Drama X Ensemble

This year our Drama X Ensemble participated in Queensland Theatre Company’s 2022 Scene Project. The Scene Project is Queensland Theatre’s largest education offering, encouraging drama students throughout the state to engage in the creative process of performance, from recontextualising, devising and playmaking, rehearsal through to performing for an audience. This is an annual project for QTC who invite a playwright each year to pen a new work to encourage and challenge participating drama groups to create their own unique fifteen-minute version of the play. The play for this year’s Project, Chroma Town, was written by Suzie Miller, and examined the symbiotic relationship between the mining industry and the communities under its shadow to find a common way forward with transition and care. 

As part of the Scene Project, schools are not only establishing and strengthening community partnerships, but students have the opportunity to work with industry artists from Queensland Theatre. We were very fortunate to have Francesca (Frankie) Savige come out and work with the ensemble. As an actor Frankie has worked for over fifteen years across Australia and overseas for Sport for Jove, International Actors Ensemble, Auckland Summer Shakespeare, Bell Shakespeare, Queensland Theatre Company, Critical Stages, Griffin, Parramatta Riverside and Old Fitz, as well as making screen appearances in Marley, Someone; The Beehive (Tribeca Short Film Festival); Starting from Now, Home and Away, Packed to the Rafters and Venus & Adonis. 

The project concluded with our Outcome Day where we joined Park Ridge State High School for the day at the Bille Brown Theatre. The Outcome Day was an opportunity for the ensemble work in a professional theatre venue to share and reflect on their performances. On this day, a cast of professional Queensland Theatre actors also presented a full interpretation of the play and the students participated in a learning forum that allowed them to acknowledge the skill and artistry of their peers as well as engage in robust discussions around process and performance building.

A huge congratulations to the following students for their dynamic energy, creativity and commitment to our Drama X Ensemble:

Bridie Davissen

Charlotte Dodd

Daisy Lacanau

Hannah Lowe

Tyler Mitchell

Arabella Ross

Hannah Slade

Bridget Waterson

“Participating in the Scene Project again was an amazing experience. My favourite part of the day was seeing the other schools' interpretation of the play and how the same play can be interpreted in so many different ways. The day was a great opportunity to collaborate with the Park Ridge SHS students, who were like-minded and shared a passion of drama. Something that challenged us throughout the day was transforming our performance on to the stage in the Bille Brown Theatre as it was so spacious compared to our usual rehearsal space”.

Hannah Slade (Year 12)

“I love the Scene Project for so many reasons. Working together as a small ensemble inspires bonding over our collective passion for drama, but seeing the larger groups of schools and their interpretations of the same text is so fascinating. I learnt a lot about how a text can be differently interpreted, as well as the processes used by professional actors. It is always so cool to see the actors do the new script that we studied and be able to discuss the performances with them afterwards. It is always challenging to go out of our comfort zone, but the other school was in the exact same scenario as us and we bonded through our love for drama”.

Tyler Mitchell (Year 12)