Scripts

Xavier is a narcissist. He is a jaded, single, urban professional living in New Farm and the prospects of finding a psychosexually well-adjusted partner are beginning to fade.

Enter Bronwyn, an equally committed boozy malcontent and best friend who challenges Xavier to a duel – “Six weeks to bag a man! No ifs, no buts, no limits, no boundaries and no rules!”

First taking the stage at La Boite in 2007 and returning in 2008, The Narcissist by Stephen Carlton is a riotous and politically incorrect post-modern comedy of manners in a play about middle-class, middle-age sexual politics.

Stephen Carleton is one of Australia’s leading and award-winning playwrights. Based in Brisbane, where he teaches drama and playwriting at the University of Queensland, he also maintains close ties to his hometown, Darwin, and to Cairns and Far North Queensland, where he was born. Stephen’s work is frequently anchored in northern landscape, imagery and politics, and is often lauded for the black humour that runs throughout. He is co-artistic director of Knock-em-Down Theatre with Mary Anne Butler and Gail Evans.

Stephen is one of only three playwrights nationally to win both major theatre industry awards for new writing: the Patrick White Playwrights’ Award in 2004/5 (Sydney Theatre Company) and the Griffin Award for Best New Australian Play in 2015 (Griffin Theatre Company).

He was Chair of the National Playwrights Committee for the Australian Writers’ Guild in 2015/16 (with Mary Anne Butler), and his company Knock-em-Down Theatre has received a Sidney Myer capacity building grant to promote his work in the US.

Side by side in a leafy suburb, Thom lives in one flat, Alethea in another. It’s pretty clear that their respective, unsatisfying lives would improve enormously if they just met each other. But with a wall literally between them, this seems highly improbable. Then there’s the building’s Power Box, having an existential crisis about the eventual collapse of the universe, and the supernova from five thousand years ago. Then there’s time travelling on an equation for the speed of light and too much sugar. There’s demon magpie attacks, laptops in love, cats dancing to Prince and sock puppet nightmares. And a tiny prayer by the Wall, hoping that all of these pieces can come together for one magical moment of love.

boy girl wall featured in La Boite’s first ever million-dollar season in 2011 with shows in both April and September as part of Brisbane Festival, before going on to tour 25 venues across Australia in 2012.

MATTHEW RYAN
Matthew’s stageplays have been performed at Queensland Theatre, Melbourne Theatre Company, La Boite Theatre, Hothouse Theatre, Critical Stages, Adelaide Fringe Festival and the Australian Theatre for Young People. These works include Danny Fisher, Kelly, Boy Girl Wall, The Harbinger, Packed, Summer Wonderland and Chasing The Whale. His theatre awards include two Matilda Awards for Best New Australian Work, the George Landen Dann Award and a Helpmann Award nomination for Best Touring Production. He has been published by APT, Currency Press and Playlab Press.

LUCAS STIBBARD
Lucas Stibbard is one fifth of the multi-award winning, critically acclaimed hybrid theatre/contemporary-performance company known as The Escapists (devisers of Boy Girl Wall) with Neridah Waters, Matthew Ryan, Jonathon Oxlade and Sarah Winter.

Set in 1970s Australia, Tim and John, a Jesuit schoolboy and the footy captain, fall in love. As society changes, so do they—until an HIV diagnosis shatters their world. But their bond endures.

Deeply moving and laugh-out-loud touching, this adaptation of Tim Conigrave’s memoir first came to the La Boite stage in 2013 under the direction of David Berthold. Tommy Murphy’s stage adaptation faithfully captures the book’s heart-wrenchingly honest portrayal of a fifteen-year relationship, but also succeeds in transforming it into a unique theatrical experience that is wholly his own. The play won multiple awards and had seasons across Australia and internationally.

Tommy Murphy is an award-winning playwright with recent productions in New York, San Francisco, Indiana, Auckland, Melbourne and Sydney. He is the only playwright to win the NSW Premier’s Award, a prestigious national writing prize, in successive years. In 2006, he was the youngest recipient of the award with Strangers in Between. This play toured nationally in 2008 and is published by Currency Press in a joint volume with Holding the Man, which had five Australian encore seasons after breaking box office records in Sydney.

Tommy is a graduate of the National Institute of Dramatic Art (Director’s Course) and a former writer in residence at Griffin Theatre Company. His plays include an adaptation of Marlowe’s Massacre at Paris (ATYP), Troy’s House (TRS in Sydney and La Mama in Melbourne) and Precipice (Young People’s Theatre).

A Congolese refugee getting by in the Australian suburbs, Isa has a background that seems unimaginable in his new country – a childhood as a boy soldier, fighting for the same forces that massacred his family.

Now, he has a chance to gain fame and fortune. Isa’s a brilliant boxer, and he has a shot at the national title. But his most difficult opponent isn’t in the ring – it’s the terrors of his past.

Nominated for a Helpmann Award, Prize Fighter is one of La Boite’s most successful plays in the past decade and solidified it’s commitment to telling diverse stories.

Future D. Fidel, 33, was born in Uvira in the Democratic Republic of Congo. After the death of the president Mobutu, the country descended into lawlessness that claimed the lives of his parents. Future was separated from his siblings, and when civil war struck in 1996, was forced to flee as an orphan stowaway to Tanzania. He tried desperately to trace his surviving family; he was finally reunited with his sister six years later. Future spent eight years in a camp before being accepted as a refugee in Australia, where he now lives with his brother, sister and nephews. Future is active in arts in Queensland, forming the Fimbo Boys in 2007 that performed African modern dance and music at various events, supporting young people from Refugee backgrounds. He also started projects working on making cultural films.

He started working at La Boite Theatre Company as a playwright in residence from 2013 to 2015. With the help of Brisbane council’s In the Mix program, Future’s debut play Prize Fighter was featured in the Brisbane Festival as a Co-Production with La Boite Theatre Company in 2015, after the production of I am here, an MDA production that was co- produced by Queensland Theatre Company in the Billie Brown Studio in 2012 and Brisbane’s Powerhouse prior to that. As his big achievement, his debut work Prize Fighter was one of the main events in the Roundhouse Theatre at La Boite Theatre Company. Not only does he hold a playwright title, Future is also an Electrical Engineer, securing his Bachelor degree from Griffith University as well as a Gospel artist.

Future has now written his second play La Belle Epoque, an engaging masterpiece that tells the moderne history of the DRC and its relations with the West.

One of Australia’s seminal plays for young people studied in high schools and universities across the nation, X-Stacy is a raw and gripping exploration of teenage life, love, and loss.

Drawn to the pulse of the rave scene, Ben watches over his sister Stacy as she drops her first ecstasy pill. But when tragedy strikes, their lives spiral. The truth of that night will change everything.

First performed in 1998, this La Boite production captured the youth market with its timely themes of dance parties and designer drugs.

As relevant as ever, it dives into youth, family, and identity complexities in a powerful, unflinching story that continues to resonate today.

Margery’s playwriting credits include commissions for La Boite Theatre – James and Johnno (national tour), Milo’s Wake (national tour, international productions New Zealand, London, Edinburgh Festival, translated production in Tokyo. New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award for Best Stage Play, Matilda Award, Perform/4MBS Award, AWGIE Nomination.) Other writing credits: La Boite Theatre – X-Stacy (national tours, published by Currency Press (now in its eighth edition) and also Dramatic Lines, London. Matilda Award Commendation), Way Out West (Queensland tour published by Playlab Press, ABaf Award), Still Standing (return season and Queensland tour). Gladys, My Life is Love, (QPAT), Snapshots from Home (QPAT and return season for the Brisbane Festival, AWGIE Award, published by Playlab Press), What Next? (AWGIE Award). Skating on Sandgate Road (ACU and Q150) Cribbie (4MBS Classic Arts. Brisbane and return season. Published by Playlab Press.) Margery has appeared in numerous musicals for the Queensland Theatre Company including A Rum Do, Crushed by Desire, Annie, Hello Dolly, Applause, Cloudland, Animal Farm, Chorus of Disapproval and Seven Little Australians. She returned to the stage in the premiere production of Lottie, the Musical in Brisbane.

With Michael she wrote the script and lyrics for the music theatre work Behind the Cane for the Queensland Music Festival 2011 (AWGIE nomination 2012). In 2013 Margery and Michael co-wrote Heart of an Open Country for the Queensland Music Festival. Margery and Michael’s work is the subject of a Doctoral Thesis From life, to page, to stage: Exploring theatrical artistry, community and storytelling with Margery and Michael Forde.

Margery has received the Trust Award for Excellence for Outstanding Contribution to Theatre in Queensland and Australia, the Playlab Award for Services to New Work in Queensland and the Centenary Medal for Services to Queensland Theatre.

The Golden Phoenix, a restaurant on the Sunshine Coast. The last customers have left for the night, and Pearl can unwind. She’s the quintessential matriarch – balancing family, business, and her love of karaoke.

Enter her daughters: Zoe, in the throes of online dating, making big life decisions. And Mei, a teenager, grappling with her identity in modern Australia. Of course they see the world differently to their mother.

Pearl is the classic (hilarious) onslaught of embarrassing observations, constantly questioning her Westernised children. Tonight she reveals a secret that threatens to tear their family apart.

Debuting at La Boite in 2017 and returning in 2019 before touring nationally and internationally, Michelle Law’s Single Asian Female was a watershed moment for Asian-Australian voices inspiring a new generation of artists.

Michelle Law is a writer working across print, screen and stage.
She is the co-author of the comedy book Sh*t Asian Mothers Say, and has had her work anthologised in books like Women of Letters and Best Australian Comedy Writing. She is a regular contributor to Australian literary journals and magazines, and has written for the Sydney Morning Herald, Daily Life, Frankie magazine and the Griffith Review. As a screenwriter, she’s received an AWGIE award for her interactive media work and had her films screened on the ABC and at film festivals locally and abroad. In 2016, she won the Queensland Premier’s Award for Young Publishers and Writers. Her debut stage play Single Asian Female was performed at La Boite Theatre Company in 2017 to sold out audiences. It had a second run at Belvoir St Theatre in 2018. Homecoming Queens, a web series that she co-created, co-wrote and starred in was the first commissioned series for SBS On Demand.

The La Boite Encores series opened on 28 April with In Beauty It Is Finished by George Landen Dann, a play that sparked controversy long before its 1931 premiere due to its candid language and ground breaking portrayal of a relationship between a young white woman and an Aboriginal man. Long before opening night in 1931, the play’s blunt language and realistic portrayal of a young white prostitute and an Aboriginal man sparked media outrage, with the publication Smith’s Weekly labeling it a “Sordid Drama of Miscegenation.”

The article even suggested the judging committee should have disposed of it “with a pair of tongs”and that “… it is a matter for action by the police”.

First directed by Barbara Sisley (La Boite’s co-founder) and returning to our stage in 1977 both productions were controversially performed in blackface. In 2025 this powerful reading will be directed by proud Butchulla man Aidan Rowlingson and for the first time read by a First Nations cast.

George Landen Dann was one of Australia’s most prominent early playwrights. Born in 1904, George developed a lifelong interest in theatre, authoring over twenty plays for the stage, for television, and for radio. His work reflected his own struggles with family and social obligations, as well as his highly developed social conscience. However, for much of his life, George was only a part-time playwright – until his retirement George worked as a draftsman for the Brisbane City Council. George then moved to Coolum on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast where he continued to produce new work until his death in 1977. Though celebrated in his lifetime, George’s contribution to Queensland theatre has been memorialised through the George Landen Dann Award, awarded to exceptional young Queensland playwrights

Originally performed in 1988, this groundbreaking play celebrates the stories of nine extraordinary Australian women, including Gladys Moncrieff (Australia’s ‘Queen of Song’), Lillian Cooper,(Queensland’s first female doctor), and Emma Miller (Mother of the Labor Party).

Recognised with an inaugural Matilda Award for its creation and direction, this vibrant production written and directed by Sue Rider returned to the La Boite stage again in 1989 and 1993.

Sue Rider works as a director, writer and dramaturg in Australia and New Zealand across mainstream theatre, chamber theatre, opera, community theatre, theatre for young people and theatre in galleries. She has received eleven writing commissions and has won Matilda Awards for writing and direction of ‘The Matilda Women’ and ‘Dancing on the Walls of Paris’ as well as for directing work with the Queensland Theatre Company, Queensland Performing Arts Centre and La Boite Theatre, where she was Artistic Director from 1993 to 2000. In 2001 she won a Special Matilda Commendation for sustained contribution to Queensland theatre. Sue’s writing credits include the plays ‘Freedom Ride’, ‘Bumpy Angels’, ‘Federation Ragtime’, ‘Meeting Karpovsky’ (co-author with Helen Moulder and Jon Trimmer), winner of NZ Listener best new play, ‘Playing Miss Havisham’ (co-author with Helen Moulder); and youth operas ‘Sid the Serpent Who Wanted to Sing’, ‘The Iron Man’, ‘Zoggy the Time Traveller’ (co-librettist with Jim Vile) and ‘The Silence Tree’ (composer Malcolm Fox). Sue has been an Adjunct Professor at the University of Queensland School of English, Media Studies and Art History since 2002, and received an Arts Queensland Creative Fellowship in 2006.