Presented by the School of the Arts, English and Media Director: Mark Rogers Featuring: Graduating Third Year Performance Students
I just have to make sure it’s not about me. Again.
Zoey Louise Moonbeam Dawson is a real life playwright living in Melbourne. She’s written two plays about a fictional Zoey Dawson – who also happens to be a playwright living in Melbourne. The plays are about what it’s like trying to write plays, and about how hard it is for both fictional and real life Zoey to get over herself.
For the first time, Zoey Dawson’s first two plays, The Unspoken Word is ‘Joe’ and Conviction, will form a meta-theatrical, meta-modern, mega-amazing double bill. Featuring graduating 3rd year Acting students – this production dives head first into the headf**k of Zoey Dawson’s brilliant mind bending work and faceplants spectacularly.
Director and writer, Mark Rogers says of the work: “it is impossible to talk about these plays without spoiling some of their precious, weird magic. The students are having a ball, I’m having a ball, it’s stupid, magnificent, genius stuff. Just come and see them.”
Zoey Dawson is a theatre maker and screenwriter based in Naarm/Melbourne on the lands of the Kulin nation. Her work has been described as “brilliant”, “dangerously alive” and “heartbreaking” by The Age, “Terrific” by The Sydney Morning Herald, “disarmingly imaginative” and “tremendously affecting” by The Australian, “a major new force in Australian playwriting“ by RealTime, “exceptional” by Inpress, “powerful and astute” by Artshub, “the best theatre I have seen in years” by Theatrepeople, “like watching a friend get really drunk and embarrass herself” by The Guardian and “Agony” by Kevin Jackson’s Theatre Diary.
Her recent credits includes; as playwright, Australian Realness (Malthouse Theatre), Conviction (ZLMD Shakespeare/Darebin Arts) Welcome to Nowhere (Monash University/Malthouse), Calamity (MTC NEON/ZLMD Shakespeare), The Unspoken Word is Joe (MKA/La Mama/Griffin Theatre/Brisbane Festival), Madonna Arms (I'm Trying To Kiss You/Next Wave) and I Know There’s A Lot Of Noise Outside But You Have To Close Your Eyes (I'm Trying To Kiss You/LaMama/NIDA). As well as performing in much of her own work, she appeared in a world-ish tour of The Economist (MKA/World Theatre Festival/Edinburgh Fringe), for which she was nominated for a UK Stage Award for Best Actress. As director, she staged an all-female Romeo and Juliet at fortyfivedownstairs (ZLMD Shakespeare) and worked as Assistant Director on The Cherry Orchard (MTC) and Pompeii, LA (Malthouse Theatre). She has performed a variety of smaller pieces for The Last Tuesday Society and Melbourne Writers Festival. She has been nominated for a Green Room award for Best New Writing for Conviction and won the Melbourne Festival Discovery Award for The Unspoken Word is "Joe". She is currently completing a Master of Screenwriting at VCA with several screen projects in development. She teaches Script Writing and Screenwriting at the University of Melbourne.
Mark Rogers is a multi-award winning playwright and theatre-maker. In 2019 he won both the Griffin Award and Sydney Theatre Company’s Patrick White Award. That play, Superheroes, was also shortlisted for Stuckemarkt at Theatertreffen as a part of the Berlin Festspiele. He has produced celebrated work with some of Australia's most innovative independent companies: Woodcourt Art Theatre, Applespiel, Bodysnatchers and re:group. His play Blood Pressure is published by PlayLab and Superheroes is published by Currency Press. He holds a PHD from the University of
Wollongong, where he works as a lecturer in theatre and performance. He is a proud member of the NTEU.
Cast: Naoise Champion, Kristyan Evans, Billee Harris, Lauchlan Hutchison, Cameron Johnstone, Gaby Lioe, Samuel Litvensky, Abbey McDonald and Annie Roberts
Stage/Production Manager: Jeremy Ainsworth
This production has a COVID-Safe plan in place to reduce risk of potential virus transmission. Patrons are advised that they will not be permitted entry if they are showing signs of flu or cold symptoms.
For more information contact the School of the Arts, English and Media - E: taem-admin@uow.edu.au