Opening December 5, Canberra Youth Theatre will present their end-of-year major production The Moth Tree: An Awesome Adventure at Gorman House Arts Centre.
16 students, ranging in age from 8 to 12, have worked since July with director Tim Hansen, Sydney writer Shiereen Magsalin, designer Hilary Talbot and combat trainer Elena Kirschbaum. For these young people,learning how to create and present The Moth Tree has been an awesome adventure in its own right.
Hansen has tutored and directed at CYT for the past 4 years. With qualifications in theatre/media from Charles Sturt University, Bathurst and in music composition from ANU School of Music, he takes an interesting approach to the production process. Through regular workshops, including weekend and week-long intensive sessions, he takes on board the students’ ideas, working with them to create theatrical “beats”, which he describes as major points of emphasis to form a dramatic “score”.
With this group, all of whom have shown great initiative, energy and determination, CYT has employed a young emerging writer in an interactive process – sometimes directly working with the students and their director, sometimes using email to pass on ideas and sections of script – to come up with a completed play. The copyright is owned by CYT, so that the script will be available for other groups, but in the most important sense The Moth Tree is owned by all those involved.
Hansen and his student group have had the same kind of relationship with Talbot and Kirschbaum, with the result that there has been great excitement among the young people when a professional adult arrives to work with them. In parallel with the way a director of a professional production might operate, the students create the vision and have the services of dramaturg, writer, stage manager, production manager, designer and trainer available to help them turn their ideas into theatrical reality.
This is surely a quality learning experience, with CYT’s aim, as Hansen puts it, “to create the next generation of theatre creators.”
The Moth Tree is a quest story in the tradition of ancient myth, especially appropriate for this age group. Hansen’s adventure included its own challenges: cast members have sustained a broken thumb and 2 broken wrists. Neither injury occurred at CYT, who say they are now considering asking parents to wrap their children in cotton wool between rehearsals.
The story that has evolved began from the significance of bogong moths. Set, like Canberra, in a quiet part of the world is the city of Algoma. In the surrounding countryside is an enchanted tree on which grow moths who protect the city, a haven of harmony and gentle joy. But at the Festival, held every 10 years, the people discover the moths have disappeared. The twins, Asha and Caleb, must find out what has happened, face up to the challenges of their quest, and hopefully return the city and all its people to the protection of the moths.
Wonderful trees, lit up internally, create a magic forest for the Awesome Adventure. Every student has found their niche on stage among the huge number of characters they wrote about in their first exercise of imagination. It produced a wad of papers at least half a metre thick, so Hansen says. “A bit of every single one of these kids is in the script.”
Live characters, puppets and, of course, beautiful moths abound. Let the awesome adventure begin.
The Moth Tree: An Awesome Adventure
Canberra Youth Theatre
December 5-12 at 7pm (matinee Saturday December 9, 2pm)
C Block Theatre
Gorman House Arts Centre, Braddon
Bookings and information: 6248 5057
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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