Forty years since Fame showed the vulnerability of performing arts students, we can still do more to protect them. As we resume physical contact, we can use performance to renegotiate safe intimacy.
Thucydides’ description of the plague that struck Athens in 430 BC is one of the great passages of Greek literature. It focusses on the social response, both of those who died and those who survived.
In the popular Australian TV series Wentworth, the setting of a women’s prison is a pressure-cooker for drama. The setting also allows for greater representation of diverse female characters.
A study that showed youth in five global cities lose hope as they grow into adulthood was turned into an elegant and beautiful documentary play with a plea to listen to the urgent calls of youth.
Some have denounced the New York Public Theater for encouraging violence against President Trump. But the play does just the opposite, warning of the pitfalls of political assassination.
In 1955 two plays – The Torrents and Summer of the Seventeenth Doll – burst into Australian theatre. Funny and tragic in deeply Australian ways, they marked a new horizon of creative possibility.
The best Australian play ever written is revolutionary in its treatment of plot, character and language. It has a weary, sardonic perspective on war and an unheroic worldview.
‘I suppose that, as I’m 50, Molly is absolutely my demographic: I was nine when Countdown began and 23 when it ended, and I was a devotee for most of that time – a devotee who was often disgusted …’