2015 School Magazine

SENIOR DRAMA PRODUCTION SOPHIE MCKENDRY (12H) AND MADELEINE GANDHI (12O)

A Beautiful Life by Helen Howard and Michael Futcher

I gained a more circumspect viewpoint on the issues of my character — a head strong, and sympathetic lawyer — understanding her relationship with the Parsi family, but also how her professional life strained her capacity to act on a political level. (Sophie McKendry, 12H) The culmination of the all these learnings was ultimately rewarded in our performance. After weeks of tireless rehearsals, honing our acting skills and constantly challenging ourselves to find more subtext and truth in our performance, the entire cast was immensely proud to share our work.

Coming into rehearsals for this year’s Senior Drama Production of A Beautiful Life , there was an overwhelming sense amongst the cast of the imminent challenges that we would face. We had studied this play and knew that it was complex in its ideas as well its acting demands. The play explores the story of the Iranian Parsi family, who escape persecution from the Iranian government’s brutal regime and are granted asylum in Australia. Our in-depth research helped us to understand the play’s context — the plight of refugees and human rights abuses in Iran. However, this experience was particularly unique as we all broadened our understandings, or even changed perspectives, on the issues of asylum seeking.

118

The production was very successful and, as an ensemble, there was an unrivalled sense of accomplishment amongst us. Much post-show discussion revealed that audiences were moved and confronted by the piece and we were humbled by the positive and generous feedback. This is an important play and we were so thrilled to be able to share such a powerful story. Thank you to everyone who contributed to such a thoughtful and polished production, especially our insanely committed director Mrs Riveros, our assistant director Maddy Catsoulis (12M), Mr Jennings, lighting girls, installation artists and everyone who bought a ticket. We could not have asked for a more fulfilling finale to drama productions at Girls Grammar.