Rosieville
by Mary Rachel Brown
Canberra Youth Theatre
Canberra Theatre Centre 2023
Director Luke Rogers
Designer Aislinn King
Assistant Director Emily Austin
Lighting Designer Ethan Hamill
Sound Designer Patrick Haesler
Stage Manager Rhiley Winnett
Cast
Oscar Abraham
Imogen Bigsby-Chamberlin
Amy Crawford
Callum Doherty
Claire Imlach
Richard Manning
Disa Swifte
Photography Andrew Sikorski
World Premiere
Every night, same time, same pigeon crash lands in my room. At first I think it’s dead, But then it starts talking.
A homing pigeon with no sense of direction becomes the unlikely saviour of a young girl up against her first encounter with heartbreak.
Rose’s life has been turned upside down. She seems to be getting through it ok, except at night when her dream life is taken over by a mouthy homing pigeon that claims to be her subconscious.
The last thing Rose wants is to be put through a psychological boot camp by a bossy rat with wings, but the bird’s intentions are good. It is there to help Rose to prepare for a new world order. It knows her Dad is not coming home.
Rosieville is a universal story about getting back up after a blow to the heart. It is a homage to the instinct, loyalty, stamina and grit of homing pigeons who, despite countless obstacles and long distances, always manage to find their way home.
Rosieville was a Canberra Youth Theatre commission and world premiere production.
Nominated for Outstanding Original Work at the 2023 Ovation Awards
“Rosieville is a delightful, life-affirming play offering endless interpretive possibilities for youth theatre companies and others seeking creative challenges with which to delight audiences. This production by Canberra Youth Theatre does it proud, and caps off a year notable for the number of new plays successfully premiered by the company.”
– Bill Stephens, Australian Arts Review
“Rosieville is a quite splendid 70-minute piece about life, families and a pigeon…The triumph of the script is in the way it swings between the social realism of some scenes and the surrealism of that giant exuberant pigeon brought to life so well by Imlach in Rose’s dreams. In the process it deals succinctly with the characters’ problems, not by supplying pat answers but by showing a path to continue on. This is all given strong and unsentimental purpose by a perceptive cast.”
– Alanna Maclean, City News
