AustLit

'Sebastian is a terminally unpopular fifteen-year-old suburban kid, with an overactive imagination and an obsession with anime and death. His only friend, Claryssa, is an emo Wiccan art-freak barely one rung higher than Sebastian on the social ladder. What starts as just another night drinking down at the cricket nets soon gives way to an ecstatic vision that leaves Sebastian unconscious, their friendship left in ruin. The next morning, he wakes up with a mysterious moth in a jar by his bed, and a calling to save the souls of all humankind. And so begins the Passion of Sebastian ...'

Source: Malthouse Theatre website, www.malthousetheatre.com.au (sighted 10/05/2010)

'Convict William Thornhill, exiled from the stinking slums of early 19th century London, discovers that the penal colony offers something that he never dared to hope for before: a place of his own. A stretch of land on the Hawkesbury River is Thornhill’s for the taking.

'As he and his family seek to establish themselves in this unfamiliar territory, they find that they are not the only ones to lay a claim to the land. The Hawkesbury is already home to a family of Dharug people, who are reluctant to leave on account of these intruders.

'As Thornhill’s attachment to the place and the dream deepens, he is driven to make a terrible decision that will haunt him for the rest of his life.' (Source: Currency Press website)

'Following the success of 'Fury' in 2013, playwright Joanna Murray-Smith, director Andrew Upton and actor Sarah Peirse join forces again for a suspenseful new thriller; a fictional postulation of an episode in the life of Patricia Highsmith. The spiky novelist, best known for her creation of the very talented con artist Tom Ripley, receives an unexpected visitor at her home in Switzerland - a young man sent by her publisher with the purpose of extracting one last Ripley novel from her before she dies. Switzerland cunningly explores what happens when the spark of life that a writer puts into a character has the potential to set off a fire and destroy more than it creates.' (Source: http://www.theatrepeople.com.au/newsflash/andrew-upton-announces-sydney-theatre-company%E2%80%99s-2014-season )

'A lonely motel somewhere in the Northern Territory. Deep into the night, six lost souls play out a small, distant tragedy of lovesickness and social breakdown – only it’s not the same night.

'The Dark Room is Angela Betzien’s beautifully-formed thriller about the startling idea that, no matter how far apart we are in distance and time, we are all responsible for each other’s lives.

'The Dark Room is a timely reflection on the conflict between what we ask of society and what it asks of us.'

Source: Playlab Publications

'Australia, 1900. An ancient land becomes the site of an impossible mystery. A group of schoolgirls and their teachers venture out into the sundrenched landscape, only for four of their number to disappear forever.

'The subsequent investigation creates more questions than answers. One of the girls is found with no memory of what happened to her or her classmates, another succumbs to hysteria for no apparent reason. Those close to the missing girls begin to meet with unfortunate ends and it becomes clear that this is no ordinary disappearance.' (Production summary)

'The Price family appear to be living the Australian dream—a loving household in a solid brick house on a quarter acre block where the passing of time is measured by the seasonal changes in working class patriarch Bob’s beloved roses. The four kids have grown up and spread their wings, with only the youngest, Rosie, still at home. As the seasons turn, their story becomes darker and more difficult. But, with complexity comes richness, resolution and meaning.' (AusStage)

'Forced to flee his family home in Goulburn, Shane ... suddenly finds himself in a strange suburb surrounded by prostitutes, bikies and junkies. The confused teenager is unsure of his sexuality, more unsure of how to find intimacy, and completely thrown by having to choose between laundry liquid and powder. But he soon meets two strangers - the very-Sydney Will who offers brotherhood, sex and something unexpected; and the beguiling Peter a 50-year-old gay man whose mother is dying in a nursing home.'

Source: http://www.theprogram.net.au/giveawaysSub.asp?id=371&state_id= (Sighted 09/02/2005)

'The devil wears pinstripes

'Astrid Wentworth is relentless. A currency trader at the top of her game, she takes multinationals out for dinner before joining hedge funds at a strip club. She hasn’t broken the glass ceiling, she’s remodelled the entire building.

'When a bright young woman applies for a junior position, Astrid decides to play mentor. But, in the self-serving world of the trade floor, every favour has a price.

'Playwright Melissa Bubnic won STC’s Patrick White Award in 2010 and, since then, has been carving out a distinctive writing style that is smart, risqué and very funny. In Boys will be boys, she systematically skewers the hypocrisies and the fallacies of the finance world.

'Strapping on Astrid Wentworth’s razor-sharp stilettos is Danielle Cormack (Rake), making a welcome return to STC. The comedy is black, the language colourful and the stakes are f*ing high. Welcome to the trading floor.' (Production summary)

'Arty is huge. Ginormous. Morbidly and grossly obese, he’s in need of a gastric bypass to save his life. At over 400 kilos, he’s the world’s fattest teenager.

'Arty is also being followed by a reality TV crew. Will he lose the kilos needed to have the op? Will he survive to eat another cream puff? Will Louise, his Pathways-to-Work officer, transform his life in ways he never imagined?

'Unapologetically satiric, Beached is also the moving story of a man imprisoned in his own body. It lays bare the mercenary nature of reality TV, and turns the microscope on society’s insatiable appetite for human misery.'

Source: Griffin Theatre Company.

'It begins with a miracle. On a rainy day in Alice Springs in 2039 a fish falls like manna from heaven to bless the reunion of a father with his long lost son. Perhaps it's a sign that the pattern of betrayal and abandonment that began on another rainy day in London in 1959 will come to an end.

'Who'll stop the rain? Andrew Bovell's award-winning When the Rain Stops Falling is powerful storytelling in which the voices of our past echo into our future.' (Publisher's blurb)

'Thirty years ago Margot Mason, pioneer of the 1970s Women's Liberation movement and fearless academic, wrote her groundbreaking work and numerous best-sellers followed. Now she has writer's block. Molly, an unannounced visitor and committed fan of Margot and her work, offers a potential solution - until Molly produces a gun and calmly informs Margot that she intends to kill her because she blames her for warping her mother's mind and ruining her life with her hit book The Cerebral Vagina.

'Joanna Murray-Smith's deliciously wicked comedy deftly walks the tightrope between satire and farce proving the female of the species is not only deadlier, but funnier than the male.

This play 'was inspired by Germaine Greer's experience of being held captive in her country house in Essex in 2000'. (Publisher's blurb)

'Six brilliantly funny and perceptive monologues about the stresses of modern female life, from the author of the National Theatre and West End hit, Honour. The monologues are: Meryl Davenport - A mother who tells the story of her non-stop day in a rapid-fire internal monologue. Tiggy Entwhistle - A cactus lover bravely attempting to rise above her relationship crisis. Mary O'Donnell - A feisty teenage schoolgirl competing in a talent quest. Theresa McTerry - An increasingly disillusioned bride on her wedding day. Winsome Webster - A widow with an appetite for the unexpected. Zoe Struthers - An American cabaret singer who's had her fair share of personal problems. After its sold-right-out, award-winning British premiere at the Edinburgh Festival, Bombshells transferred to the West End of London.' (Production summary)

'An unsettling play about infidelity seen from the perspective of the three women involved: the wife, the lover and the daughter.

'George and Honor have been happily married for thirty-two years. She is a successful writer, he is a revered columnist. They have a perfect understanding of each other. Until a pushy young female journalist - on an assignment to 'profile' George - quite deliberately seeks to undermine that understanding. The fallout is dreadful - but beautifully and convincingly portrayed in all its painful consequences.' (Publication summary)