AustLit logo

AustLit

Seanna Van Helten Seanna Van Helten i(8910981 works by)
Gender: Female
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Works By

Preview all
1 Fallen Seanna Van Helten , 2017 single work drama historical fiction

'London, 1848. Six women have been given a second chance. Their pasts behind them, they have been promised a clean slate on the other side of the world, in the new colonies of Australia.

'Sealed off from the outside world, they cook, clean, sing, and sew – they practice the art of being female while they wait for their new lives to begin. But as the date of departure draws near, the women begin to wonder what reinvention will cost them. What will such promises make them do? And what about the fall yet to come, the tumble down the edge of the world to a far-away continent… 

'Inspired by the history of Urania Cottage, a home for “fallen” women founded by Charles Dickens, this imaginative new Australian work asks what happens when the promise of a clean slate is built on silencing your past – and what it takes to break that silence.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.
1 Salt Seanna Van Helten , 2017 single work drama

'The thing I loved, the thing I wanted, was that feeling. Before any of it even begins. The last count in the countdown. The premonition of lightning. When a taste hits your tongue – sweet, sour, salt – and your nerves are firing, asking is it good, is it bad, is it going to kill me? Before you truly know whether to spit it out and start again.

'Caitlyn is an up-and-coming child star. Bobby is a beloved comedic icon. Sam is their manager, with the idea to pair them up and make Australian television history. What could possibly go wrong? Salt pulls back the curtain of nostalgia to reveal the darker side of light entertainment: a whirlwind-memory of video hits and after-school sitcoms, of canned laughter and crocodile tears, of kids growing up too fast and adults refusing to grow up at all.'

Source: La Mama.
1 4 y separately published work icon Hart Ian Michael , Seanna Van Helten , Ian Michael , 2015 8981153 2015 single work drama Indigenous story

'Between the years 1900-1970, an unknown number of Indigenous Australian children were forcibly removed from their families. Parents driven mad, grandparents heartbroken, siblings torn apart, language lost, and culture stripped away.'

'Using testimonials from survivors of the Stolen Generation, Melbourne Fringe Festival award-winner and Noongar man Ian Michael invites you to listen in on the silenced stories of his country.' (Source: She Said Theatre website)
1 Laika and Wills Seanna Van Helten , 2013 single work drama

'“Outer space was as far as I could travel without ever going anywhere…”

'It’s 1957 and a satellite carrying a little dog called Laika streaks across the Russian night. Is it science or propaganda? A memory or fate?

'A story about love, destiny, and other convictions adrift in the cosmos.'

Source: She Said Theatre.
1 Breaking Seanna Van Helten , Penny Harpham , 2012 single work drama

'“It doesn’t have to be a new story for you to hear about it for the first time…”

'The State Premier is dead. While the public mourns, his former lover, news producer Stella, can only secretly grieve for a part of herself she thought she had abandoned. But grief has a way of taking over: the past becomes present and the private becomes public as Stella’s loss seems to touch and envelop everyone she encounters. Meanwhile, the hosts of the primetime comedy/news show Breaking are after a scoop…'

Source: She Said Theatre.
1 Dead She Scrolls Seanna Van Helten , William McBride , 2006 single work drama

'“I don’t want to hide myself behind pronouns, risk losing parts of my story by allowing someone else to narrate them.”

'Shelly is blocked. She wants to write a story but the details of her subject aren’t making sense. All the elements are there, but the parts are grieving the whole.

'In another time, Shelly’s subject wonders how her own words might be interpreted as she sends them down the passage of time.

'A fact disrupts Shelly’s fiction, a seduction sends her back in time, and a mood distorts the characters she thought she knew best. As Shelly struggles to make sense of her creation, she begins to realise that her own life might need some re-interpretation.'

Source: She Said Theatre.
X