I didn’t mean to write something so difficult. My early stage directions had a slightly apologetic air and the question marks of someone writing in hopes that a tech will come up with solutions. “I think this role will be played by Jacob. This super sweet kid from Lameroo. He came to us for his work experience, his parents driving him the whole way and staying with him in the caravan park for a week so that he could work in an arts company. When he entered our theatre, he said he’d never been in such a queer space. So somehow we connect to Jacob in Lameroo! Maybe?”
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The team for War of the Worlds – Arena in Bendigo, D’Faces in Whyalla and Riverland Youth Theatre in Barmera along with young people scattered in towns in between – spans 1006 kilometres and ranges in age from 12 to 50. The production, happening as part of Adelaide Festival, will be performed simultaneously in these three towns, in front of three separate audiences, but with the teen actors phoning in to each other’s performances to report on an alien invasion as it moves across the Mallee.
Challenge number one
So here is the first problem I wrote: everything about this production must be both localised and centralised. Full production meetings alternate with company meetings. There are positions and design elements shared across the productions, and company specific roles and elements. At one point, we realised that we would need both a tech run to nail our local sound and lighting cues, as well as a full three-company tech run and so we are back to staring at our calendars incredulously.
War of the Worlds has an overall production designer, Bianka Kennedy, but also worked with local artists and the casts to build and personalise set and costumes. For instance, each company must build a barricade to hide behind and in, and dance on top of, but the materials are specific to our towns. In the Riverland we use the big fruit crates, detritus from the scrub, pig face, salt bush, pride flags, mannequin heads. Arena’s crew imagined they would drag pieces of old set into their barricade. It is more urban with sleeping bags and comfort items ‘raided’ from nearby shops and many books from a nearby library. D’Faces thought they would raid a neighbouring kindergarten and claim the gym mats in their own theatre.
Challenge number two
Our second challenge: sync up three productions. The sound design, by Dan Thorpe, is the glue that will keep the three productions in sync. It is orchestrated to ensure that one cast can’t race ahead or drag it out. We have catch-up points at the end of a few scenes, but mostly it is a case of pressing ‘go’ on a cue that will last for minutes and actors syncing up to Dan’s soaring score. But there must be a shared script across the three locations, tracking script differences against sound cues. There are stage managers following all three productions on Zoom, ready to cue actors, ‘keep dancing… OK. Now you can collapse’.
Shared tech rehearsals highlight the differences in resources between the three companies. At our first shared rehearsal Arena had a tech present, microphones and video. Riverland had no tech, a camera pointed at the stage, but no functioning microphone. This meant that, in silent moments, our actors were on the stage and then they would bolt to the laptop to shout into it to be heard. In Whyalla, the cast worked on artistic director Michal Hughes’ mobile phone on data roaming as the Wi-Fi had dropped out. It wasn’t an auspicious start and I had to remind myself not only to breathe, but that each company would have techs and equipment in place by opening night.
Challenge number three
The third challenge: this script is dedicated to my teens. They need to be centred throughout the whole process. The script has to reflect them but so does the design, the process, the ethos of collaboration and care.
Both designers, Bianka and Dan, took this challenge seriously. The base costumes are similar across the three locations but, just as they graffiti their barricade, the casts personalise their clothes: how would your wardrobe evolve if you were stuck in it for 12 days? Axel sews their Dracula cape into a rucksack to gather supplies. Ace makes armour out of Monster cans. Raine spray paints the anarchy symbol in hot pink on the back of his shirt and Rowen decorates themself with safety pins and badges.
People first … centring the teens
Meanwhile, Dan Thorpe had collaborative sound design sessions every Thursday night, working with teens in the Riverland and Bendigo. They have been a part of the process from high-level conceptual mapping all the way to technical choices about speaker placement and effects on the dying screams of aliens.
As a playwright, understanding the different personalities of the casts was key. The Arena cast are mostly veterans of the local music theatre scene and, in our early development, seemed incredulous about the presence of a living writer in the room. Regularly, they would interrupt rehearsals to earnestly make speeches: “I just want to take a moment to thank Fleur for coming all this way. Wow. And with a baby? Just amazing.”
By contrast, the Whyalla team were exhausted from rehearsing a different show and accustomed to having artistic director, Michal Hughes, write for them. “Yeah, we’re not really as gay as the Riverland guys or at least we don’t talk about it as much,” they would tell me and wait for rewrites. Quickly I discovered I could leave the script in their hands and trust that they would own it. I would simply highlight things they needed to change: “write a eulogy for this actor here.” “Where do tourists go camping?” “What would you have been doing the night before the aliens came?” At times, I wished that they would treat the experience of having a guest playwright writing for them as a little special, but no one humbles you like a tired 15-year-old.
In the Riverland, my own crew has been on this journey for years. I’m not only their playwright and director, but the reference on their first resumés and the one they have tested new names and pronouns on. While there are no earnest speeches and rounds of applause to congratulate me for simply showing up, we are part of each other’s lives at this point. I rewrite scenes for everything from changed musical preferences to recasting. Their voices have shaped the play from the start and the script is a tribute to the resilience and compassion of these country teens.
Read: Adelaide Festival 2025 brings the world to South Australia
The next play better be small. Two actors. Some clothes. A suitcase. Something like that. But this play, War of the Worlds, was inspired by my move to the country and reflects the scope, the challenges, the beauty of this expansive, complicated part of the world. I had to write about connections across a continent because that’s the way the teens form friendships: clinging to other weird young arts people whichever town they are in. The aliens had to come because there has always been something coming for this embattled generation. And the teens had to survive it all because they always do. This generation is resilient AF.
War of the Worlds will be performed in Barmera, Whyalla and Bendigo on 7, 8, 13, 14 and 15 March 2025. For further details.
Adelaide Festival runs from 28 February to 16 March, visit the website for full program details.
