic Drama, 5 act | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 17 | Female | 13 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Commissioned graduation production of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) | |||||
Synopsis: | In 1967 a group of young, white, West German university students took up arms against a democratically-elected government in which their belief had died. Young, idealistic and willing to die for the cause they believed in, the group bought guns, robbed banks, trained with Palestinian militants, engaged with gun battles with police, kidnapped prominent citizens and bombed US army bases in a campaign of urban guerilla warfare that lasted more than 10 years. They called themselves the RAF - the Red Army Faction. History remembers them as the Baader-Meinhof Gang. "The play's own history sounds awful. Drama school LAMDA commissioned it as a piece of new writing (two words guaranteed to chill the blood) - for 30 graduating actors. The students contributed detailed research projects. It lasts for 3 hours. It sounds like hell. No - it's a masterpiece." John Park, Fringe Report. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Ca$H In Christ! | ||
| 1st Produced: | Assembly @ Hill Street Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe Festival >>> | 2007 | ||||
Company: | Wisepart, Jews & Communists | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #72137 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | written by Van Dadham and Jonny Berliner | |||||
Synopsis: | Cash in Christ, by Van Badham and Jonny Berliner. Bob and Fanny Comfort sing the fun into fundamentalism in this celebration of Britain's new megachurch televangelists. Remember: Praise pays! Fringe First winning company. 'The most incendiary politics on the Fringe' Independent . | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Camarilla | ||
| 1st Produced: | C Venues Edinburgh Festival & Old Red Lion Theatre, London >>> | 2003 | ||||
Company: | ||||||
| 1st Published: | in PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art - PAJ 81 (Volume 27, Number 3), September, 2005 | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #1514 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Drama, full length | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | Today. London. A bomb. Nobody knows who the terrorists are, or their motives. As Professor Maggy Tanner recovers from the explosion, another bomb is detonated within her own family. A ticking clock of unresolved separations and family secrets thunders towards unwanted confrontations. A mother's love. A daughter's ambition. A son's vengeance. As Maggy's world crumbles around her, the question echoes in her mind: are the terrorists without, or within? "Camarilla made me feel as if I had been punched in the stomach - Quite apart from telling a cracking story, Badham uses theatre as a forum where political ideas can be clarified, clash and die. In dialogue that feels like it's been soaked overnight in acid, her characters rip one another's politics apart - and she makes a dazzling, terrifying case that has to be answered - Nicholas Hytner has said that he wants our National Theatre to become politically dangerous again; does he have the courage to stage this writer's work?" The Independent (double-page feature) Joh | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Capital | ||
| 1st Produced: | 2003 | |||||
Company: | ||||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | - | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #1515 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | 25 min Hyper-realistic Black Comedy | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Part of Bedtime For Bastards. | |||||
Synopsis: | A savagely hilarious satire on US imperialism since 9/11. Footage of Marines ransacking an Afghan school is about to be unleashed on an unsuspecting world. At their high powered New York PR firm, Jim and Bob have 30 minutes to spin an explanation. "Extraordinary - The dialogue is vicious - Sharp intakes of breath alternated with hoots of laughter, as the no-holds-barred dialogue crossed line after line. The word audacious does not come close to the thrilling sense of taboos being broken and truths being told. This play is a wonderful antidote for the dangerous, empty-headed and jargon riddled times we live in." The Scotsman, Diane Dubois | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Continuing Occupation | ||
| 1st Produced: | 2007 | |||||
Company: | The Production Company | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #72635 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | n/a | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | The Production Company presents The Australia Project II: Australia Strikes Back!, a program of new works by Australian playwrights. The following description is from the show's press release: "Twelve acclaimed Australian playwrights create pieces based on their perceptions of the United States. The Australia Project II: Australia Strikes Back! includes new plays from some of Australia's most celebrated playwrights. The Production Company's work promotes and deepens cultural exchange between the United States and Australia and encourages artists to explore the relationship between the two countries." | |||||
Synopsis: | n/a | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Dole Diary | ||
| 1st Produced: | Downstairs, Belvoir Street Theatre, Sydney, Australia | 2000 | ||||
Company: | Naked Theatre Company | |||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | - | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #52216 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Comedy/Drama, 2 Act 60 mins Comedy | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 3 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Lainie, Kim and Emma are young, smart, educated, creative and trapped in a cycle of crappy jobs and unemployment. Kim, a writer, is being shuffled around temping agencies by her stockbroker boyfriend, Lainie, a musician, has resigned herself to marijuana | |||||
Synopsis: | Lainie, Kim and Emma are young, smart, educated, creative and trapped in a cycle of crappy jobs and unemployment. Kim, a writer, is being shuffled around temping agencies by her stockbroker boyfriend, Lainie, a musician, has resigned herself to marijuana and joblessness and Emma, an actor, is stripping for cash. Dole Diary chronicles the transformation of the Australian welfare state and cultural policy from the nation-building days of the 1980s to the harsh, neoliberal reality of Australia under conservative government. "A heady brew of razor-wit, sardonic observation, delivered in acutely rendered Australian dialogue, with humour used as a weapon." Rowan Cahill, Workers Online | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Gabriels, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | 2006 | |||||
Company: | Floodtide | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #46683 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | 4 | ||
Parts other: | doubling | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | Lisa 'Bonnet' Nolan, is a cult comic writer. Her work's a mixture of future sci-fi and alternative lesbian graphic novels. She and her partner Jane have teamed up with a couple, Jerry and Allen, to parent a desperately wanted child through IVF. In her latest comic she's exploring a dreaded future of embryonic experiments, unstable genetic creations and the human products of ethical dispute. A Christian fundamentalist government has been elected, laboratories have been raided and scientific research has been shut down. The watchful gaze of an authoritarian state patrols everything from explicit literature to sexual behaviour but their puritanical society can't hide its genetic secrets forever. Meanwhile in Lisa's kitchen, her son from her previous marriage, has just arrived to visit with his profoundly Christian new girlfriend | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Hot Man | ||
| 1st Produced: | King's Head Theatre, 115 Upper Street, Islington, London N1 1QN >>> | 24 Jan 2010 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #109987 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | short play | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | part of "The Smoke" | |||||
Synopsis: | It is 2010 and smoking is increasingly frowned on, but when beset by the traumas of modern relationships, sometimes that's all you can do. Helen and Andrew live in adjoining flats and smoking is bringing themtogether.But there is one problem: Penny, Andrew's ex. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Kitchen | ||
| 1st Produced: | University of Sheffield, UK | 2001 | ||||
Company: | ||||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | - | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #1516 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Black Comedy One Act | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Part of Bedtime For Bastards. Developed with the financial assistance of the Australia Council for the Arts. Selected for Collection 4 profiling by the Australian Script Centre, 2003 | |||||
Synopsis: | A laugh-out-loud black comedy that gets too close for comfort then punches you square in the stomach. Two human resource managers play out a blitzkrieg battle of the sexes where anything goes in the war for supremacy. Owen has lost his job, Helene has lost her Lean Cuisine. As the claustrophobia in the kitchen heightens, so do the stakes. "The only danger is of laughing too hard - Badham's dialogue sparkles and her wit is sharper than the most finely honed Sabatier, with an edge that cuts straight to the heart of human relationships. It is a joy to watch - the script is delivered with obvious gusto and relish by the exceptional stars, Nina Millns and George Perrin." The Scotsman, Kirsty Knaggs | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Landed | ||
| 1st Produced: | workshop performance. Performance Space, Wollongong, Australia. | 2000 | ||||
Company: | Theatre Physical | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #44376 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Physical Theatre Piece | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Book: Van Badham, Choreography: Co. Theatre Physical. Developed with the financial assistance of the Australia Council and the NSW Ministry of the Arts | |||||
Synopsis: | Stories of arrivals and departures collected from the teenage students at the Warrawong Intensive English Centre and developed in script by Van Badham and in performance by Co. Theatre Physical. Interviewees from as far afield as Turkey, Portugal, Tonga, the states of the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, the Philippines and Macau, among others, contributed stories built into scenes about the confusions of learning a new language, dreams of the past and the common languages of love, strength, sport and friendship. "Dreaming, remembering, trying to forget; these are stories of teenage migrants and refugees in Australia. Landed uses themes of physical strength, grace and subtlety to show us that love, laughter and uncertainty are fundamental to our shared humanity." Australian Psychological Society. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Letters to W | ||
| 1st Produced: | workshop performance - Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, England, EUR >>> | 2004 | ||||
Company: | LIPA Company | |||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | - | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #44338 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | expressionist comedy/drama, full length | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | expandable to 30 | |||||
Notes: | 4th place, International Student Playscript Competition, National Student Drama Festival, UK, 2005 | |||||
Synopsis: | Josie Kelly is a travelling Briton who lands herself in the United States on an adventurous quest to not lose her luggage as she seeks to find herself. Her wild journey takes her from Sydney to Las Vegas, San Francisco, Seattle, New Hampshire, New York and back to London and all the while she maintains contact with the mysterious W - an invalid penpal she has met on the internet. Josie's adventures through airports, trainstations and bus-stops and her casual encounters with friends, lovers, performance poets and security personnel are devotedly relayed to W. While Josie tries to deal with a grief she can't even share with her confidante, the unseen America she travels through quietly deals with its own deaths and intimacies. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Lounge Songs | ||
| 1st Produced: | University of Wollongong Performance Space, Wollongong, Australia | 1994 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #44374 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Monologue play (three monologues) | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | expandable | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | These three monologues take place on the 21st birthdays of three Australian women. Upper-middle-class Brigitta is an artist with an obsession for dancers and an unusual eating disorder. Lower-middle-class Selena can't decide if she wants to ascend the corporate ladder or run screaming into the desert and working-class Renee is trying to escape the small town that has abused and isolated her._Theatre Production Credits: Collaborative | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Material Girls | ||
| 1st Produced: | Bridge Theatre, Coniston, Australia | 2003 | ||||
Company: | AnyRoad Productions in association with Theatre South | |||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | - | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #52217 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | full legth Comedy | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | 4 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | An expressionist comedy with a very dark theme, Material Girls takes a scalpel to the politics of plastic surgery and the impossibility of the Western female beauty ideal. Gina Dobbs and her sister Hayley endure their mother's well-meaning criticism and competitive behaviour until the arrival of their seemingly perfect cousin Greta. Greta's charm and beauty seem to throw Gina and Hayley's human imperfections into harsh relief. When Greta steals the boy that Gina has a crush on, Gina spirals into self-destruction - but the tables turn on Greta, and it's revealed that the perfect woman has some shocking mutilations of her own. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Morning On A Rainy Day | ||
| 1st Produced: | 2003 | |||||
Company: | ||||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | - | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #1517 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | 20 min Naturalistic comedy | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Part of Bedtime For Bastards. | |||||
Synopsis: | Polly is trying to escape her past. One problem, she's just woken up in bed with it. "Van Badham has something refreshingly universal to say - she fuses personal problems with global concerns in plays that voice a generation's anger." Time Out Helena Thompson | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Nikolina | ||
| 1st Produced: | 2004 | |||||
Company: | ||||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | - | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #44339 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Drama, full length | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Developed with the financial assistance of the British Arts Council. Highly Commended, Amnesty International U Win Tin Freedom of Expression Awards, 2004 | |||||
Synopsis: | Nikolina, a young Serbian in Britain, has fled her crumbled nation but her scars travel with her. Working in a Sheffield cafe, Nikolina becomes entangled in the lives of three British university students when the sexually immoral Francis decides to pursue her. The arrogance of youthful Britain comes face-to-face with the reality of survival as Nikolina is pursued into a past she cannot forget and the desire for love collides with the desire for revenge. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Organic Response to the Ideological State Apparatus: Australia 1996-2004, An | ||
| 1st Produced: | Short & Sweet International Short Play Festival (Seymour Centre), Sydney, Australia | 2005 | ||||
Company: | Green Ham company | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #44340 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Short Epic One Act | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | chorus of 9 | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | (This) sprawling epic written by last year's Short and Sweet International Short Play Festival winner Van Badham didn't seem squashed by it's ten-minute constraint. Even the title says sprawl - An Organic Response to the Ideological State Apparatus: Australia 1996 - 2004. Badham's political satire had the prime minister practicing his racial slurs before sheep and Australia's own Skippy being bludgeoned by a Greens-basher. Miles Merrill, The Program | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Persae | ||
| 1st Produced: | Performance Space, Wollongong, Australia | 2005 | ||||
Company: | University of Wollongong company | |||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | - | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #44341 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | 60 min Classical adaptation/expressionism/black tragi-com | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 5 | Female | 3 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | after Aeschylus' 'The Persians' | |||||
Synopsis: | An adaptation of Aeschylus' The Persians, Persae recasts the Persian invaders of Greece in the classical original with the Coalition of the Willing's troops invading Iraq. A chorus of spin doctors, journalists, US marines and party donors buzz around Atossa/Barbara Bush, a mutilated war hero and the bereaved daughter of the Australian Prime Minister. Classical speech and chorus devices are meshed with the language of soundbytes and embedded journalism, while the dark politics and violent consequences of invasion spin wildly out of control. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Petrograd | ||
| 1st Produced: | 2005 | |||||
Company: | Prospekt Theatre Company | |||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | - | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #44342 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | metatheatre, full length | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 3 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | Petrograd is the story of Ava, who is reunited with her onetime lover Chris when he approaches her to write a play for him about the Soviet Union. "Ava wants to write a play that will remind the world of a time when the West faced a more formidable challenge than 'a bunch of thoroughly pissed off Arabs', and one that represented hope for those who wanted an alternative society, even if not quite along the lines of the Soviet Union itself. Ava's project is complicated by factors outside her control, however, and Badham skillfully draws a parallel between Ava's authorial frustrations and those of the revolutionaries. Revolutions never go according to a prearranged script, after all. In Ava's case it is the fact that her play has been commissioned and is to be directed by an old flame that complicates things; she is never really in charge. More than that, her naïve view of the revolution is quite at odds with the reality. Having consulted an old tutor, she moves the action from the revolution itself to the early Brezhnev era (the tutor's specialism), perhaps unwittingly underlining the fact that the ultimate result of the revolution itself was something nobody had ever planned." Dolan Cummings, Culture Wars | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Poster Girl | ||
| 1st Produced: | Old Fitzroy Hotel, Woolloomooloo | 2008 | ||||
Company: | Platform 19 | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #122782 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | n/a | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | n/a | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Snatch Paradise | ||
| 1st Produced: | Underbelly (Edinburgh Festival Fringe) | 2009 | ||||
Company: | The Gemeinschaft Dogs | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #102244 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | n/a | |||||
| Parts: | Male | - | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | a debauched comedy about guns, porn and pop stars chasing a zeitgeist that's rapidly running away. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Still Life With A Dead Artist | ||
| 1st Produced: | Performance Space, Wollongong, Australia | 2003 | ||||
Company: | University of Wollongong company | |||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | - | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #52218 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Melodrama, 2 Act 120 mins | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 6 | Female | 6 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Selected for Collection 5 profiling by the Australian Script Centre, 2004 | |||||
Synopsis: | In 2002, a police sergeant on stress leave investigates the suicide of an old man and his middle-aged daughter in a strange, modernist house. In 1947, an ambitious young artist tumbles into the garden of the same house, interrupting a luncheon-party held by its owners. The relationship of the two events seems initially indistinct, as the sergeant attempts to understand the significance of the suicides in the context of a vanishing family. As she does so, past and present weave a story of doomed love, destruction and the liberating power of art. (Variable cast - can use 9F, 6M) ' - a compelling mystery about secrets, lies, and how forgotten pasts haunt troubled futures.' Anna King, Illawarra Theatre, April 2, 2003 | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Swamplands | ||
| 1st Produced: | Riverside Theatre, Parramatta, Australia | 16 Mar 2011 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | - | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #125821 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Play/Drama | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 6 | Female | 6 | ||
Parts other: | Multiple Roles played by 6 actors | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | The Diplomat, the Spy, the CIA, Rudyard Kipling, Lord Byron, Dick Cheney (a 10 foot lizard) and 32 other characters defend and patrol, confuse and concuss the US, the middle east and the rest of the world in a boiling vortex of subterfuge, paranoia, incompetence and international intrigue. This wild and furious play gets its teeth into the intelligence that lead to the war in Iraq and it asks some tough questions about politics, peace and accountability. It's stylish, surreal, funny and alarming in equal measure and much cooler and crazier than the film with Naomi Watts in it. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Three Short Plays About The Same Two People | ||
| 1st Produced: | PlayWriting Australias National Play Festival | 2009 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | - | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #99341 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | black comedy 55 min | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 1 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | Tom is cool. Eve is cool. Together they were even cooler. After an incident in a London club, Tom and Eve are left frail and brittle, and apart. Manpreet is cool. And young. She makes Tom cool again. When Eve returns, nothing is cool. Its funny, nasty and shocking, but not cool. Now what? | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Thrown to Earth | ||
| 1st Produced: | University of Wollongong Faculty of Creative Arts | 1997 | ||||
Company: | Commissioned graduation production | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #44344 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Historical drama, 3 act | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 9 | Female | 10 | ||
Parts other: | can be 7F, 5M | |||||
Notes: | formerly "Undiscovered Country" | |||||
Synopsis: | Set in WW2 Wollongong, Thrown to Earth relates the clash of class values and culture between the war-era working- and middle-class. A ragged repertory theatre troupe recruit "manpowered" girls from the local munitions factory to star in their production of Thomas Poole's Hamlet travesty. As the fading British thesps and their hangers-on try to stay one step ahead of the scandals that pursue them, the factory girls grapple with the deprivation and grind of working-class life. The collaboration between the two groups offers escape for the girls and protection for the company, but this relationship is shattered by the ghost of 16 year old girl who died the day the troupe entered town. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Trouble and Desire | ||
| 1st Produced: | Wollongong Youth Centre, Wollongong, Australia | 1994 | ||||
Company: | Tongue-TIEd Theatre Company | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #44373 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Full-length, Theatre-in-Education | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 3 | Female | 3 | ||
Parts other: | expandable | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | "Six friends grapple with sex, drugs, contraception, alcohol, end-of-year exams and parental expectations in the last few crazy months of high-school. Kath and Simon want their first time to be 'special', Vera wants to forget her wild past, Rach and ex-stoner Lex just want to stay out of trouble and sex-maniac Bo is desperately hoping he's not caught the clap. Year Twelve is complicated enough without the gallery of parents, teachers, friends, doctors and shop assistants who pop up with their own versions of wisdom. The six characters would find it a lot easier to get on with their lives, if only their lives didn't keep getting in the way." Pulse of the Illawarra. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Waitin' 4 Da G | ||
| 1st Produced: | 2004 | |||||
Company: | Modify the Van Company | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #44375 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Hip-Hop Children's Musical | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 1 | ||
Parts other: | 1 - 3 others | |||||
Notes: | Book: Van Badham, Music: Jonny Berliner, Lyrics: Van Badham and Jonny Berliner | |||||
Synopsis: | Goggle and Diddle are funky bunnies who rhyme to pass the time. When Fatso, a strange cat, and Hapless, a silent horse, offer them fame and riches as a hip-hop act at the Circus Extraordinary, the bunnies disobey the instructions of their wise rapper grandaddy (Da G) to wait for his return. Instead, they follow the strangers into what turns out to be a hideous trap. There's a happy ending for the bunnies but first they must stand up to cruelty and exploitation and unite with their fellow circus workers in a revolt against Fatso's miserable circus. Features a power-ballad sung by a horse, a Jay Kay-styled apprentice clown, a cat that resembles Tom Waits and lots of hip-hop, boombox action from all the rabbits concerned. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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We Met At The Demo | ||
| 1st Produced: | Bridge Theatre, Coniston & Theatrefest! '96 Festival (Zenith Theatre), Chatswood, Australia | 1996 | ||||
Company: | n/a | |||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | - | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #52219 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Comedy, 50 mins One Act | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | 2 - 4 others | |||||
Notes: | - | |||||
Synopsis: | Pete and Fleur meet at a demo when he's a young radical and she's a conservative accounts clerk accidentally hit on the head. Seven years and a change of government later, Pete's the conservative and Fleur's the radical. We Met at the Demo is a comedy about the Union Accord process in Australia and the division between ideals and pragmatism in the Australian Labor Party. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Wedge, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | Network Theatre, London | 2005 | ||||
Company: | Floodtide Theate Company | |||||
| 1st Published: | I don't think it has been published. Try emailing Playwright or Agent where listed at top of page. | ISBN/ASIN: | - | |||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #44343 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Short Drama One Act | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | - | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Commissioned and performed as part of Floodtide Theatre's "Change Project" for the 2005 UK election | |||||
Synopsis: | A BNP thug performs a political soliloquy to the British-Asian university student he beats to death on a dark street | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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Wilderness Of Mirrors, The | ||
| 1st Produced: | Studio One @ The Wharf, Sydney, Australia | 1999 | ||||
Company: | Studio One Company and the Australian Theatre for Young People | |||||
| 1st Published: | ISBN/ASIN: | - | ||||
| Music: | - | doollee no | #52220 | |||
To Buy This Play: | If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies | |||||
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Genre: | Political Thriller, 50 mins One Act | |||||
| Parts: | Male | 2 | Female | 2 | ||
Parts other: | - | |||||
Notes: | Winner, Write Now! Young Playwrights' Competition, 1999 | |||||
Synopsis: | A psychological drama and a political thriller, The Wilderness of Mirrors is a study of infiltration. Violet Gobbo is a recently recruited office-manager for a human rights organisation. She's charged with minding a prominent Burmese dissident on the run from local Australian authorities who have recently decided to deport him. Violet's anxiety about the dissident's safety is increased with the sudden appearance of Paul - an old friend of her boss, Beth - who wants to film the dissident for a documentary. Under pressure from Beth, from Paul and also in her relationship with a young academic, Violet's suspicions of secret service infiltration increase. When the dissident is snatched and Paul disappears, the "wilderness of mirrors" is smashed, and Violet learns who the betrayer really is. | |||||
Further Reference: | - | |||||
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