PLAYLAB'S NSW SYLLABUS SUGGESTIONS 2022
TOPIC 1: DRAMATIC TRADITIONS IN AUSTRALIA
The following titles have been selected by Playlab Theatre in order to provide an extended list of plays suitable for study in Topic 1: Dramatic Traditions in Australia. These plays will assist educators and students explore traditional practices of Australian drama and theatre. We have suggested a selection from our New Vintage collection of works that span over 150 years. Each title listed is a slice of history that speaks to our artistic past and reflects on our changing society by exploring important artistic, cultural, social, political and personal conversations at various points in our nation’s journey. The works suggested here span not only time but also dramatic form, performance style, techniques and conventions from some of Australia’s most influential, controversial and insightful playwrights covering everything from hilarious vaudeville-esque political satire, to Australian Gothic Theatre from some of the countries most isolated regions.
Faces in the Street
by Errol O’Neill
THIS IS A DIGITAL PUBLICATION
THEMES: Union Strikes, Working Class Values, Government Repression
LENGTH: 135 Minutes
CHARACTER AGES: 18–50s
NO. OF CHARACTERS: 38
SUITABLE FOR: Adults
Errol O'Neill's Faces in the Street is based on the events ... Read more
Popular Front
by Errol O’Neill
THIS IS A DIGITAL PUBLICATION
THEMES: Queensland labour history, Politics, Inequality
LENGTH: 90 Minutes
CHARACTER AGES: 18+
NO. OF CHARACTERS: 36
SUITABLE FOR: Adults
Errol O'Neill's Popular Front is one of five plays dealing with ... Read more
In Beauty It Is Finished
by George Landen Dann
THIS IS A DIGITAL PUBLICATION
THEMES: Australia, Australian Society, Isolation
LENGTH: 90 Minutes
CHARACTER AGES: 18+
CAST SIZE: 5 – 6 Cast Members
SUITABLE FOR: Adult
George Landen Dann's In Beauty it is Finished reveals the way ... Read more
On Our Selection
by Steele Rudd
THIS IS A DIGITAL PUBLICATION
THEMES: Australia, Triumph Over Adversity, Revenge, Family, Home
LENGTH: 150 Minutes
CHARACTER AGES: 18+
CAST SIZE: 9
SUITABLE FOR: Senior Students
In this four act play, On Our Selection by Steele Rudd follows ... Read more
Had We But World Enough
by Oriel Gray
THIS IS A DIGITAL PUBLICATION
THEMES: Love, Racial Injustice and Rural Australia
LENGTH: 1.5 Hours
New Vintage
CAST SIZE: 9 + Cast Members
It’s the Wednesday before Easter, and the stage is set for what will surely be the most discussed Easter Nativity play in the history of Seaton, a rural town ... Read more
Composing Venus
by Elaine Acworth
THIS IS A DIGITAL PUBLICATION
Spanning three decades, in flights of fantasy, poetic phrasing and sombre soliloquy, Elaine Acworth... Read more
Men Without Wives
by Henrietta Drake-Brockman
THIS IS A DIGITAL PUBLICATION
THEMES: Australia, Femininity, Masculinity, Personal Identity
CHARACTER AGES: 18+
LENGTH: 2 Hours
SUITABLE FOR: Adult
CAST SIZE: 9+ Cast Members
Northern Australia, the dirt, the heat, the loneliness, everything about it says that it's man's country. The men 'round these parts are rougher, tougher, and louder than any other men ... Read more
The Kelly Gang
by Arnold Denham & Another
THIS IS A DIGITAL PUBLICATION
THEMES: Ned Kelly, Australian Culture
CHARACTER AGES: 18+
LENGTH: 1.5 Hours
TARGET AUDIENCE: Adult
CAST SIZE: 9+ Cast Members
Ned Kelly: The legend, the myth, the hero, the outlaw, the enduring cultural icon. The life and death of one of Australia's most notorious figures has captured the imagination of ... Read more
White Australia
by Randolph Bedford
THEMES: Xenophobia, Immigration
LENGTH: 90 Minutes
CHARACTER AGES: 18+
CAST SIZE: 22
SUITABLE FOR: Adults
Randolph Bedford's White Australia tells of an attempted invasion by Japan, with ... Read more
Bag O’ Marbles
by Kathryn Ash
THIS IS A DIGITAL PUBLICATION
THEMES: Family, Social Change, Regional Australian Themes
LENGTH: 90 Minutes
CHARACTER AGES: 18+
CAST SIZE: 6
SUITABLE FOR: Senior Years & Adults
Kathryn Ash's Bag O' Marbles as a script is one of ... Read more
Fountains Beyond
by George Landen Dann
THIS IS A DIGITAL PUBLICATION
THEMES: Race Relations, Indigenous Australia, Dispossession, Assimilation
CHARACTER AGES: 18+
LENGTH: 1.5 Hours
CAST SIZE: 7 – 8 Cast Members
SUITABLE FOR: Adult
Celebrated English travel writer Miss Gertrude Harnett has arrived in Kooreelba. Mayoral candidate Mr Watson, determined to offer Ms Harnett an 'authentic' Aboriginal experience sets out to organise a corroboree, ... Read more
Gallipoli Bill
by Arthur Adams
THIS IS A DIGITAL PUBLICATION
THEMES: War, Class, Cultural Difference
LENGTH: 120 Minutes
CHARACTER AGES: 18+
NO. OF CHARACTERS: 11
SUITABLE FOR: Senior Years & Adults
Arthur Adams' Gallipoli Bill is the last professionally-performed stage play by ... Read more
Lady in Danger
by Max Afford
THIS IS A DIGITAL PUBLICATION
THEMES: Murder-Mystery, Crime, World War Two
LENGTH: 90 Minutes
CHARACTER AGES: 18+
CAST SIZE: 5
SUITABLE FOR: Adult
Max Afford's Lady in Danger is a comedy-thriller in ... Read more
Mano Nera
by Adam Grossetti
THEMES: Migration, Bribery, Crime, The Black Hand
LENGTH: 1.5 Hours
TARGET AUDIENCE: Adult
CAST SIZE: 7 – 8 Cast Members
Mischief in the Air
by Max Afford
THIS IS A DIGITAL PUBLICATION
THEMES: Business, International Relations, Show Business
CHARACTER AGES: 18+
LENGTH: 2 Hours
SUITABLE FOR: Adult
CAST SIZE: 9+ Cast Members
It's a big day at Rex Studios. The executives are getting ready to sign a deal, a big deal. Their new potential sponsor has come by to inspect the operation ... Read more
Mrs Pretty and The Premier
by Arthur Adams
THIS IS A DIGITAL PUBLICATION
THEMES: Australia, Gender, Politics
CHARACTER AGES: 18+
LENGTH: 2 Hours
TARGET AUDIENCE: Adult
CAST SIZE: 9+ Cast Members
Premier William Power: Labor politician, ambitious, driven, oblivious to women. Mrs. Helen Pretty: glamorous widow, wealthy landowner, fatally attractive. When Power's Compulsory Resumption of Estates Bill threatens the home and ... Read more
No Incense Rising
by George Landen Dann
THIS IS A DIGITAL PUBLICATION
On The Whipping Side
by Errol O’Neill
THIS IS A DIGITAL PUBLICATION
THEMES: Australian History, 1891 Shearers’ Strike, Early Unionism
LENGTH: 150 Minutes
CHARACTER AGES: 18+
NO. OF CHARACTERS: 16
SUITABLE FOR: Adults
Errol O’Neill‘s On the Whipping Side is based on the ... Read more
The Bushrangers
by Henry Melville
THIS IS A DIGITAL PUBLICATION
THEMES: Australia, Bush Life, Racial and Gender Discrimination, Crime, Honor and Deceit
LENGTH: 30 Minutes
CHARACTER AGES: 18+
SUITABLE FOR: Adult
CAST SIZE: 7
In Australia's wild woods, notorious bushrangers rule the land in Henry Melville's The Bushrangers. <... Read more
The Drovers
by Louis Esson
THIS IS A DIGITAL PUBLICATION
THEMES: Australia, Masculinity, Bush Life, Inter-racial Relationships, Death
CHARACTER AGES: 18+
LENGTH: 30 Minutes
SUITABLE FOR: Adult
CAST SIZE: 7 – 8 Cast Members
Life in the bush is hot, hard and not for the faint-hearted. Under the extreme sun of Northern frontier country a pack of itinerant drovers thrive in the land they ... Read more
The Happy Land
by Marcus Clarke
THIS IS A DIGITAL PUBLICATION
THEMES: Australia, Politics
LENGTH: 45 Minutes
CHARACTER AGES: 18+
SUITABLE FOR: Adult
CAST SIZE: 9+
The women of Fairyland grow restless in Marcus Clarke's The Happy Land.
SYNOPSISRead more
The Orange Grove
by George Landen Dann
THIS IS A DIGITAL PUBLICATION
THEMES: Love, Betrayal, Revenge
CHARACTER AGES: 18+
LENGTH: 1 Hour
SUITABLE FOR: Adult
CAST SIZE: 7 – 8 Cast Members
Carrie lives alone on her impoverished river-flats farm. Isolated and forgotten by the world, she relies on the company of the birds and trees. With her parents long gone, and ... Read more
Treadmill
by Lorna Bol
THIS IS A DIGITAL PUBLICATION
THEMES: Australian Coastal Life, Female Identity, Poverty
CHARACTER AGES: 18+
Length: 1.5 Hours
SUITABLE FOR: Adult
CAST SIZE: 3 – 4 Cast Members
Life is tough for Ma McTaggart and Ma is tough on Ruby, her only daughter and daily annoyance. Ma and her son, the faultless fisherman Dick, together with Ruby, eke ... Read more