3 Plays In 3 Days

Due to COVID restrictions implemented in Term 1, the standard Senior School Production was not able to proceed in 2022. However, as we have proven before, Holy Cross College Drama is nothing but flexible and our students demonstrate amazing resilience. Thus, with students only able to rehearse in year level cohorts, we moved to what became known as ‘3 Plays in 3 Days’. Three contrasting scripts were selected which not only played to students’ strengths but also matched year level curriculum requirements, providing both an incredible learning opportunity as well as an engaging enrichment activity.

The Year 10 students took on ‘Puffs’, a fast paced comedic parody about a certain school of magic. But the story did not focus on the boy wizard that everyone knew, but rather on the Puffs, the loveable house that everyone always forgets. With multiple characters per student, fast paced costume changes and props in the hundreds (literally), this was a crowd favourite, with an extra matinee show added due to popularity and audiences leaving grinning from ear to ear.

The second show of the week was presented by the Year 11’s and was presented in the style of magical realism. The poignant ‘Almost, Maine’ was told in vignette style stories which all interconnected under the magic of the Northern Lights in the dead of winter in the quaint town of Almost. These stories focused on love in various forms. Characters discovered, found, lost and rekindled love with their significant others with magical moments connecting their stories and the Northern Lights symbolising their connection. This was beautifully performed with students taking on challenging relationships and themes as well as tackling American accents. They should be incredibly proud of doing justice to a script that was ranked #2 in the most produced plays in American schools in 2021.

Finally, our festival of theatre concluded with not only the most challenging script of this year but one of the most challenging plays Holy Cross College has ever undertaken. We took audiences into the world of Theatre of the Absurd with the Year 12 Drama students presenting ‘Endgame’, the story of a blind, paralysed man with servants who can’t sit and parents confined to bins. With nonsensical dialogue, cyclical narrative and an absence of plot, the audience was challenged to find their own meaning in an essentially meaningless world. The Year 12’s did an incredible job and did themselves proud with this dark and heavy script, bringing the weird and wonderful world of absurdism to life, complete with an immersive audience entry through an eerie backstage entrance.

Special thanks to all the staff and those who assisted with these incredible shows:

It ended up being an amazing success and thank you to everyone who came to watch and support the students and special thanks to the following staff who assisted:

• The core team of Shelly Miller and Claire Merry for their incredible work and dedication to tech, lighting, costuming and general jobs
• Jo Borg, Angela Chamberlain, Simone Wiles and Mike Azzopardi for their work with set and painting
• John Joseph, Ryan Hill and Christine Hayes for the loan of props
• Chris Gooch for the amazing poster designs
• Colleen Azzopardi, Kerri Sloper, Carol Wincott-Whyte and Dan Bateman for their assistance on the show evenings.
• Guy Jackson for his work in the tech set up
• Georgina Pratt for allowing the take over of her space for 3 weeks!!
• The HCC Senior Leadership Team for their attendance and support of the shows

Mr Chris McRae
Learning Area Coordinator (The Arts)