AustLit

'It’s 1998. Deep in the Australian suburbs, we meet a fourteen-year-old girl who wants to be a witch, and an older man who claims he can teach her how.

'Bridget Mackey’s The Exact Dimensions of Hell is an unflinching examination of the desires of young women, and a ritual to eviscerate the forces that seek to control them.

'Starring electrifying performer Matilda Gibbs alongside internationally acclaimed theatre-maker Daniel Schlusser, The Exact Dimensions of Hell demands a new narrative of gender, agency, and power.'

Source: Production blurb.

'Carpet and Sand is a pastiche of narrative threads. Peter Brook and a troupe of actors travel through the Sahara Desert in search of a new type of theatre. Tens of thousands of sheep spontaneously panic and stampede across Oxfordshire. A flock of birds gather for a conference. The play asks: who do we follow and why?'

Source: Production blurb.

'Olivia, a mother, pieces her late teenage daughter’s life into a perfume.

'In the recent past, Molly, a teenage girl, falls in love with Jenna, a new school friend. Molly’s mother, Olivia, is troubled by Jenna’s insensitivity and tendency towards self-destruction. The relationship between the two girls blooms in secret.

'In the now, Molly has died without warning, and Olivia is left to pick up the pieces of her life, seeking to remember Molly by her smell – as a perfume. Olivia must come to terms with who her daughter really was, and who she was going to become, to capture her volatile essence. She must take Jenna as part of Molly.

'Ketels’ beautiful new play will be brought to life as a sensory experience for audiences, employing scent to capture the play’s touching exploration of death, decay, and blossoming.'

Source: Production blurb.

'Blood tells the story of Daddy, an experienced sex worker and professional Dom who has devoted his life to caring for, teaching, and protecting the queer community. After suffering a violent assault from a gang of teenage boys, Daddy develops an unfamiliar attraction to danger that begins to radically redefine his relationship to pleasure, attraction, strength, and masculinity.'

Source: Production blurb.

'Milk tells the story of Mummy, a young mother whose unconditional love for her incarcerated son, Boy, has led her to staunchly defend his violent sexual crimes. Through monthly visits to Boy, Mummy meditates on redemption, motherhood and accountability. While her faith is tested, her love for him endures.'

Source: Production blurb.

'It is ok to go back and get what you gave forgotten

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'In the colonial Caribbean, plantations harvest a salty, succulent kind of gold

'A grieving young girl barely surviving a world that leeches her very soul

'A call from the gods whispers something old and bold

'But tethered minds struggle to crack long-held holds

'Is her remembering enough?

'What does it really take to become revolution-kind of tough?

'Written by Amarantha Robinson (Oshun, La Mama), this lyrical ensemble experience fuses Afro-Caribbean mysticism and history with dance and drumming, to give a transmission of awakening and power.'

Source: Production blurb.

'A story of survival against the odds. Set against the racialised backdrop of 1940s Australia, a Ngarrindjeri family must make the impossible choice to leave home and country forever.

'‘The Whisper’ is a new play by emerging Wamba Wamba/Scottish Australian playwright Brodie Murray (Melbourne Fringe and Australia Council First Nations Arts Awards recipient) and is inspired by his grandmother, Lorraine and elements of her family’s courageous journey to seek refuge on Wamba Wamba country. This work of historical fiction seeks to honour his family story and contribute to truth-telling around the stolen generations.

'A secret journey made under the cover of dark by horse and cart, one family must learn to trust each other, their rich culture, and their knowledge of the bush against a backdrop of the very real fear of Indigenous family separation. A story that is about choices, ideology and ultimately of love.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Actor-documentary maker Lynne is making a film about homeless women.

'It’s an art doco, which intercuts real life characters with Lynne’s re-enactments of them. Her characters include a range of older women from all walks of life who find themselves without a home. Threaded into their stories is Lynne’s journey. As an artist living through a pandemic she faces her own financial crisis. Supported by city soundscapes this is a reading of an early draft of ‘Way’ to assist the development of future drafts towards a production outcome.'

Source: La Mama Theatre.

'After 50 years of marriage, these Baby Boomers from Balwyn annoy one another so much… they literally want to kill each other. Meanwhile, Greta Thunberg is on the TV telling them that the world is on fire and it’s all their fault.

'Their comedic dissent into the disappointing abyss of unfulfilled dreams and a mounting fear of ‘what’s outside’ is layered with precision timing, nonsensical absurdity and deadpan delivery.'

Source: fortyfivedownstairs.

'A monologue about not speaking.

'After spending a year in silence, June invites an audience into her world. At times charming, at others shimmering with rage, she arrives fully formed but alters at will. A gentle and challenging play about memory and finding a voice that fits who you have become.'

Source: fortyfivedownstairs.

'As a flight attendant, Kelly Archer has seen it all and solved it all. But passenger 48 has taken it too far. Kelly lashes out and by the time the plane lands she’s an international pariah, shamed online, cancelled and loathed.

'Hiding in her apartment and besieged by the media she cries out for help… and help comes, in the form of a medieval Knight!… or is he?  What follows is a time travel odyssey about courage, forgiveness, duty and the joy of chocolate as the oddest couple in history do battle with their dragons.'

Source: fortyfivedownstairs.

'Ada Munroe rents her two spare rooms to Leon and Francis, two single, aging men who seem to have come to the end of their road. The small country town where they live is slowly dying; local businesses are closing,  familiar faces disappearing. Their narrowing futures seem inescapable. But one night something unexpected happens that shifts how Ada sees her life. And now everything must change.'

Source: fortyfivedownstairs.

'In 1852, the handsome emigrant clipper ship Ticonderoga limped into Port Phillip Bay with a nightmare in her holds. On the 90-day voyage from England, a deadly typhus epidemic swept through her decks, taking nearly 200 of her 800 Scots passengers. Forbidden to enter Melbourne, the Ticonderoga’s passengers and crew were set down on a little beach inside the heads while the ship’s surgeon – assisted by a brave young Highland girl – did their best to heal and comfort.

'One of the biggest stories of its day – now all but forgotten, Michael Veitch plays the surgeon in later life recounting the dramatic saga. But Hell Ship is more than just a maritime tale – the surgeon was Michael’s own great-great grandfather, and the young nurse his great-great grandmother.

'Resonating powerfully with today’s world, and accompanied by original music performed by Michael’s son Thomas Veitch, Hell Ship is a story of hope, love and survival.'

Source: fortyfivedownstairs.

'Commissioned to mark the 100th anniversary of the beginning of Australia’s involvement in the First World War, this sprawling new play takes a tangential look at the reasons that societies so often find themselves in terrible and tragic conflicts. With its scores of short scenes tumbling over each other, 100 Reasons for War is at times funny, moving and provocative but always questioning the multiple and complex reasons why war has become such a prominent feature in the history of humankind.'

Source: La Mama.