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The essay 'observes how theatre for young people has the capacity to move young people beyond the fictions of past cultural narratives.' It explores how two plays 'seek to recover suppressed stories from Australian cultural history' (56).
The paper focuses on 'a range of youth theatre practice in Melbourne since the last years of the 1990s. ... It examines a mixture of extant works, or plays specially commissioned for youth companies, and others that are devised by members of the companies with assistance from professional writers and dramaturgs' (121). The author is interested in the 'youth-specificity' of the works performed, the working relationships writers and dramaturgs have with the young people, and the efficacy of the works as theatre and as youth theatre.