Investigating our culture’s obsession with the apocalypse, Riot Stage Youth Theatre presents Forever City at La Mama Courthouse for a limited season from 16 April.
There’s been another mysterious plane crash and no one knows what it means. All they know is that they can’t be sure that everything’s okay. A washed up child star, a new age Noah (of Ark fame), a dinosaur, and a frozen yogurt shop make up Forever City, a contemporary dark comedy that explores the concept of the end-of-time in a post-dramatic style.
Working with a group of 10 teenagers from the Moreland area, Riot Stage Youth Theatre explores their ideas about the end of the world, the end of high school, and the difference between founded and unfounded fears. Using pop culture references, historical fads, religion, and the cast’s personal stories and ideas, Forever City blurs the lines between what we read in the newspaper and what we see in the movies.
‘The show smashes together a lot of different creative influences and theatre styles into something that is very current and very contemporary,” says Director Katrina Cornwell. “As we are truly interested in who these young people are we’re using post-dramatic forms that allow the cast’s real life identities to sit side by side with their onstage personas during the performance.”
Forever City is not about the Apocalypse per se, rather it examines the way society romanticizes the end of the world through meteors, zombies and alien invasions while, for the most part, ignoring the real life environmental and humanitarian crises around us. The slow deterioration of our planet is not as exciting as a nuclear holocaust or a swarm of locusts, and so it goes largely ignored in our society.
“The topic has been interesting to explore with young people because at first the group was pretty nonchalant about the whole thing,” says Writer Morgan Rose. “They really got in to the pop culture stuff, but the environmental crisis didn’t seem to worry them.”
“As we moved forward with rehearsals the cracks started to appear, and one day a whole heap of worries landed on the table about everything from the end of school to their dog dying to global warming. These are smart, savvy, engaged kids and they have some really interesting – and unexpected! – things to say about the idea of the world ending. They were just waiting to make sure we were really listening.”
Director: Katrina Cornwell Featuring: Ellen Campion, Mieke Dodd, Kes Daniel Doney, Kate Dunn, Yash Jagtani, Daisy Kocher, Alanna Marshall, Marie Mokbel, Amelia Newman, Jack Zapsalis Writer: Morgan Rose Set Design: Casey Scott Corless Lighting Design: Suze Smith
Forever City
La Mama Courthouse, 349 Drummond Street, Carlton
Season: 16 – 19 April 2015
Bookings: (03) 9347 6142 or online at: www.lamama.com.au
For more information visit: www.riotstage.com for details.
Image: Mieke Dodd in Forever City – photo by Sarah Walker