The 2000s - Women
New Theatre History Home | Previous: The 2000s - Big Business | Next: Agit-prop and Street Theatre
Alana Valentine’s Parramatta Girls is based on real testimonies. Former inmates of the Parramatta Girls’ Training School reunite to face the demons of their shared experiences, the action shifting between the past and the present. (The institution which operated 1887-1974 housed delinquent, neglected, and juvenile offenders, including indigenous girls, who received minimal education. Most trained as domestic servants, many were the victims of bullying and abuse, and there were frequent riots.)
Parramatta Girls, 2011
NT produced other full-length plays by Alana Valentine (Love Potions and Singing the Lonely Heart) and works for Brand Spanking New (a season for new and emerging writers) and Women, Power & Culture (new Australian works by women writers).
Verity Firth chats with audience members in the NT foyer at Women, Power & Culture, 2011
Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls, set in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain, examines what it means to be a successful woman through historical and contemporary characters. Also directed by Alice Livingstone, The Heidi Chronicles tracks a woman's search for political, professional and personal fulfilment over four decades.
Top Girls publicity photo, 2013
Top Girls, 2013
The Heidi Chronicles, 2016
New Theatre History Home | Previous: The 2000s - Big Business | Next: Agit-prop and Street Theatre
