2022 House Plays Programme

Somerset College

presents the

House Plays Festival 2022

House Plays Festival Winner 2021

2021 House Plays Festival Highlights

Welcome to the 32 nd House Plays Festival.

The key word of the 2022 Festival has been resilience. After casting at the end of 2021, our company of 100 actors headed into the summer holidays excited about the road ahead. Barrier 1 hit, with the delayed start to Term 1. How did the Directors manage? Through Zoom of course! Table reads happened and casts had an important opportunity to reconnect before coming back into the rehearsal room. A date change occurred, and the rehearsal energy was strong. Then along came barrier 2, illness. Casts were separated, however the process kept moving, with Facetime rehearsal cameos and flexibility with managing technical rehearsal time. Finally, barrier 3, the rain came. Dress rehearsal days were adjusted and only through the unwavering dedication from directors and cast members alike, the festival lived on. Our annual House Plays Performing Arts assembly was unable to be executed in a traditional way, so our directors put their creative heads together and decided to introduce and film a moment from each of their plays to share with the Senior School. This brings us to performance night. We have successfully navigated each barrier and our company are calmly taking each day as it comes; problem solving, laughing, and most importantly, creating. Never before has the final result mattered less. The opportunity to perform and share their stories with you, our wonderful audience, is all our passionate actors and directors desire. House Spirit is in full force. On behalf of the House Plays Festival directors, actors, and technical crew, we would like to sincerely thank the families of all participants for riding this wave with us and supporting the festival. Without your commitment, our actors would not be under the spotlight tonight. We extend our thanks to all staff for their assistance and to Ellen Bailey, our adjudicator for supporting this important event. The show must go on!

Chookas!

Mrs Anna D’Arcy

Ms Josephine Flynn

Assistant Head of Performing Arts

Theatre Manager

2022 House Plays Festival Adjudicator

Ellen Bailey

Ellen is an actor/physical theatre performer with extensive training in dance and movement. Theatre credits include: Taming of the Shrew, Wisdom, Storm Boy (with MTC & Dead Puppet Society), Much Ado About Nothing, Oedipus Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Macbeth (Queensland Theatre); Ishmael; Laser Beak Man, Megafauna (Dead Puppet Society); Fantastic Mr. Fox (shake & stir theatre co.); Tender Napalm (La Boite Theatre Company); Medea, The Forwards, Viral (Shock Therapy Productions); Roadtrain (Sydney Theatre

Company); A Secret Place (Zeal Theatre); Armistice (QPAC); Hamlet (4MBS Shakespeare Festival); HEARD*BRISBANE (GOMA); Bustown (ATYP). Additionally, Ellen was Movement Coordinator/Consultant for Taming of the Shrew and Wisdom (Queensland Theatre), and works with young people across Queensland as a teaching artist. In 2017, Ellen received government sponsorship to undergo training with internationally acclaimed physical-theatre companies Frantic Assembly and Complicité, emboldening her performance portfolio which is also composed of film, television, site-specific theatre and music videos. Training: QUT, BFA Acting . Awards: Gold Coast Film Festival – Best Actor Lavender; Matilda Award Nomination – Best Female Actor in a Supporting Role Taming of the Shrew, Best Female Actor in a Leading Role The Forwards.

Order of plays

There will be a 10-minute interval between each play

Technical Services Crew

Krish Bhasin Rafael Brand Steff Chang

Emelia Fink Liam O’Nuallin Luke Oishi Melody Yang

House Plays Festival Photographer

Paul.A.Broben

House Plays Festival Videographer

Liam O ’Nua llain

Theatre Technical Assistant

Sam Cash

STARKEY HOUSE PLAY

Play : Charade

Playwrights : Julia Puhalla and Hannah Zubair

Student devised work. Performance rights not required.

Synopsis: It is July 1933, and Christmas has come early for the Ortega family. They have decided to gather in a large villa in the Blue Mountains. All 20 family members have come together under one roof, except for one - Walter. As an apology he sent Christmas cards to each of the members. After receiving these letters, the five sons of the family are targeted. Murder runs rampant in the house, and no one knows why. But as the time passes, and the villa descends into chaos, interesting things are revealed about the Ortega family and their fortune.

Starkey House Play Directors

Julia Puhalla

Hannah Zubair

Starkey House Play Cast

Darcy Beynon

Sienna Briggs

Nic Burda

Noah Carter

Raye FengXu

Ella Flowers

Kya Flowers

Trinity Flowers

Molly Green

Lida Korina

Anastasia Kouts

Maya Moshtagh

Iona Radcliffe

Gianni Restaino

Abhiraj Sarmah

Isabel van der Walt

Sophie Ward-Harvey

Daisy Symons

Daisy Webber

Peggy Webber

Leylah Zubair

VEIVERS HOUSE PLAY

Play: The least offensive play in the whole darn world

Playwright : Jonathon Rand

Performance rights kindly granted.

Synopsis : Want to perform a classic play too offensive for your high school? Then the ScriptCleaner5000 is the product for you! Sit back and relax as Cynocorp representatives Shelly and Tom present sample scenes from plays that have been treated with this exciting new technology. Wipe away that dirty David Mamet profanity! Violence in Shakespeare? Gone. The ScriptCleaner5000 has got you covered!

Veivers House Play Directors

Thomas Kilmartin

Louis Ladbrook

Veivers House Play Cast

Benjamin Arnold

Ethan Carkazis

Arya Denzongpa-Bathols

Haysal Denzongpa-Bathols

Rory Fenelon

Alex Kilmartin

Georgie Kilmartin

Georgina Littleton

Benji Liu

Lauren Mills

Xavier O’Brien

Grace Pan

FRANKLIN HOUSE PLAY

Play :

A Bit Too Wild West

Samuel Rigby

Playwright:

Student devised work. Performance rights not required.

Synopsis : The year is 1858. Diego, born a farmer and shoehorned into the role as sheriff, is barely keeping back the crime in his town. One day he decides enough is enough and joins his adopted father, Dr. Alvin Mottlevin, to attempt to stifle the crime in his newfound occupation, a bounty hunter. In his new life, Dr. Mottlevin is Diego’s mentor in bounty hunting , tracking those who tread on the wrong side of the law. One day, the pair hear news of a gang causing trouble in a local town, and it’s Diego who recognises the name of a member.

Franklin House Play Directors

Daniel Harvey

Samuel Rigby

Franklin House Play Cast

Samantha Coomber

Hamish Folliott

Matilda Folliott

Secret Goetz

Matilda Guthrie

Lael Jeon

Lava Lopez

Ruhara Mapabandara

Brigette Newing

Niamh Rogers

Ellie Ryan

Zara Ryan

Lisa Sinclair

River Teixeira

LAVER HOUSE PLAY

Play : Odin, Zeus and the end of the World

Playwright : Amaani Bhasin

Student devised. Performance rights not required

Synopsis : In the Laver house play, we see the tale of two different mythologies, the Norse and the Greek. Gods so alike, yet so different come face to face as the story of two different timelines is merged into one... but this isn’t supposed to happen? Through all the confusion, Ragnarok, the end of the world is fast approaching. Can the gods manage to get along with each other, or is this the inevitable end of their ancient stories?

Laver House Play Directors

Amaani Bhasin

Ethan Robinson

Laver House Play Cast

Emmeline Anthony

Magnus Anthony

Elliot Bartley

Morgan Craig

Ashton Crasto

Georgia Daly

Kaelyn Dolan

Thomas Gray

Tarang Kondamudi

Anika Lu

Emily Marks

Ava McCarthy

Vivian Milosevic

Ella Punch

Lillian Tan

Mia Woodthorpe

ANDREWS HOUSE PLAY

Play : Fight with all your might the zombies of tonight

Playwright : Matthew Whittet

Performance rights sought

Synopsis : Alex has been watching everyone at school for the last few days like an eagle… or maybe a hawk, and something’s not right. Everyone is acting weird. They’re all starting to say the same things, wear the same clothes, do bad dance routines, and drink WAY too much coffee. The writings on the wall. She knows what’s happening. They’re all turning into zombies ! In fact, it’s the Night of the Zombies – that fateful occurrence that happens once every 200 years. Alex and her buddies know what to do, they’ll have to fight with all their might the zombies of tonight.

Andrews House Play Directors

Megan Cattell

Rishi Veeramachaneni

Andrews House Play Cast

Riddhi Athota

Eliana Brienza

Hayeon Byun

Ayla Chirathivat-Geralds

Lucy Colahan

Sophie Colahan

Austin Dover

Heidi Hoffman

Huw Hoffman

Kseniia Igumenova

Jake Johnson

Hamish Kennedy

Tatiana Leon

Timothy McSwan

Tristan Song

Liana Warwick

Oliver Yang