Collection No 4
Collection #4 from the Australian Script Centre profiles 30 contemporary performance works (including major Australian prize-winners) and includes articles by leading theatre industry voices Richard Buckham and Nadine MacDonald, as well as an introduction by Michael Gow. The Collection is an essential resource and reference for anyone working in, or interested in, Australian theatre. (NB: DOES NOT INCLUDE THE ACTUAL PLAYS.)Collection No 4 is available, and costs $5.00
THE PLAYS
Noelle Janaczewska
ABOUT FACE
In an abandoned gothic library adorned with gargoyles and grotesques, a group of young people meet - apparently for choir practice. Soon however, it becomes apparent that singing is merely a facade. For Tarwater and Jonah want to... more
Jackie Smith
THE ALIENS
Liz, Julie and Deidre were best friends in a small country town, their childhood lives bounded by the river where they swam and played. But when Liz returns after 12 years in the city, everything is tragically different. Julie has... more
Brendan Cowell
BED
'Bed' follows an acerbic character, Phil, through the five most significant sexual relationships of his life. His lovers include schoolboy Kane, 14; earnest university student Daisy, 19; reluctant trophy-wife Grace, 34; party-boy... more
Chris Thompson
THE BRIDGE
There's an old bridge on the road that spans a cutting through which the train line runs, taking people to better lives in better towns far away. Every so often, someone in the town raises concerns about what the kids are doing up... more
Frances Rouse
COUNTING ICEBERGS (one act)
An elderly woman, once married to a famous explorer, seeks to find solace through his journals and selective memory. She believes that, with the passing of time, she has accepted past tragedies with equanimity, but her younger selves... more
Julie Janson
THE CROCODILE HOTEL
1920 - a Makassan prahu (Indonesian fishing boat) sails to the Northern Territory. An Aboriginal man has a fight with one of the Makassans. The Aboriginal man is taken to Makassar for trial. 1970 - Jane and Jim are teachers in a... more
Ben Ellis
FALLING PETALS (Currency Press)
In a town called Hollow, something weird is happening - a syndrome which seems to strike only at the young is killing off the town's children. Three final-year school students - Tania, Phil and Sally - are getting ready to move on,... more
Emilie Collyer
HOVER
Trina and Carl meet at a shipwreck excavation. Trina is searching for a lost ship, Carl is caring for his terminally ill girlfriend. In a relationship that becomes part seduction, part battle, they trigger personal time bombs in each... more
Stephen House
I SAID A WORD
i said a word was the result of a commission by Riverland Youth Theatre Company to create a play about young people living in the Riverland, South Australia. Its themes - peer group pressure, youth dynamics, bullying, homophobia,... more
Rebecca Lister
IF I SHOULD DIE BEFORE I WAKE
The story of three women - a mother and her two adult daughters. Joan, at 75, has recently been diagnosed with cancer. She has always cared for Gillian, her intellectually disabled daughter, but now she and her other daughter,... more
Van Badham
KITCHEN
A domestic partnership between Owen and Helene, two human resource managers, spins horrifically out of control when Owen loses his job. Unable to contribute capital to the household's maintenance, he trades his labour to the demands... more
Andrea Gillies
THE LAST WORD
A young woman who has missed her tram decides to walk home... What would your mind do if it thought death might be approaching? Would a light simply be switched off, or would you hang above your body or skip lightly up the path to the... more
Adam Grossetti
LOST LAGOON
Cliffie is an artist, a painter. He lives in a broken-down house and has a woman deliver soup and New Age affirmations. Cliffie is haunted - by a woman from his past, by the painting he's working on, and by a young man who may or may... more
Toby Schmitz
LUCKY
A young man named Lucky nicks $12,000 from the local mobster, Pauly. In return, Pauly and his standover man Muzzo give Lucky an ultimatum: repay the money or have his head screwed off. So, on fear of death, and with a freshy broken... more
Alana Valentine
THE MAPMAKER'S BROTHER
Matthew Flinders and his brother Samuel are preparing to journey to the new British colony of New South Wales aboard "The Investigator". During their travels, Samuel makes a nuisance of himself by tearing Matthew's charts and not... more
Robert Jeffreys
THE MESSENGER
Rose has two jobs and is in her fourth live-in relationship. She forgives her latest man his many glaring transgressions, keeps an ideal home, vacuums incessantly when stressed and apologises constantly for her own shortcomings. She... more
Wayne Macauley
THE MESSENGERS
In an unnamed desert location, two messengers meet, each carrying news for the opposing sides of a war that neither of them has ever seen. For years they've carried their messages back and forth, but no message has been able to change... more
Christine Evans
MOTHERGUN
In a refugee camp "somewhere between Europe and Hell", three people with no common language rely on a translator for their survival in the fallout from a fratricidal war. Deals are made, a sacrifice is asked, a betrayal is made. A... more
Paul Andersen
NIGHT SWIMMING
Jerome is blind, in love with a woman he's never seen. Their unborn child takes him back to revisit his past - when he was a championship swimmer, when he had eyes only for a mysterious girl he rescued from drowning.
A magical tale... more
Marian Devitt
NOW, IN TERMS OF YOUR LIFE, IRENE
Irene and Vince have arrived at a familiar impasse in their relationship. Irene wants more from life but, as things stand, is that really possible? Darwin isn't the paradise they were hoping for and a recent abortion has pushed Irene... more
Heather Nimmo
THE OTHER WOMAN
A comedy of manners - bad manners - played out in the corridors of Parliament House. Do women really play the game differently? And when life and pain intrude, what happens to ethics? Does the truly human - and ethical - person have... more
Patrick van der Werf
PRESENCE
Molly Kaufman is taking in a new boarder, Sam, a young man infected with a lust for life, dreaming of freedom and a car. Molly's son, Jake, has been witness to intense betrayal and horror in his childhood; his mother is still a... more
Peta Murray
THE PROCEDURE
A "sick little comedy" about a bent politician who gets his comeuppance. Mike Newman, Minister for Health, has been promoting a new cancer prevention programme called GUTSCOUT. On the advice of his media people, he submits to a... more
Melissa Reeves
SALT CREEK MURDERS
Jane Macmanamin starts work as a domestic at the Salt Creek Hotel, an isolated frontier outpost. The first thing she witnesses is an adulterous embrace between Nellie, her employer, and Malachi Martin, a yard-hand. A week later,... more
Tobsha Learner
SEVEN ACTS OF LOVE (AS WITNESSED BY A CAT)
Elijah, an oversexed tomcat must learn to experience love before he can follow his owner to heaven. Over several decades, Elijah goes through a series of owners who are linked together by their occupation of the one room where the... more
Chi Vu
A STORY OF SOIL
An Australian-Vietnamese tale about a generation of young people who are trying to create a new identity for themselves - one that incorporates both western and Asian ways. Tien, a young Australian woman with Vietnamese parents, runs... more
Peter Fyfe
WAKING BLIND
A conspiracy of characters creates a dream (or a play? or a myth?) for Rex: he's a Freud oriented psychologist married to an older woman. His older female clients dream about his ravishing them. Another client, a much-abused blind boy... more
Christine Evans
WEIGHTLESS
Set in a wealthy family's penthouse on The Island, Weightless is a darkly absurdist political satire about the cost of living high above the rest of the world. Through plastic surgery, sex and cultural amnesia, the family almost... more
Andrea James
YANAGAI! YANAGAI!
Yanagai! Yanagai! is set in a mythical landscape on the banks of the mighty Dhungula (the Murray River). From the sky is dropped a thunderous black woman, Munurra. Cast out by her husband, the Creator Biami, she has been sent to save... more
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