FORTUNE

Cold Bath Creek, 1861. 11-year-old Chang is a giant, and the property of a brutal souvenir portrait photographer on the goldfields. Kathleen, an ex-convict, lures Chang from this miserable existence with promises of a better life, but she too exploits him, touring him as a freak. Driven to desperate measures by Kathleen's jealous lover, Duck, Chang is forced to discover his own superior strength. The tale is in counterpoint with the story of Iris, an anglophilic Chinese hotelier, and her Chinese-operatic descent into madness.

POCKETFUL OF HULA DREAMS
(Musical. Composer: Hilary Bell)

Terrigal, 1968. The gang meets as usual for a school holiday of surfin' and lovin', but this summer there are some surprises: the arrival of Stavros, a 'wog' who wants to surf; Carol's success in stealing her best friend's guy; Craig's being drafted to Vietnam. Thankfully Waiki Aloha, the Patron Saint of Surfing, appears to preside over the annual Surf To Perth Carnival and mend broken hearts.

FREAKS! GEEKS! A CHIMP WHO SPEAKS!
(In Progress)

Present-day Australia. 12-year-old Irene has grown up in the fairground, daughter of a Strong Man and a Clairvoyant, sibling of a Boneless Wonder and a Tightrope Artiste. But she herself has no talents at all, and she's threatened with expulsion from both the circus and her family unless she finds one - by Friday. In desperation, she tries her hand at everything from Human Cannonball to Siamese Twin, but fails at all of them. It's not until she liberates the caged animals that she's rewarded with advice by Joyce, a talking chimp.

WOLF LULLABY

A baby is murdered in a remote town. Evidence points to Lizzie, a bright nine-year-old. Her young parents are faced with a terrible dilemma: to imagine nothing happened, and live with the suspicion and guilt all their lives, or to take her to the police and force a confession of what happened on Christmas Eve.

THE WEDDING SONG
(Musical. Composer: Douglas Stephen Rae)

A story of first contact between mainlanders and islanders.

Newly-weds Michael and Rose venture to an island for their honeymoon, where their pursuit of rumoured gold takes them to the unexplored highlands. There, they are assumed to be sky-gods, and Michael is presented with a gift: the chief's daughter Mia. Michael and Mia's love transcends Rose's murder of the chief, Mia's sacrificial burning, and Michael's climactic walk on water.

THE FROG PRINCE

The telling of the well-known fairy tale by two frogs, in verse. A play for children, it was commissioned by the Australian Museum to accompany their 'Frogs' exhibition.

THE EYE OF THE STORM
A Shipwreck Tetralogy

(The following plays may be performed individually)

Wreckage

On a tempestuous night in 1857, after months at sea, a ship misjudges the entrance to Port Jackson and is decimated against the cliffs. Next morning, three people pick over the debris for signs of their loved ones, valuable loot, or an explanation. Then they discover a man tied to a plank, the only survivor.

SHOT WHILE DANCING

At her mother's funeral, Greta meets her father for the first time in 25 years. She is now 35, and married, as is Tony - to a much younger woman. Greta is bitter and resentful, while he is anxious for reconciliation. At the urging of her husband, Greta agrees to take a weekend trip with her father. Their spiky relationship, bristling with emotional landmines and old recriminations, takes a strange turn: they find themselves falling inexorably into a passionate love affair.

CHEERING UP MOTHER

A comedy in verse.

Feeling sorry for their widowed mum, her kids buy her a cat. This seductive feline not only succeeds in easing her sorrow, but in helping her discover that she's still an attractive woman - to the horror of her kids.

CRUMBS FROM THE TABLE OF LOVE
(An opera. Composer: Charles B. Griffin)

A frantic ten-minute opera, during which a wonderful cake is baked by the lascivious cook and his droopy assistant. The aphrodisiac which the cook pours liberally into the mixture, intended to win the heart of the mistress, has its way with all concerned, though not, of course, in the way he'd planned.

MRS SATAN
(An opera. Composer: Victoria Bond)

The story of real-life 19th-century spiritualist, socialite, Wall Street banker, Marxist, free lover and presidential candidate Victoria Woodhull. The opera focuses on her confrontation with Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, and her ensuing demise.

THE FALLS
(Composer: Phillip Johnston)

Sydney, 1895. Meet three Great Liars: Alberta the polygamist; Jack and his plans to hoodwink the world with an outrageous hoax; and Alberta's long-lost sister Nellie, a false memoirist. There is also Praise-God, the bathchair-ridden, mute, bearded six-year-old. There's melancholic Pigeon, reborn through the conviction of Jack's lie. And there's Doctor Rachel Sylvester, seduced by Alberta, little knowing the truth about her...

The Falls is a Victorian melodrama, part-musical, part-ghost story, part-love story, an exploration of deceit and self-delusion.

THE ANATOMY LESSON OF DR RUYSCH

Amateur licence available in SA only.

A highly theatrical play with songs, set in 17th century Amsterdam. Dr. Ruysch is a renowned anatomist who, assisted by his daughter, creates a cabinet of wonders from body parts. But overwhelmed by the wonders of science, he overlooks the wonders of his own child.

Phillip Johnston's baroque-inspired, carnivalesque score is the ideal complement for the play.

MEMMIE LE BLANC

In 1731, in the woods of France, a savage girl is captured, and baptised Memmie Le Blanc. At 14, she is taken in by a widow, whose aim is to eradicate the girl's vestigial wildness. But she is challenged in this by a young French doctor, who wants to study Memmie in her natural state. He's accompanied by Robert, an orangutan, whom he is training.

SHELTER

Kate discovers her 85-year-old mother has gambled away her life's savings and sold Kate' s flat out from under her. Unable to agree on anything, Kate suggests an alarming solution to the problem of where Mother should live.

THREE LITTLE WORDS

Commissioned by New York's Atlantic Theatre

Two women, in a stolen moment of what ought to be romantic collusion, bicker over who told what to whose spouse, and question whether the thrill is worth the trouble.

THE CLAIMANT (Radio play)

In 1854, Roger Tichborne set sail from England and was never seen again. Unless it's true that the butcher from Wagga Wagga is, as he claims eleven years later, the long-lost aristocratic heir to the Tichborne fortune. Based on a true story of greed, gullibility, and self-delusion, the three-part radio play is a rollicking romp, spanning decades and oceans, entirely in rhyming couplets.

IS IT YOU? (Radio play)

Inspired by a true story, a dying boy's brave struggle attracts media attention. A television producer becomes so enamored of Scott that she adopts him, and marries his physiotherapist, without ever actually meeting either of them. She refuses to countenance the growing suspicion about Scott's real identity.

FAUST

The libretto to Phillip Johnston's silent-film score for F.W. Murnau's 1926 film.

Please contact RGM for performance details.

TALK SHOW

A song-cycle. Composer: Elena Kats-Chernin

Commissioned by the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Choir, it tells in eight songs the story of obsession, humiliation and murder.

LOVE'S DELIGHTFUL LABOURS (Radio play)

The story of Achilles Rizzoli, to the outside world an unremarkable.., but in the city of his imagination, an architect of impossible beauty. So grateful is he for any sign of kindness, the reclusive bachelor renders people's souls as fantastical buildings. He is anointed as architect to God's vision of heaven, but his transports of joy soon become onerous, as the Sainted Spirits hold his mother's soul hostage.

THE STRONGER

Translation of August Strindberg's play

Two women meet in a café, and through the silence of one, the other discovers a devastating secret.