Welcome to May at ATYP

The nights are getting cooler, the days are getting shorter and there’s a buzz around the office that Winter is coming! Or at least there is for some of us. You’d be amazed how many of our team haven’t watched a single season.

I get to disappear into the rehearsal room this month as we prepare Lewis Treston’s extraordinary new work, Follow Me Home. Over 230 young actors registered to audition and I spent a week watching an array of breathtaking talent walk through our doors – the task of selecting just four actors was intense. Today we get into the rehearsal room and start bringing this play to life. Follow Me Home is inspired by the real-life experiences of young people who have been homeless. These powerful and ultimately uplifting character-driven tales give us an insight into a world we rarely discuss. Given there are over 28,000 young people without a home every night in Australia, these stories are integral to better understanding the community we live in. I hope to see you at Riverside Theatres in Parramatta.

Meanwhile in Penrith, ATYP Learning Coordinator, Rowan Bate, begins auditions for a very different play. Bathory Begins comes from the twisted comic genius of playwrights Emme Hoy and Gretel Vella. Presented in partnership with the Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre, this black comedy charts the unexpected happenings when a class of Year 10 public school girls suspect their Art teacher, Mrs Bathory, is most likely the sixteenth-century Hungarian sadistic and undead serial-killer, Countess Elrezebet Bathory. Then the private school boys from Judas Gents turn up. And then, well, things get out of control.

If you have a story you think teenagers should be telling, now is the time to polish your playwriting submissions. Applications for the ATYP Foundation Commissions close on Monday 13 May. These two commissions, one to write a play for actors aged between 10-13 and the other for actors 14-18, are open to all Australian playwrights regardless of age. Check out the website for details.  

And as one writing door closes, another opens. If you are a writer aged 18-26, you can apply for the ATYP National Studio, Australia’s leading development program for emerging artists. This is a unique opportunity to spend a week with some the country’s most talented emerging artists while you learn from leaders in the industry. Applications open on Monday 13 May and full details will be available on the website.

Just as Workshops Coordinator, Claudene Shoesmith, has recovered from delivering a huge Autumn school holiday program, we are delighted to launch the Winter program.

Of course, there’s plenty more happening in Sydney and around the country. Come and play with us this month.

Fraser

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