VDL Awards Entry: 2024
Author: Andrew Bovell
Director: Fiona Scarlett
Genre: Comedy
Agent: HLA
Set in a suburban pub-bistro on a Friday night. Two sexually dysfunctional and socially crippled males and three desperately unhappy and lonely women are brought together in a night of social tension and humour. They clumsily go about their courting rituals and displays of humanity as the influence of alcohol takes an ever-increasing hold.
Author: Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope, Jamie Wooten
Director: Amy Calvert
Genre: Comedy
Agent: An Amateur production by arrangements with Dramatists Play Service, Inc
The Sweet Delilah Swim Club is the story of five unforgettable women who set aside a long weekend every August to meet at the same beach cottage, the “Sweet Delilah” to catchup, laugh and meddle in each other’s lives. A hilarious and touching comedy about friendship that lasts forever.
VDL Awards Entry: 2024
Author: Joshua Harmon
Director: Deborah Fabbro
Genre: Comedy
Agent: Origin Theatrical on Behalf of Samuel French Inc - A concord theatricals company
Admissions is a scorching satire that holds a mirror up to privilege and power through the lens of the education system. It is both deliberately provocative and caustically funny as it takes a subversive side-swipe at hypocritical good intentions.
Sherri Rosen-Mason is head of admissions at an exclusive Prep school in New England; her husband Bill is the principal. They are passionately committed to increasing the number of students at the school from culturally and linguistically varied backgrounds, and they’re starting to see results. But when their only son sets his sights on an Ivy League university, personal ambition collides with progressive values, with powerful results. A no-holds-barred look at privilege, power, and the perils of hypocrisy. Admissions is a biting comedy that asks audiences to question just how far they are willing to go to see the change they want in the world.
Author: Based on the novel by Craig Silvey - Adapted for the stage by Kate Mulvany
Director: David Runnalls
Genre: Drama
Agent: The Cameron Creswell Agency Pty Ltd
Jasper Jones is based on Craig Silvey’s celebrated novel, with the stage adaptation by the award-winning Kate Mulvany. This is a heart-warming and coming-of-age story, set in a small Australian town in the sixties. It centres on the lonely and bored Charlie, a lover of books, whose world is changed forever when fellow outsider Jasper Jones knocks on his window to solve a murder. Known as the town scapegoat because of his dark skin, Jasper knows he’ll be the first suspect and draws in Charlie into a race against time to get to the bottom of the mystery.
Note: This production contains coarse language, adult themes and references to violence and sexual abuse, and depictions of suicide that may be triggering to some audience members.
Author: Book by Allen Knee | Lyrics by Mindi Dickstein | Music by Jason Howland
Director: Director – Alan Burrows | Musical Director – Adam Bianco | Choreographer – Susan Lewis
Genre: Musical
Agent: Music Theatre International Australasia, on behalf of Dramatists Play Service, Inc
Louisa May Alcott’s beloved story of the adventures of the four March sisters is brought to vivid musical life in Little Women. The Civil War is in full swing, and the March sisters – Meg, the oldest, a romantic; the spirited and tomboyish Jo; sweet and loving Beth; and irascible, playful Amy – live in Concord, Massachusetts with their Marmee while their father is on the battlefield.
Filled with adventure (both lived and imagined), heartbreak, and a deep sense of hope, their struggle to find their own voices mirrors the growing pains of a young America.
VDL Awards Entry: 2024
Author: Andrew Bovell
Director: Kellie Tweeddale
Genre: Drama
Agent: HLA Management Pty Ltd
Set in Hallett Cove, a working class suburb of Adelaide, the Price family – Mum, dad and four siblings are close and loving. The children have aspirations beyond the established comfort of home of course and these desires lend a complexity to the otherwise straightforward life led by Mum and Dad . This is a poignant and complex story of love and devotion.
VDL Awards Entry: 2024
Author: Robert Askins
Director: Brian Edmond
Genre: Comedy
Agent: Dramatists Play Service Inc
After the death of his father, meek Jason finds an outlet for his anxiety at the Christian Puppet Ministry, in the devoutly religious, relatively quiet small town of Cypress, Texas. Jason’s complicated relationships with the town pastor, the school bully, the girl next door, and—most especially—his mother are thrown into upheaval when Jason’s puppet, Tyrone, takes on a shocking and dangerously irreverent personality all its own. HAND TO GOD explores the startlingly fragile nature of faith, morality, and the ties that bind us.
VDL Awards Entry: 2024
Author: Geoff Collishaw (Based on the novel by Colin King)
Director: Geoff Collishaw & Tania Maxwell
Genre: Drama
Agent: N.A.
Local Bendigo novelist, Colin King, set his first published novel in the Bendigo / Heathcote area.
It tells the story of Detective Sargeant Rory James, just back from stress leave, being assigned a cold case.
He walks into the Heathcote winery to interview the woman who found the body 14 years ago.
Problem is, she’s discovered another body this morning.
The story tips back and forth between the current day’s death, the death fourteen years ago, and the 1860’s gold rush.
Were they both accidents?
Were they both murders?
Who would kill for a Heathcote Shiraz?
VDL Awards Entry: 2024
Author: Lally Katz
Director: Barbara Crawford
Genre: Comedy
The Autumn Road Retirement Village in Caulfield has a fiercely competitive bridge club, but with old age no bridge partnership lasts for long. When Minnie loses her playing partner in an unfortunate swimming accident, Liraz is desperate for them to team up. Minnie has a granddaughter and Liraz has a grandson. Both are hopelessly single. Laying all her cards on the table, Minnie is bidding hearts.
Playwright Lally Katz gives us a characteristically oddball story of kindly Jewish grandparents and raw ambition. As riotously funny and brilliantly original as you would expect a brainchild of Lally Katz to be, Minnie and Liraz has a misfit charm that will leave you grinning.
The first amateur production of this play in Australia.
Author: Florian Zeller
Director: Div Collins
Genre: Drama
Christopher Hampton’s translation of Florian Zeller’s masterpiece provides an intimate glimpse into the disorienting world of André, an elderly man grappling with dementia. Set in his Paris apartment, the play artfully blurs the lines between reality and confusion, inviting us to experience the world through André’s eyes. The play is a powerful exploration of the impact of dementia on identity and relationships, taking a profound and sometimes disconcerting journey into the human mind’s fragility.