Hello Lot’s Wife Readers! I’m Nesceda Blake, one of Monash Uni Student Theatre’s interns for 2019, here to give you the low down on who we are and what we do!
Monash Uni Student Theatre (MUST), is a department of the MSA run by two professional theatre-makers that create vibrant, innovative theatre by, and with, Monash students for everybody. Our works are diverse, ranging from devised pieces to adaptations, from large-scale immersive work and festivals all the way to intimate experiments.
Each year we stage performances, hold workshops to develop skills, and facilitate students in professional placements. Nearly all roles on and off stage are performed by students, with training and mentorship provided. Students actively shape our annual program and our growing culture at MUST. Last year, 840 student cast members and crew were involved in 112 MUST workshops and performances, with over 7000 audience members walking through the door!
We have shared our work at the Melbourne and Adelaide Fringe; winning the Melbourne Fringe Live Art Award in 2015; and collaborated with La Mama, MAPA, Theatre Works and fortyfivedownstairs.
Those involved with MUST have often gone on to pursue professional careers in the arts, many coming back to collaborate with current students. The value of hands-on experience and expression is second to none, with ‘The Music’ crediting MUST as an “impressive breeding ground for talent in recent years”.
Our 2019 season is bursting with new artistic expression. We kicked off the year with Simpsons-inspired The D’Oh Show, giving new Monash students a taste of university life, performed four times a day in O Week! Students involved in the remainder of our season are already hard at work, developing, rehearsing, exploring ideas, and gaining new skills.
If you ever want to find out more about MUST, who we are and what we do, come and say hi! We are situated in the corridor next to Monash Pharmacy, Campus Centre, Clayton.
Or, contact us via:
(ph) 9905 8173
(email) msa-must@monash.edu.au
(web) msa.monash.edu.au/must
(facebook) facebook.com/musttheatre
(insta) musttheatre
Coming up @ MUST in 2019
Slaughterhouse Five, adapted from Kurt Vonnegut’s novel
April 24 – May 5 at Theatre Works, St. Kilda
Written & directed by Fleur Kilpatrick
A remount of our highly successful 2016 production, Slaughterhouse Five is a surprisingly personal story of a boy going to war and witnessing a massacre – but it is also very funny, full of delicious sci-fi, porn, and aliens.
Climbers by Elly D’Arcy
May 16 – 25
Directed by Elly D’Arcy & Natalie Speechley
Cambridge, 1939. Rosalind finds three young men on the roof. They are ‘night climbers,’ illegally climbing for fun. Climbers is what happens when you take the plucky boarding school heroine out of the boarding school to face the harsh realities of gender discrimination & worse.
The Golden Age by Louis Nowra
May 30 – June 8
Directed by Olivia Staaf
A moving Australian gothic play. Centering around a lost tribe of white people; the remnants of a gold rush are discovered in Tasmania & brought to ‘civilisation’ as WWII breaks out.
The Bacchae
July 10 – 21 at La Mama Courthouse
Written & directed by Robert Reid
A new trilogy of plays about the rise of the Ancient Greek female cult of Dionysus and their war on patriarchal Athens, which weaves in references from Sophocles to Charles Manson.
The MUST Cabaret Festival
Aug 6 – 17
Curated by Nesceda Blake & Eamonn Johnson
You are invited to a diverse, two-week festival of dynamic performances and undiscovered talent! Let MUST dim the lights, and serve you a smorgasbord of zest!
Email mustcabfest@gmail.com for info on how to be involved
Disinhibition by Christopher Bryant
Aug 29 – Sept 7
Directed by MUST AD Yvonne Virsik
George has countless followers watching his every move. Flick’s FODMAP cooking website has sent her instant fame and Tay begins to gain human traits from her interactions with strangers – humour, desire, love… and racism.
Beginners & International Student Performance Workshop Program
Showcase Sept 26 -28
Fun, free weekly performance workshops culminating in public showings.
Sponsored by CCD
Do Not Collect $200
Oct 9 – 19
Created by Harley Hefford and team
An interactive, immersive devised work based on a monopoly game!
Community Project
Project Pollinate
Paris Balla, Simone Louey & Simran Giria are working with primary school students to create a performance work based on their ideas.
Seagulls – Student Refugee Project
Showings from September 18
Through storytelling and performance workshops, PHD students Roxana Paun Trifan, Jaime Dorner & Gianluigi Rotondo will be working with a group of Monash Student Refugees to create a piece sharing their stories.
In development @ MUST
- A series of performance texts exploring language by Lachlan Liesfield
- Identity Crisis, A New Musical about online identity – Written by Tom Thorpe, Composed by Alice Pryor & Directed by Kitty Malam
- The Fall of House Usher – A gothic, immersive theatre piece drawn from Dickens and Poe by Kelly Wilson, collaborating with James Walker
- Cry Wolf – a highly stylised articulation of the manipulation of language and power by Aleks Corke
Women’s Circus Partnership
Women’s Circus offers a year-round training program and produces socially engaged arts projects for women & their communities. Artistic Director Penelope Bartlau is mentoring several MUST female artists in developing their own work.
In 2019, WHY NOT GET INVOLVED? SEEK OUT SURPRISING EXPERIENCES, FIND MUST, FIND YOUR VOICE!
