AustLit

'The first organised theatrical performance in any of the Australian colonies is usually thought to be The Recruiting Officer, a popular London play staged in a convict hut in 1789 before Governor Phillip, probably by some of the same convicts who had put on an improvised theatrical entertainment on board one of the ships in the first fleet, the Scarborough, in early January 1788. From the date of white settlement therefore travelling is one notable defining feature in the history of theatre in Australia. As important to its history as it develops through time is the way that theatre in Australia progressed across the landscape, in the process mimicking colonial history itself.' (p. 14)