Cirrus@Austlit

'Some interesting analysis of Australian essayists, but greater breadth and depth would have been welcome.' 

'Charlotte Wood's book deserves its spot on the shortlist for the Booker Prize.'

'A reprint to mark its 20th birthday, this book is still relevant.'

'After the immense success of 'Boy Swallows Universe', Dalton returns to the Brisbane stage with a new theatrical adaptation.'

'A murder mystery set against the cliff faces of Mount Arapiles in Victoria brings new meaning to the term 'cliff-hanger'.'

'Six Australian immigration stories across time and place.'

'This collection of short stories is an intimate and evocative appraisal of relationships.'

'A suburban crime thriller with darkly humorous undertones.'

'Verbatim Theatre Methodologies for Community-Engaged Practice offers a framework for developing original community-engaged productions using a range of verbatim theatre approaches.

'This book's methodologies offer an approach to community-engaged productions that fosters collaborative artistry, ethically nuanced practice, and social intentionality. Through research-based discussion, case study analysis, and exercises, it provides a historical context for verbatim theatre; outlines the ethics and methods for community immersion that form the foundation of community-engaged best practice; explores the value of interviews and how to go about them; provides clear pathways for translating gathered data into an artistic product; and offers rehearsal room strategies for playwrights, producers, directors, and actors in managing the specific context of the verbatim theatre form.

'Based on diverse, real-world practice that spans regional, metropolitan, large-scale, micro, independent, commercial, and curriculum-based work, this is a practical and accessible guide for undergraduates, artists, and researchers alike.' (Publication summary)

'“We will not be silenced.”

'One stage, one microphone, countless young voices demanding to be heard.

'THE TIME IN NOW is a thrilling glimpse into the future as imagined by 10 switched-on and politically savvy young Queenslanders aged 12-17, that make up La Boite’s Young Artist Company.

'Real teenagers with real conviction, spanning diverse cultures, backgrounds and political views, will make you sit up and pay attention as they advocate for a better future.

'THE TIME IS NOW gives this young citizen’s assembly a stage and a platform to deliver their first political speeches, threading dance, dialogue and surprise cameo appearances among each powerful presentation.

'The inspired performance piece, developed in collaboration with trailblazing arts organisation All The Queen’s Men and co-created by Ari Palani, Aleea Monsour and David Burton, gives voice to a generation often silenced or dismissed.

'THE TIME IS NOW is an entertaining and exhilarating exercise in the power of energy and ideas and demonstrates once and for all that children should be seen and heard.

'Welcome to the future.'

Source: La Boite Theatre.

'From 1996 to 2002, the renowned Australian novelist Christos Tsiolkas worked collaboratively with the Melbourne playwrights Andrew Bovell, Patricia Cornelius, and Melissa Reeves and the musician Irine Vela to write Who’s Afraid of the Working Class? (1998) and Fever (2002) for the Melbourne Workers Theatre. While Tsiolkas’s prose work is the subject of extensive study, these collaborative and highly successful plays are largely ignored, despite their undisputed influence on the subsequent Australian theatrical canon and the light they shed on his broader oeuvre. In this article, we posit that these two theatrical works draw on Tsiolkas’s political rage to deliberately challenge Australians’ perceptions of class warfare by problematizing political ideology through the exploration of race and religion. A historical context of Australian playwriting is provided and positions Tsiolkas as a key contributor in bringing queer and immigrant experiences from the margin to the center of Australian stages. Tsiolkas’s key contributions to both theatrical works are discussed in detail, and the implicit calls for revolution in the plays are put in the larger context of his career and its political and social preoccupations, including the themes of his later, more commercial works. The authors’ arguments are framed in notions of Tsiolkas provocatively calling for a revolution within Australian national identity.' (Publication abstract)

'Away by Michael Gow has a prolific production lineage. Since its first staging by Griffin Theatre Company in 1986, the play has become a staple of professional, school and amateur seasons. It propels Gow into the microscopic family of Australian playwrights who have written an “Australian classic”, but it is also quite unlike any other play that shares that title.' (Introduction)

'The Government has given us eternal youth, and we should be eternally grateful.

'In the not too distant future, coming-of-age is a little different. Thanks to a fantastic scientific discovery, wisdom no longer comes with age. Wisdom now comes with a strict pharmaceutical regimen, and it’s all government mandated.

'But an idyllic, strictly regulated existence free of the shackles of aging isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. When side effects start to spread and citizens become aware of the lengths the state will go to maintain order, the only answer is revolution.' (Production summary)

'On the first day of year 10, Shaun sees a dead body.

'When Shaun finds a body floating in the lake of a quiet mining town in outback Queensland, he immediately reports it to the police. But when he returns to the site with the constable, the body is gone.

'Determined to reveal the truth, Shaun and his best friend, Will, open their own investigation. But what they discover is far more sinister than they expected, and reveals a darkness below the surface of their small town.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'When do you reach that point? When you turn 18? When you move out of home? When you get married? When you have a baby? When you lose your virginity? When you embrace your identity? When you love yourself before someone else? When you travel the world on your own? When your career takes off? When you stop talking to your imaginary friend?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.