New writers create a scene

What happens when some of the University of Adelaide's most talented Creative Writing students join forces with the Theatre Guild in its 70th anniversary year?

The result is Page #1, Scene#1 ... the end and other stories.

To be performed in the Little Theatre this month, Page #1, Scene #1 is the result of a new and fruitful collaboration between the Theatre Guild and the University's Creative Writing discipline, which began last year with a pilot project called Write to Stage.

In Write to Stage, a small ensemble of actors directed by Michael Allen took three pieces of writing by Creative Writing students - a poem, a monologue and part of a short story - and reinterpreted them for performance. All three pieces were performed in the Barr Smith Library's historic Reading Room at the University's Open Day
in 2007.

The success of that project inspired the Guild to repeat and extend it for the 2008 season. A range of intriguing new material has been added, the show has been expanded in length, and now takes the form of a three-night season in a formal theatre space, again directed by Michael Allen.

Featuring the writing of Henry Ashley-Brown, John De Laine, Rachel Hennessy, Stephen Lawrence and Heather Taylor Johnson, Page #1, Scene#1 involves bananas, some very odd sales monologues, a disappearance in a cupboard, a train trip to eternity, a seriously black car journey, Eve's second sin, and someone called Estelle.

"It is always so exciting hearing how your work is interpreted by other people and, in theatre, you get the interpretation of a director, actors and a live audience," said Creative Writing PhD student Rachel Hennessy.

There will be three performances only: Thursday 10, Friday 11 and Saturday 12 April, at 7.30pm in the Little Theatre (The Cloisters, off Victoria Drive), North Terrace Campus, University of Adelaide.

All tickets $15, available from the Theatre Guild on 8303 5999. Book online at: www.adelaide.edu.au/theatreguild