Cirrus@Austlit

'A spine-tingling and heart-warming story about friendship and finding your special place in the world.

'Gus doesn't want to make friends. She also doesn't want to be intrigued by the cat-lady teacher at her new school, or the Riley's Comet project that she and her seaweed-eating science partner are working on together.

'And she definitely doesn't want to fall in love with her job as the projectionist at the Starlight, a drive-in movie theatre that her family is reviving.

'Because, knowing Gus's luck, she and her family could be moving on in a day, or a week, or a month. When the ghosts that haunt Mum catch up with them. Or if the Starlight doesn't succeed.

'Then she'll have to say goodbye. Again.' (Publication summary)

'The shriek of the troop train woke Eddie as they pulled abruptly to a stop.

'‘Where are we?’ he said, wiping his mouth and feeling for his rifle, as though it were another limb. His yammering heart calmed as he found it, the grain of the Enfield smooth under his fingers. They had their rifles to hand at all times now, went to sleep with them, as they might have with their teddies as small boys, though the rifles made poorer bedfellows.' (Introduction)

'Sixteen-year-old Lucy Hart has been counting the days till she can get the hell out of Digger's Landing - a small Queensland fishing hamlet home to fifteen families, a posse of mongrel dogs, and Parkers Corner Store (no apostrophe and nowhere near a corner).

'But just like the tides Lucy's luck is on the turn, and as graduation nears her escape plans begin to falter; her best friend, Polly, is dropping out of school to help pay the bills, and Tom has been shipped off to boarding school, away from the flotsam of this place. And then there's Lucy's nightlife, which is filled with dreams that just don't seem to belong to her at all . . .

'When the fish stop biting, like they did when her mum was still around, Lucy realises she isn't the only one with a secret.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The Grand has fallen under hard times. Between moss that grows as you watch, birds that just won’t quit and a lack of actual tourists, the hotel sits empty of guests. Save for one. The Grand’s proprietor, Matilda, reluctantly take on a new housekeeper, Eugenia, and as the months pass by a game unfolds distorting the line between real life and fantasy. 

'With a dry humor, this cyclical play explores peoples’ ambition and one's sense of belonging. Matilda and Eugenia struggle through a once grand hotel, in a town in the depths of a tourism deficit, solely dependent on one another.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Described as "tall tales of lust, love and murder", the playlets are dark and intriguing and move from uber-reality to the fantastically extreme... this is now, dynamic theatre at its best.' (Source: Mudlark Theatre Inc. website)

'Meet Len. He works in middle level bureaucracy - Consumer Complaints Division. His special talent is answering phones. But when Len's old mate Dale barges back into his life, our hero is taken waaaaay out of his comfort zone. Len and Dale share a past, one that briefly features a stint with South American revolutionaries. After the pair is separated in a terrorist attack gone wrong, they return to Australia to make new lives for themselves, alone.

When Dale bursts back into Len's life, some twenty years later and minus a leg, the pair embarks on a madcap, unwieldy train trip around Queensland, where the past and the present collide. With the help of a host of storytelling Queenslanders they meet along the way, including a nun, a miner and a slightly sinister Mr. Whippy, will Len and Dale find the shining path back to friendship?

"The Shining Path" follows two map-less blokes on a buoyant, somewhat random train journey around Queensland. Quirky, sometimes sad, and often hilarious, the play visits the iconic, familiar, as well as the out of the way places that are unique to this great state. With universal themes of friendship, betrayal and redemption, the play celebrates all that is broken, beautiful and bizarre about Queensland towns and the characters that populate them.' Source: www.jute.com.au/ (Sighted 22/09/2009).