VDL Awards Entries 2026

The Cherry Orchard is a bittersweet tale about a family on the brink of change. As an old estate faces sale, its owners cling to memory, status and sentiment while the world around them moves on.
This production leans into the humour, humanity and urgency of Chekhov’s final play: a story of people dreaming and delaying as history quietly overtakes them.
This is a fresh, accessible reimagining with a pared-back aesthetic and strong ensemble focus. The emphasis is on clear storytelling and lived-in, truthful performances while treading the line between comedy and tragedy. While respecting the text, this production will be set in contemporary Australia, with a focus on natural performances and accents.

Switzerland is an original thriller inspired by renowned master crime novelist Patricia Highsmith by Australian playwright Joanna Murray-Smith. Highsmith’s books are the source of many cinematic adaptations – The Two Faces of January, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Strangers on a Train – but in Switzerland the tables are turned, and it is Patricia Highsmith herself who is the central character.

True to its genre, Switzerland kicks off with a knock at the door and spirals into a calculated contest of wits and words. In a Highsmith world, villains enjoy happy endings as often as their victims… who will make it out of Switzerland alive?

‘The Visit’ is a darkly satirical and tragic comedy that explores justice, vengeance and moral decay. When billionaire Claire Zachanassian returns to her impoverished hometown of Güllen, she offers the citizens a fortune – on one chilling condition: they must kill the man who once betrayed her. Initially appalled, the townspeople slowly rationalise the murder.
Dürrenmatt masterfully exposes the fragility of ethics under financial desperation, weaving absurdity and irony into a haunting critique of collective guilt. As Claire’s grotesque entourage and surreal demands unfold, the play explores the dark side of human nature, especially societal compromise. ‘The Visit’ is a masterpiece of 20th Century European theatre – we are proud to bring this seldom-performed work to the Malvern stage.

The play is set in fog-bound turn of the 20th century London, in the home of Jack Manningham and his wife Bella. It is late afternoon, a time that Hamilton notes as the time “before the feeble dawn of gaslight and tea.”
Bella is clearly on edge, and the stern reproaches of her overbearing husband (who flirts with the servants in front of his wife) make matters worse. What most perturbs Bella is Jack’s unexplained disappearances from the house: he will not tell her where he is going, and this increases her anxiety. It becomes clear that Jack is intent on convincing Bella that she is going insane, even to the point of assuring her she is imagining things.
The appearance of a police detective called Rough helps Bella to realise that Jack is responsible for her torment. Rough explains that the apartment above was once occupied by one Alice Barlow, a wealthy woman who was murdered for her jewels. The murderer was never found.
Jack goes to the flat each night to search for the jewels, and lighting the apartment’s gas lights causes the lights to dim in the rest of the building. His footsteps in the supposedly empty apartment persuade Bella that she is “hearing things”. Rough convinces Bella to assist him in exposing Jack as the murderer, which she does, but not before she takes revenge on Jack by pretending to help him escape. At the last minute she reminds him that, having gone insane, she is not accountable for her actions. The play closes with Jack being led away by the police.
In 1961, twenty-three years after the play was written, writers began using the title Gas Light as a verb, “gaslighting”.
In this context ‘Gaslighting’ is a colloquialism that loosely means to manipulate a person or a group of people like the way the protagonist in the play (Bella) is manipulated. It is a term widely used in the current verbiage and demonstrates how relationships within a modern context mirror those of the past with limited or insubstantial change. This and the use of coercive control within the narrative are very relevant to today’s audience.
Our goal is to present a dark and engaging thriller in the vein of the original play, keeping the time and place as described in the script. Pure gothic horror.
This Production and the Direction within, will focus on pace, mood and menace, underpinned by a focal point on the status of Woman, Wives and Servants in turn of the century London, and what role Men play in their safety and their worth.

‘No Exit’ by Jean-Paul Sartre brings three strangers together in a locked room after death. With no obvious punishment and no escape, they are forced to remain in one another’s presence. As conversation unfolds, the room becomes increasingly oppressive, revealing how identity, power, and self-understanding are shaped through being seen by others—and how confinement can be psychological as much as physical.

An Australian drama with humour.

Abusive, cantankerous and burned out by booze, Leo Bailey is one of Australia’s national treasures. A gifted painter and chronic alcoholic, he can no longer take care of himself. His resentful daughter, Margo, has been through a succession of minders, until Therese comes along, fresh out of jail and determined to make a go of her limited options.

Mr Bailey’s Minder is a tough, funny and big-hearted play. It’s about shame and judgement, about who deserves to be loved and forgiven. It looks at how people exploit each other and where they find the beauty; and the qualities of transcendence, letting go and forgiveness.

* This play is The Mount Players VDL entry