Our vision is to provide significant creative opportunities for young people by commissioning an original piece of theatre, purpose written for our young audiences and our young performers. The production will give opportunities to 20 young people, up to 4,500 audience members and 5 professional theatre artists from a range of disciplines.
Did you know that Sydney Harbour hosts a number of sea horse communities? Some of them, like The Potbellied Seahorse, the Weedy Seadragon and the Pygmy Pipehorse will make an appearance in a brand new play by Wendy Blaxland.
The play Seahorse will parallel two stories: one below water with the beautiful seahorses of Sydney Harbour, and one above water with two human children. Seahorse will primarily be wonderful entertainment for young children aged between 3 and 10 and for the parents, grandparents and carers who bring them to the theatre. Backed by solid research the play will provide plenty of fun and information about seahorses (the males bear the baby seahorses) and by doing so will reflect the diversity of personalities and roles in the whole animal world.
Seahorse will also cover a number of educational issues. It will address conservation and the importance of the marine environment for both humans and sea creatures, the dangers that seahorses face every day in our harbour and touch on the history of human interaction around Sydney Harbour.
A two week season of Seahorse will occur in July 2019 at the Knox Cultural Centre as part of MSTYP’s 50th Birthday Celebrations. Writing will commence in September 2018 for completion by the end of February 2019. The production will help provide creative and vocational opportunities for up to 20 young people, as well as develop a piece of theatre that is new, uniquely Australian and which discusses important issues.
Additionally, a new production will assist with MSTYP’s profile – a difficult task in our current situation. In 2013, MSTYP was asked to leave its long-time home in Marian Street Theatre, Killara, due for urgent repairs. The theatre has remained closed since 2013. Since then MSTYP has held no performances, rehearsals or classes at the theatre, and has suffered a heavy financial burden due to loss of visibility, even though we have continued our performances and drama school in other facilities.
A brand-new play will increase the media coverage the organisation receives and assist in re-building awareness of the vital work we do in the Ku-ring-gai community for children and young people.
Our fundraising target is $2,000.
Donations will contribute towards commissioning 1) the writer and 2) the composition of original music for the production.
The end result will be a new Australian work for children aged 3-10 years, performed by young people and involving many others, which will create discussion and awareness of important issues within our society.
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