House Plays Programme 2020

Somerset College

presents the

House Plays Festival 2020

House Plays Festival Winner 2019

2019 House Plays Festival Highlights

Welcome to the 30 th Annual House Plays Festival As the House Plays Festival celebrates its 30 th Birthday, it seems fitting to allow our student directors and cast members a chance to contribute to the welcome address and share with their audience an insight as to why they choose to participate in the festival and why it is an important part of the Somerset Experience.

30 Reasons Why: Directors and Cast verbatim responses

1. A sense of family.

2. It boosts your confidence.

3. Helps me to become a more social person.

4. Finishing a play is incredibly rewarding.

5. A nice way to meet new people in different grades.

6. The cast is made up of people who share your interests.

7. Exposure to the theatre.

8. Directing helps develop leadership skills.

9. Discover new things about yourself.

10. The experience of performing on stage.

11. I love performing!

12. It helps foster a sense of community in our House.

13. House Plays broadens your opportunities to succeed and thrive in a school

environment.

14. It is good to discover what you are capable of.

15. The pizza dinner before the show!

16. Creative freedom.

17. Builds teamwork skills.

18. A space where everyone can give ideas and is encouraged.

19. Seeing people’s talent develop from year to year.

20. We get to work through every step of staging a play.

21. Fun!

22. I get to learn how to use the sound desk.

23. It helps with my organisation skills. You have to be organised if you are in House

Plays!

24. I like working with technology throughout performances.

25. I can learn about all of the different equipment in the theatre.

26. Strong bonds and friendship.

27. Supporting each other.

28. Laughing in the rehearsal room.

29. It is important to me. I have formed friendships and love performing, especially when

I can put a smile on someone’s face.

30. It relaxes me because it is fun.

The value of the House Plays Festival is embedded in these responses, and the memories that students form throughout the intensive 6-week process will remain with them throughout the course of their lives. None of what you see tonight could have been accomplished without the support of parents, staff and students. On behalf of all directors and cast members, thank you to our adjudicator Merlynn Tong and to all who have assisted with the House Plays Festival for 2020.

Here’s to the next 30 years! We hope you enjoy the show.

Anna D’Arcy

Assistant Head of Performing Arts

2020 House Plays Festival Adjudicator

Merlynn Tong Merlynn Tong is an Actor and Playwright. She has recently adapted Sophocles’ Antigone for Queensland Theatre. In 2018, Merlynn wrote Good Grief , a play for Queensland Theatre’s The Scene Project. She has also written two one-woman shows, Ma Ma Ma Mad, the true story of her mother’s suicide and Blue Bones , a semi-autobiography of teenage romance as it blossoms then warps in heat of bustling Singapore. Her work, Blue Bones, that she also performed in, has won 6 Matilda Awards including the Lord Mayor Award for Best New Australian Work, Best Mainstage Production and Best Female Actor in a Leading Role. All her works have been published by Playlab .

Some of her recent performances include White Pearl (Sydney Theatre Company & National Theatre of Parramatta), The Shot (Queensland Theatre, The Scene Project), Harrow 2 (ABC), Reef Break (ABC/M6), Top of the Lake: China Girl (BBC & Sundance Films, Jane Campion), What I’m Here For (Elbow Room & Flowstate), The Mathematics of Longing (La Boite Theatre), The Lost Lending Library (Punchdrunk & Imaginary Theatre), Hotelling (Bleached Arts), Bitch: Origin of the Female Species (Brisbane Festival), Blue Bones (Playlab & Brisbane Powerhouse), Viral (Shock Therapy Productions, Gold Coast Arts Centre), Straight White Men (La Boite Theatre), Ma Ma Ma Mad (Brisbane Powerhouse), The Theory of Everything (Brisbane Festival), The Wizards from Oz (Taiwan, Taoyuan International Children’s Festival) and Hot Brown Honey (Judith Wright Centre).

Order of plays

There will be a 10-minute interval between each play

Technical Services Crew

Miku Adachi Yuvi Chauhan

Lucy MacDonald Lance Sherrington Michael Ma Sasha Henrison Lyanna Chan

Xenia Dariush-Far Cindy Xue Betty Ke

House Plays Festival Photographer

Darcy Beynon

STARKEY HOUSE PLAY

Play : Heaven Can Wait

Playwrights : Harry Segall

Performance rights sought through MTI Australia

Synopsis: Angels are busily checking in passengers who are to depart for the Hereafter. Their routine is interrupted by the arrival of Joe, a prizefighter who refuses to admit he is dead. The Angel records reveal that Joe is not scheduled to arrive for another 60 years! Join Starkey House as they help Joe travel back to Earth and attend to unfinished business in their condensed interpretation of this classic comedic fantasy.

Starkey House Play Directors

Dom Bensley

Ben O’Boyle

Starkey House Play Cast

Bella Beer

Mariella Bourke

Angus FitzGerald

Jack Griffiths

Sarah-Anne Hornsey

Sasha Ingall

Anastasia Kouts

Anica Moller

Braedan Murdock

Iona Radcliffe

Calvin Walther

Chester Whiting

Daisy Webber

LAVER HOUSE PLAY

Play : The Bible in 30 Minutes or Less

Playwright : Anton Butcher

Performance rights kindly granted

Synopsis : The aim of this play is to perform the entire Bible in 25 minutes or less. Led by an ambitious narrator, this energetic and hilarious play opens with the Book of Genesis and runs right through to the Book of Revelation. Meet over 100 Biblical characters, famous and obscure, all at breakneck speed.

Laver House Play Directors

Emma Lekich

Lilly McCoomb

Laver House Play Cast

Elliot Bartley

Thomas Gray

Jessica Jeffriess

Tarang Kondamudi

Soumia Lamont

Ava McCarthy

Bailey Morris

Nicola Swainson

Nicholas Tan

Mitchell Wuth

VEIVERS HOUSE PLAY

Play: Compass

Playwright : Jessica Bellamy

Performance rights kindly granted. The condensed version approved by Jessica Bellamy.

Synopsis : The teacher is missing, there is not enough food, it is getting dark and no one mentioned that the toilets out here are nothing but holes in the ground. For a small group of students, it seems their grade seven camp could not get much worse, that is until a stranger appears. Compass is a comedy with a sting in its tail, which asks how far we will go to hold on to what we think we deserve. If we are barely managing to take care of ourselves, how do we treat an outsider? Is our moral compass set in stone, or can we get lost?

Veivers House Play Directors

Thomas Liu

Stepan Tkatchenko

Veivers House Play Cast

Makayla Carkazis

Romany Carlsen-Wareham Karma Denzongpa-Bathols

Summer Edgley

Noah Jay

Thomas Kilmartin

Ella Kirk

Louis Ladbrook

Benji Liu

James Wei

Eva Wingrove

FRANKLIN HOUSE PLAY

Did Someone Say Bingo?

Play :

Playwright : Amy Jackson and Min Jae Kyeong

Student devised work. Performance rights not required.

Synopsis : Everything was running just as it should be at Serene Villa… Well, that is until the displaced residents of Carefree Springs showed up. Join Franklin House in a battle royale of grey hair, bingo boards, backhands and yoga poses as the Election for the Serene Villa President is hotly contested. Who will be victorious?

Franklin House Play Directors

Amy Jackson

Min Jae Kyeong

Franklin House Play Cast

Leigh Amores

Yeva Brereton

Secret Goetz

Daniel Harvey

Brigette Newing

William Roder

Niamh Rogers

Ellie Ryan

Ella Stewart

Will Toohey

River Teixeira

ANDREWS HOUSE PLAY

Play : Back to Reality

Playwright : Anna Boone and Oliver Gilbert

Student devised work. Performance rights not required.

Synopsis : Four stereotypical high school students find themselves in detention where they are subject to a failed experiment that transports them to a game world. The unlikely group must work together to return home, facing quirky people and strange things along the way. Will these students return back home, or will they find themselves trapped in this game for eternity?

Andrews House Play Directors

Anna Boone

Oliver Gilbert

Andrews House Play Cast

Ayla Chirathivat-Geralds

Desmond Chuah

James Enwright

Alexandra Grgic

Ella Hammond

Heidi Hoffman

Rory Hodge

Anna Hori

Hannah Kennedy

Hamish Kennedy

Sean Nguyen

Rishi Veeramachaneni