In 1948, Angela left Malta. Having gathered up five children, she sailed out on the Strathnavar, leaving poverty and the war behind.

Her destination: Australia. In Surry Hills, she could build a bright new life.

If only she could first learn the language, finish shoring up their dilapidated house, find new friends, get the racist neighbour off her back and keep her son away from sly grog queen Kate Leigh’s kids.

Back in Malta, someone else has made a journey. Making his way along Kalkara’s glistening harbourside, a young man with flowing black hair has returned to claim his past. Paul Capsis is walking home.

The Back of Beyond celebrates the life and times of Australia’s best known outback mail man Tom Kruse MBE. Every fortnight he battled isolation, heat, sand dunes and floods to deliver mail and supplies to the families along the 517 kilometre Birdsville Track in central Australia. 

Representing the complex interrelations of the multicultural commmunity and their environs, the film is considered by many to be one of Australia’s premier films, and is an exemplary represenation of 1950s Australian transformational culture.

An Iranian family living in Australia attempts to escape memories of torture endured back home. Their role in the 1992 raid on the Iranian Embassy in Canberra leads to persecution by the Australian government. Based on a true story.

An epic chronicle of the refugee experience, Beautiful Words weaves together three very different stories of survival, told through the eyes of three children in different times and places. The outcome is heart-rending, humorous, and surprising by turns. From the horrors of Auschwitz Concentration Camp in the final days of World War II, to Taliban-ruled Kabul, to present day Australia, this enthralling play presents a rich tapestry of human experience, overlapping lives, and the bonds that unite generations.

Over three hours, with some 20 characters, Beautiful Words tells an engaging story with poignant comedy and unashamed feeling.

 

A fictionalised account of a true incident—the grounding of British Airways Flight 149 at Kuwait International Airport during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990—Black Box 149 explores the impact of war and terror on the lives of civilians. Written as an intense psychological and emotional journey, the play explores secrets, betrayal and guilt, and how the personal is impacted by the political.

 

Writer, academic and performer Paul Dwyer retraces three journeys made by his father, Dr Allan Dwyer, a world-renowned orthopaedic surgeon, who visited Bougainville during the 1960s, healing dozens of crippled children. Family stories become entwined with the larger narrative of Australia’s colonial enterprise in the years following: the opening of the giant Panguna copper mine, environmental devastation and Bougainvillean resistance, a war that cost the lives of up to 20,000 people. Since 2004, Paul Dwyer has been making his own journeys to Bougainville, conducting research on the post-war reconciliation process and following the impact of those encounters between his father and the Bougainvillean children. This is politics and performance at its most personal.

 

Awards

• 2011 Green Room Awards - Best Mis-en-scene

A story of adventure, ball control and hope.

Jamal and Bibi have a dream. To lead Australia to soccer glory in the next World Cup. But first they must face landmines, pirates, storms and assassins. Can Jamal and his family survive their incredible journey and get to Australia?

Adapted for the stage by Patricia Cornelius from Morris Gleitzman's best-selling novel, Boy Overboard depicts a deeply human side of the 'asylum seekers' issue by following the journey of Jamal and Bibi from Afghanistan to Australia. Based on real life events, this is a moving play about young people overcoming the confusion of war, politics and the search for a safe haven.

 

Review

Morris Gleitzman’s excellent unsparing novel for young adults in an accurate, theatrically imaginative and robust staging adaptation by Patricia Cornelius, deals with both the money grubbing and perilous mechanics of a refugee journey and the eternal hunger of hope. - Stephen Dunne, Sydney Morning Herald

Two sensitive and heartbreaking stories that explore the lives of those affected by war and caught between two worlds. 

Brilliant Monkey

Gerard is a returned veteran of active service in Afghanistan who has suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury. While being assessed by the military as an outpatient Gerard reunites with his older, homeless brother Danny, who’s wounded in his own way.

Review

‘Brilliant Monkey … a fitting Anzac Day tribute to generations of returned but scathed soldiers.’ - The Sydney Morning Herald

Skip Miller’s Hit Songs

Skip Miller has spent years photographing the war zones of Africa. Balancing his suburban life in Adelaide and the reality of his experiences in Africa leaves him dislocated as he finds it difficult to fit in. This dislocation is mirrored in the experiences of African refugees now living in Adelaide.

Review

[Skip Miller’s Hit Songs reaches] out for understanding of Adelaide’s new African community and the gutwrenching losses they endured before coming here. -  Sunday Mail

Late one night in the gutted façade of a building primed for redevelopment, a group of security workers, labourers, and a local teenager find themselves haunting the same territory. One by one they rule a line in the sand, and by dawn they’re set for a showdown over who builds the future and who gets to own it. Buried City is an ambitious new work about ever-changing cities like Sydney – where waves of immigrants make new lives on old land.

 

OUT OF STOCK. NO ETA FOR REPRINT.

Carrying Shoes into the Unknown

A fictionalised account of a true story of a Western family living in Iran during the last days of the Shah and the rise of Ayotollah Khomeini. 

 

Dolly Stainer of Kew Cottages