A Finalist in the 2022 Max Afford Playwrights Award, Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre presents the world premiere season of Monument by Emily Sheehan, this August.
Edith Aldridge is the youngest woman to be elected leader of her country. In a lush presidential suite in a heritage-listed hotel, she has just ninety minutes to get ready for the biggest day of her life.
Enter Rosie, a twenty-two-year-old makeup artist from the David Jones counter, sent to help Edith get camera ready. In Rosie’s capable hands, this morning will be a breeze. So long as they both stick to the brief.
Monument is a must-see for anyone who’s ever worried about what to wear, or whether that lipstick colour is right. This is thought-provoking theatre wrapped in beautiful packaging.
Monument challenges the trivialisation of the hyper-feminine environment of beauty therapy and asks how we correlate beauty and competence in female identifying leaders.
While investigating class issues including economic disparity, inherited privilege and aspirational debt, Sheehan’s astute and entertaining script explores the role that makeup and fashion play in how we perceive and receive women in power.
Emily Sheehan is an award winning playwright and dramaturg. Her plays include Monument (Finalist Max Afford Playwrights Award), Hell’s Canyon (Winner Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award, Winner Melbourne Fringe Festival Award & Patrick White Playwrights Award), Daisy Moon Was Born This Way and Versions of Us.
Her plays have been developed through Melbourne Theatre Company’s Cybec, Playwriting Australia, National Play Festival, Red Stitch Actor’s Theatre and ATYP, and produced by Regional Arts Victoria, La Mama Theatre, Old 505 Theatre, Q Theatre, Platform Arts Geelong, Australian Theatre for Young People, Jopuka and Canberra Youth Theatre.
Hell’s Canyon and Daisy Moon Was Born This Way are published by Currency Press. Emily is a regular guest lecturer in playwriting at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) and hosts the Playwright’s Process Podcast, a monthly podcast about writing, craft and the creative process
Director: Ella Caldwell | Featuring: Julia Hanna, Sarah Sutherland | Set & Costume Design: Sophie Woodward | Lighting Design: Amelia Lever-Davidson | Sound Design & Composition: Danni Esposito | Assistant Director: Ibrahim Halacoglu | Makeup Advisor: Harriet O’Donnell | Stage Manager: Rain Iyahen | Assistant Stage Manager: Eliza Stone | Design Intern: Filipe Filihia | Writer: Emily Sheehan
Monument
Red Stitch Theatre, Rear 2 Chapel Street, St Kilda East
Season: 16 August – 3 September 2023 (previews: 9 – 15 August)
Information and Bookings: www.redstitch.net
Image: Julia Hanna and Sarah Sutherland – photo by Robert Blackburn Photography & Work Art Life