Cirrus@Austlit

'Would you risk breaking bail for a packet of Mi Goreng? Or snitch on a mate to save your own skin? Around here, ordinary days can turn on you so fast you’ve still got a smile on your face as your hopes die in your hands.

'Yani wants to go to the Easter Show, Kai wants a sense of home, Shanika wants her Mum back, and Lachlan…well, he just wants his bowl of noodles. But when the justice system is all that stands between these young people and what they want, it raises an important question—how do young people grow when the system keeps cutting them down?

'Yuwaalaraay playwright Hannah Belanszky and Kalkadoon director Abbie-lee Lewis bring their exceptional talent to the stage for Saplings, a collection of hilarious and heartbreaking stories born from workshops with young people in conflict the youth justice system, from Marrickville to Moree.

'Set to a rap and hip-hop soundtrack made by young people in the youth justice system, Saplings gives an honest, raw look into the adult consequences faced by some of our most vulnerable.'

Source: Sydney Festival.

'Joan needs her father. She hasn't seen him since he left her and her Mum when she was just a little girl. She wants answers. she wants history, she wants to know more about who she is. She travels a long way into country as remote as it is strange to this city girl. She finds Mick; a man who doesn't speak much, and who bears little resemblance to the man who taught her to play Scrabble all those years ago.

'But amid the flies, the heat, the dust and the stillness of this small river town, lurk many ghosts and mysteries. Over cups of tea and Scrabble in Mick's weather-beaten old house, Joan is about to discover some family secrets that have been hidden below the surface for decades.'

Source: Queensland Theatre Company.