My Robot By Finegan Kruckemeyer

In For We The Young Five Plays by Finegan Kruckemeyer

RECOMMENDED FOR: Years 4-6

CAST SIZE: 5 including a robot

A PLAY TO: Read, read aloud, study and perform, use as stimulus for making and responding

GENRE: Drama, comedy, magic realism

THEMES: Inventiveness, loss, love, family, resilience

CURRICULUM LINKS: The Arts – Drama, English, General Capabilities – Literacy, Personal and Social Learning, Ethical Understanding Critical and Creating Thinking

SYNOPSIS: In My Robot, we meet Ophelia, an inventor, who has moved away from everything she knows to a small beachy town. The memories and pieces of her previous life remain firmly in her head— the small red house, thick carpet, tall pointed mountains, the right-sized best friend. She is clear about the things she doesn’t like about her ‘now’ place—stinky zinc, wrong thongs, smouldering footpaths, and diving gulls. When a mysterious box full of gadgets, and a strange note that reads ‘You. Make. Me.’ arrives in her bedroom one night, Ophelia embarks on an invention that will have some very interesting outcomes!

STAGING: There are multiple locations in this play which means it could be staged in a single space using simple props and set items. There are suggestions in the script – cardboard boxes, a beach ball, an open window, a bed, a typewriter (!). The playwright states, ‘This is a story told. This may be by one, by some or by many’.

We acknowledge that we live and create on unceded lands. We pay our respects to the First Peoples of Australia, and to their elders past, present and future.

© Australian Plays Transform 2024