Australian Drama  back to index

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ABORIGINAL STUDIES FOR LITERATURE STUDENTS

• A page with many links to Aboriginal Australia as represented and presented in literature

A Cultural History of Australian Theatre by Debra Bruch

• The main objective of this manuscript is to try to answer the question "What makes Australian theatre Australian?"

Artrage - Perth Festival Fringe

• The alternative to the Festival of Perth.

As well as being the main access to the AusStage Directory and Index, this site will also become the primary gateway to other dependable performing arts sites. In 1999, at the instigation of the Australasian Drama Studies Association (ADSA) (link to website), theatre scholars from eight Australian universities, together with other organisations such as PASIG (Performing Arts Special Interest Group) combined to commence a project to index performing arts events in Australia, and to develop a directory of research resources on the performing arts.

AUSTRALIAN DRAMA

• This is a brief outline of post-invasion drama in Australia.  Prior to the introduction of Western Styles of Theatre Aboriginal Dance Drama was thriving in Australia.

Australian Online Drama - VENEW 

• This is an amazing site - very up-to-date technologically speaking - it requires a range of plug-ins (mainly Quicktime which any real webster will already have!), but offers some brilliant content.  You have to check out Bite Sized Theatre - some interactive hypertext theatre.

• We are the largest and longest-running play development organisation in Australia. We run the annual National Playwrights' Conference, which brings together leading Australian theatre artists to work on new plays for the theatre, as well as other services for our members.  Whether it's writing courses, play competitions, or general information about ANPC, we're sure you'll find something here to interest you.

Australian Script Centre

• We hold over 700 contemporary *Australian* performance scripts, many of which are suitable for use in the classroom. Subscribing to the Centre costs between $38.50 - $66.00 per year which entitles you to borrow scripts from the collection at no cost other than postage. It's a  great way to find that next script for study or production.

Australian Shakespeare Company

• The Australian Shakespeare Company has presented more than ten vibrant stagings of Shakespeare's plays since 1982.

Australian Women Theatre Directors, a thesis

• Is Theatre dead? It was once the main form of social activity, but now sadly seems to have faded from many people's lives. From Shakespeare to modern group devised performance, I love it all. Once, I aspired to direct, perhaps I still will. Unfortunately my enjoyment of literature is limited to what's been written in English. But for quite a while literature has been the conveyor belt of culture.

• is an organisation dedicated to the creative development of young people. Three contemporary projects operate under the AWESOME banner on a year round and statewide basis; they are the annual Festival each November in Perth, a regional programme and a metropolitan schools programme.

Bayagul: contemporary Indigenous communication

 is an exhibition about how Indigenous people express themselves today. It reveals the continuity and strengths of one of the world’s oldest cultures, particularly their relationship to the land, showing how Indigenous Australians have adapted to the challenges of contemporary society. The exhibition showcases the success of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people’s endeavour and ingenuity in combining traditional techniques of oral and visual communication with modern industry. Teacher Notes from the exhibit in PDF

Black Swan Theatre Company

• A Western Australian company that has been breaking new ground in producing new and original Australian works with particular recognition of the works of indigenous Australians.

Blue Room Theatre

• The Blue Room Theatre is the performance facility of The Performing Arts Centre Society, a membership based organisation formed in 1988. The Society has two trading operations, The Blue Room Theatre and The WA Actors Centre. These trading operations handle issues of Performance and Training respectively. The Society is based in Artshouse, 53 James St, Northbridge, Western Australia.

Blurb, the

• An Australian popular culture magazine - great way to check reviews of current Australian productions

• This is the home page of Cauldron Arts Co-Op, an Australian co-operative that is devoted to giving our members and the community a greater access and appreciation of the arts. (Sydney based organisation)

• A version of this paper was given at the MLA conference in Toronto in 1993. Helen Gilbert reaches some of the same conclusions in an article entitled “Monumental Moments: Michael Gow’s 1841, Stephen Sewall’s Hate, Louis Nowra’s Capricornia and Australia’s Bicentenary,” which appeared in Australasian Drama Studies 24 (1994). There is no other critical work on the drama of 1988 except for the year-end newspaper reviews and an article by Geoffrey Milne entitled “Black and White in Australian Drama: Melbourne 1988.”

CREATING THE CARNIVALESQUE

• A study of seven years of making parades and street theatre for the October long weekend car races in Bathurst NSW Australia  (1989 -1996)

• The main objective of this manuscript is to try to answer the question "What makes Australian theatre Australian?"I will employ a historical/cultural methodology to assess the interrelationships among events, beliefs, attitudes, and theatre practices in history in an attempt to answer that question. To attempt to answer the main question, I will also employ the ideas and arguments of Australian scholars

Currency Press

• The Performing Arts Publishers for Australia 

• Australian play from the 1930s strikes a contemporary chord -  An article about "Morning Sacrifice"
• Dymphna Cusack (1902 - 1981) - a site about the woman and her work.
• Dymphna Cusack Parramatta High School teacher - another extensive resource
• Dymphna Cusack (1902-1981): A Feminist Analysis of Gender in her Romantic Realistic Texts. an extensive essay in PDF

• AUSTRALIA COUNCIL PAYS TRIBUTE TO OUTSTANDING AUSTRALIAN PLAYWRIGHT AND POET

• ABORIGINAL STUDIES FOR LITERATURE STUDENTS - A page with many links to Aboriginal Australia as represented and presented in literature

• Indigenous Australians excel in many fields - part of the DFAT site

• Moore River, WA - a brief mention of Kullark (also Rottnest Island)

• Katharine Brisbane: the future in black and white - With two of the four texts in the Contemporary Australian Theatre topic of the Drama: Stage 6 syllabus (approved 1999) being products of Aboriginal playwrights, Katharine Brisbane’s essay is essential reading. Brisbane tracks the history of Aboriginal theatre and places it strongly within its social and political context. The plays set for study are Jack Davis’ No sugar, and Wesley Enoch and Deborah Mailman’s The seven stages of grieving. While the reference to these particular plays is brief, their place in contemporary Australian theatre is made evident in the course of this essay.

• History of Currency Press - mentions Jack Davis as part of the growth of Australian publishing

• Celebrate 1988?: Australian Drama in the Bicentennial Year

• Ozlit - a brief biography

• "If we all stand together" - Aboriginal struggles in the 1970s and 1980s - mentions political involvements
• Ethnogenesis, the State and the Beginnings of Aboriginal Literature in Australia

Enright, Nick

• a brief profile

• an interview with Steve Vidler about Blackrock

EVOLVE EDUCATION

• An Australian arts organisation focussing on a range of arts activities including education.

Festival of the Dreaming, Olympiad

• Provides some insight into the history of indigenous Australian theatre and arts. A speech by Rhonda Roberts.

Guthrie, Adrian

• Adrian Guthrie has directed more than fifty productions and he has had over twenty-five works for stage produced. In the early nineteen seventies, Adrian started the Claremont Theatre Centre in South Yarra, Melbourne, Australia. He has a particular fascination with the performing arts in Japanese Society. He has been influenced by both traditional and contemporary Japanese theatre. PLAYS OF PURE LAND are short works he has written that explore some aspects of traditional no plays. Adrian set up the Theatre Studies offerings at the University of Western Sydney - Macarthur. He has a Master of Creative Arts Degree and a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Wollongong. This site contains information, archives and articles/papers written by Adrian.

Her Majesty's Theatre Ballarat

• Her Majesty's Theatre, built in 1875, is the city's premier performing arts facility, owned and operated by the City of Ballarat. It is the oldest intact purpose-built theatre building in Australia, restored and refurbished in 1987-1990.   Her Majesty's is professionally operated, equipped and staffed, and has been recommended for a AA/H categorisation in the Victorian Performing Arts Centres Survey. It is a double-balconied Victorian lyric theatre with a dome and a decorated proscenium arch. 

• Summer of the Seventeenth Doll - a program for middle school

• Indigenous Australian publishing house. We publish works by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors and editors. We also provide advice and publishing services and invite manuscripts.  Our organisation spreads the seeds of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures by recording, publishing and promoting this unique literature in Australia and throughout the world.

NIDA - National Institute of Dramatic Art

• NIDA is the Australian national theatre school. NIDA provides professional training at a tertiary level for young people wishing to work in the entertainment industry, including theatre, film and television, as actors, stage managers, designers, theatre craft workers, directors, voice and movement teachers, production managers and playwrights. Be sure to check out their StageStruck CD-ROM.

• Red Nights - a review

Performing Arts Policy in Queensland in the 1990s

• An article by Richard Fotheringham (Australian Key Centre for Cultural and Media Policy)

Rayson, Hannie

• keynote address, at the Regional Arts Australia first national conference, Mt Gambier, 16-18 October 1998
• A review of Hotel Sorrento

• Literary and Historical Texts - Over 100 general literary and historical texts from the early days of European exploration and settlement until the early 20th century. 
• Forest Flora of New South Wales - 8 volumes of text published originally from 1902 to 1924 by Joseph Henry Maiden, with accompanying plates and photographs. 
• Federation Debates of the 1890's - Published debates of a series of conventions held in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide between 1890 and 1898. 
• Professor John Anderson's Lecture Notes 1927-55 - Lecture notes written by Professor John Anderson and his students, and held in the University Archives.

State Theatre - South Australia 

• A wonderful insight into the workings of a major professional theatre company.  There are some great resources revealing behind the scenes, the history of the company, current shows, past shows and reviews. Well worth a look.

• Henri Szeps Web Page - a site about one of Australia's best known contemporary actors, renowned for his performances in film, television and theatre.  In recent years his one-man devised shows have achieved high acclaim from Australian audiences.

Theatres in Sydney

• Information about some major companies in Sydney

Theatre Costume - From Page to Stage

• This website gives an introductory overview of the creation of costume for the stage The realisation of a theatrical costume is a complex and collaborative process between the designer and the wardrobe department who are responsible for translating the design from the page to the stage

• David Williamson: The Club - Peter Fitzpatrick 
• David Williamson: Don's Party - John McCallum

• Yirra Yaakin means "stand tall" in the Noongar language.From world class theatre company to hands-on community development leader, Yirra Yaakin Noongar Theatre continues to be Australia's leading Aboriginal theatre company and Western Australia's only indigenous performing arts company.  Yirra Yaakin is based in Perth in the heart of the Noongar Nation - a distinct Aboriginal cultural group from the South West of Western Australia. Formed in 1993, Yirra Yaakin provides the means and environment to assist the nurturing of Aboriginal community cultural development on a Statewide basis. Yirra Yaakin's commitment and energy has inspired an active and diverse range of artistic, educational and developmental projects.

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