Bully no more

Ask Hatshepsut

Young Mary

Flowers for Algeron

Sister Mary of the Cross

Shakespeare's Women

Return of the Bully

The Bully is Back

The Cyber Bully

Techno Bully

Catherine McAuley's Mercy

Performances

Rights & Freedoms / Referendum

‘A little girl with a fantastic voice led the singing & we sang Beatles songs all the way back. The spirit was tremendous.’ – Moree pool. 1965. Freedom Ride Diary. Ann Curthoys. Glen Phillips has a degree in acting from Wollongong University. He has toured into schools for twenty years and is a theatre-for-young-people specialist. In Rights & Freedoms/Referendum Glen explores the ongoing civil rights movement in Australia. In 1967 a Referendum on aboriginal rights was held. An argument for a NO vote had not been formulated as a majority of politicians had favoured the proposal. The amendment passed in a landslide with 90.77 percent voting for change. Aboriginal people would now be counted in the census & the door was open to further legislate to end discrimination & empower Aboriginal people. Rights & Freedoms/Referendum looks at the years preceding this historic vote, and the years since. It reflects on the changing attitudes & public awareness in Australia & charts the continuing evolution of the civil rights movement.

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WW1: Fightin’ the Kaiser

‘…Australia Will Be There…’ Or ‘…Cooee…digger! Who’ll come a Fightin’ the Kaiser with Me?
We’ll drink all his beer, and eat up all his sausages. Who’ll come a fightin’ the Kaiser with me?’
Fightin’ the Kaiser is a one – man vaudevillian melodrama incorporating the songs, poems, letters, anecdotes, reportage and reminiscences of the ANZACS.
Glen Phillips plays Gassy, a wounded vet eternally inhabiting the no man’s land of a veteran’s hospital. He talks, sings, jokes and rails at ‘Young Tippen’, his best mate; ‘…long dead on Anzac…’ and now forever young in a portrait on his bureau.
Through caricature, larrikin humour and great WW1 songs, Gassy reflects upon the Great War. He jokes with Tippen about their recruitment in Sydney, teases him over their hi-jinks in Egypt, roars about the trials and tribulations of the Dardanelles and reflects on the great tragedy of the Western Front.
‘You were lucky to cop it on Anzac Tippen! You missed the worst of it.’
A powerful WW1 drama with a sense of humour and great songs.

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WW2: Fighting For It

‘For each day a worker has off there’s been someone out on the street fighting for it!’
Exclaimed Muriel on many an occasion – so it made sense that she, a lifelong member of the communist party, ‘until bloody Stalin invaded Yugoslavia that is’, would join up to fight fascism. After all her best mate Eileen was working six, ten-hour factory shifts a week in Maribyrnong. Her brother Norm had enlisted and sailed for Singapore and Ron, who had serenaded her at a Trade union meeting with the new hit ‘We’ll Meet Again’, was off in Dubbo training troops. So she joined the WAAAF and ended up in Townsville as a radio telegraphist.
Fighting For It tells the story of WW2 through the eyes of Grandad – Ron. He talks to his grandson Boyo, played by the audience. He talks of his great love Muriel – Nanna, her brother Norm and her mate Eileen. Their stories encompass: the fall of Singapore and the horrors of Changi and the Burma railway, the role women played throughout WW2, the training of troops and the battle of the Pacific, especially Balikpapan, and the Japanese surrender. It also explores the occupation of Hiroshima and the effects of the atomic bombing of Japan.
Nanna who never saw her brother Norm again was unable to forgive the Japanese. Ron however, who spent two years in Hiroshima ‘cleaning up the mess made by the Yanks’, fell in love with the Japanese people and culture. Grandad discovered forgiveness.
The play is performed by a theatre-in-schools professional who brings the script and stories into vivid focus with deep emotion, great humour and the terrific songs of WW2.

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About Starrs Productions

  • Starrs Productions have been presenting performances in schools for the last 30 years. In that time we have toured Shakespeare plays, Australian poetry shows, plays on understanding relationships, developing self-respect and exploring social justice; on schoolyard bullying, on cyber bullying and the abuse of social networking sites, on body image and consumerism, on hip hop and the blues, on the Vietnam war and WW1; plays of imagination, humour and energy.
  • Our feedback has consistently been outstanding and in 2004 we received the June Frater award for excellence in school performances from the NSW Dept. of Education. Our ethos is to reach our audience using humour and passion; an interaction aimed at stimulating empathy, a desire for justice and to spark a lifelong search for truth through the power of words, ideas, actions and the imagination.

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