artistic support materials
Creative Australia
The project:
Life is Swift
An exploration of fandom, friendship and being fourteen.
A new play by Ciella Williams
Developed with Alyson Evans and young artists Tilly Wilson, Alize Ali-Scrogings, Moon Heaslip, Claudia Wyles, Ashlyn McKeman, Matilda Uden, and Alice Cotter.
Supported by Corrugated Iron Youth Arts.
The play:
Characters:
FREDDIE 14 Arty, nerdy. Painfully 14. Loves Edith in an intense, untangleable teenage way.
EDITH 14 Arty, nerdy. Confident and ambitious. Is trying to move to an arts school in Melbourne.
TAYLOR SWIFT In many interdimensional iterations.
Setting:
Darwin, and another dimension: Taylor’s Version of the Universe.
Synopsis:
A portal opens in Darwin teenager Freddie’s bedroom. The energy generated by the Taylor Swift Eras Tour ticket frenzy, and the devastation felt by 14-year-old Freddie as she misses out, rips a hole in the space/time continuum. She walks through the rippling portal into Taylor’s Version of the Universe.
Freddie needed this ticket to convince her best friend and fellow Swifty, Edith, to stay - to show her they are perfect for each other and Edith shouldn’t leave her and go to Melbourne to pursue her arts-school ambitions.
Ticketless and confused, Freddie arrives in Taylor’s first Era - endless summer, haybales and 16-year-old Taylor herself. Edith follows, hot on her heels. Taylor wants to be best friends, but when they try to leave she closes the portal and brands them with a cattle iron: Property of TS.
The girls must battle their way through a series of Eras in this twisted dimension - with Taylor trying to insert herself as the new bestie, Freddie trying to keep Edith and their friendship frozen in time, and Edith desperate to escape to her imagined, fabulous future. Who will end up the duo in the trio?
As they traverse memory, fear and fantasy, the friends learn that while growing up is painful, life is long, and you will have many beautiful Eras.
Writer’s Notes:
Time shifts in this dimension. FREDDIE and EDITH span ages 5-21. TAYLOR Swift spans ages 16-37.
TAYLOR’s costume/wig changes can be visible and assisted by the other actors, like in a live stadium show. Theatrical and deliberate.
When there is a phone message conversation it should be performed live by the actors, definitely not projected as text.
2 minute video: Work in Progress Showing
October 2024 - Part of Corrugated Iron’s 40th Birthday celebrations
“Life is Swift is ultra relevant in my teenage life with having friendships, likes, dislikes, crazy conversations through texting that would never happen in real life!! Alyson and Ciella are amazingggggggggg at explaining situations, running activities, writing and providing epic snacks! And that this development is the juiciest, amazingest, coolest script ever and it’s a 100000000/10 would do again!!!!!”
Claudia Wyles
“Ciella is so amazing at listening to everyone’s ideas and turning a concept into a hilarious and well written script, her and Alyson never fail to make me feel comfortable and safe. We hardly ever get to see good theatre in Darwin about our life as a teenager in an isolated place like the NT.”
Alize Ali-Scrogings
Quotes from the Young Artists
“Ciella and Alyson are super groovy people and Life is Swift is super reflective of us kids - they really listen to us, and care what we have to say. The [concept] is 10/10 laughs and 10/10 deep and insightful. They deserve heaps of money $$”
Alice Cotter
The applicant:
Ciella Williams
Ciella is a writer and mother of two, living on Larrakia Country. Her writing is embedded in the NT and concerned with the stories of women and girls.
Her play Hush won the 2024 NT Chief Minister’s Book Award for fiction. Hush premiered in 2022 at Flight Path Theatre, Sydney, and Brown’s Mart Theatre, Darwin and was shortlisted for the 2023 Glenda Adams Award for New Writing and the 2023 NT Literary Awards.
Earlier works have been performed at Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP), Brown’s Mart Theatre, Darwin Fringe Festival and Short + Sweet Sydney.
Awards and praise for previous work
Hush - Winner 2024 NT Chief Minister’s Book Award - Fiction
Hush - Shortlisted 2023 Glenda Adams Award for New Writing at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards
Hush - Shortlisted 2023 NT Literary Awards in the Drama category
Judges’ Comments - Hush - Winner Chief Minister’s Book Award 2024:
"Powerful to read, this script dives into the moral complexities of pregnancy, birthing, and termination. Issues that are left in the shadows are exposed to the light. It was raw, earthy, pacy and told with disarming sincerity."
Judges' Comments - Hush - Shortlisted Glenda Adams Award for New Writing 2023:
“This debut play announces a playwright of unusual talent… The writing is visceral and vital, sometimes even brutal, but always with humour and hope. The play cuts through conventional understandings of motherhood to offer something deeply personal and heartbreakingly honest. It is an important addition to the repertoire and signals a writer to watch.”
Fraser Corfield, former Artistic Director Australian Theatre for Young People:
“I feel Ciella is one of the most exciting emerging writers in Australia. She combines a poetic theatricality and emotive abstraction in her choice of characters, circumstance and structure and combines it with beautifully personal stories grounded firmly in dilemmas from the real world. She offers a fresh theatrical voice of extraordinary potential.”
The team:
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Ciella Williams
WRITER
Ciella is an award-winning writer and a mother of two, living on Larrakia Country.
She grew up in Darwin, beginning her theatre life at Corrugated Iron Youth Arts. Her writing is embedded in and reflective of the NT and concerned with the underrepresented stories of women and girls.
Her full-length work Hush premiered in 2022, won the 2024 Chief Minister’s Book Award for Fiction, was shortlisted for the Glenda Adams Award for New Writing at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, and the NT Literary Awards in the Drama category. Earlier works have been performed at Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP), Brown’s Mart Theatre, Darwin Fringe Festival and Short + Sweet Sydney.
Ciella works as a freelance dramaturg, and ran the ATYP Fresh Ink program for emerging NT writer from 2018-2021.
Photo: Lisa Hatz 2024
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Alyson Evans
DIRECTOR
Alyson is a multi-award winning artist who has worked around the world as a performer, theatre maker and community artist with a particular focus on cultural development and social change. As a writer, mentor and director, Alyson has collaborated with young people from a range of backgrounds to create new works. In recent years, this includes ‘New Territory’ (Corrugated Iron Youth Arts, 2023) ‘Sharing Stories, Sharing Place,’ (Wagga Wagga Civic Theatre, 2021), ‘Endangered Species,’ (Flying Fruit Fly Circus, 2020) ‘Folk Song’ (Outback Theatre for Young People, 2018). Alongside this, Alyson has spent 7 years as a Teaching Artist for Sydney Theatre Company, establishing their School Drama program in Juvenile Justice Centres, is the Community Producer for Outback Theatre for Young People and a Creative Producer at Corrugated Iron Youth Arts and recently completed her MA Cultural Leadership at NIDA.
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Tilly Wilson, Alize Ali-Scrogings, Moon Heaslip, Claudia Wyles, Ashlyn McKeman, Matilda Uden, and Alice Cotter
YOUNG ARTISTS
An exceptional group of young artists who have a long history with Corrugated Iron. Many are key members of Corrugated Iron's audition based ensemble Company C.
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Mary Anne Butler
DRAMATURG AND MENTOR
Her playwriting awards include the Victorian Prize for Literature, Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Drama, the inaugural Shane & Cathryn Brennan Prize for Playwriting, and an AWGIE.
Her works have twice been awarded the NT Chief Minister’s Book of the Year: for Broken in 2018, and for Highway of Lost Hearts in 2016. Nominations include the Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards [for Broken in 2016 and for The Sound of Waiting in 2018], a stage AWGIE Award (for Broken) and the Griffin Theatre Award. Highway of Lost Hearts is on the NSW, South Australian and Northern Territory HSC Drama Curricula.
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Lachlan Philpott
YOUTH THEATRE MENTOR
Lachlan Philpott is an award-winning Sydney based writer, teacher and dramaturg.
Lachlan’s plays have been performed across Australia and internationally including at: Sydney Theatre Company; Malthouse Theatre; Griffin Theatre; La Comedie Francaise; La Criee, The Traverse Theatre; Edinburgh Festival; The American Conservatory Theatre; Crowded Fire Theater; Kansas State University; The Lark, New York; The Mac, Belfast; The National Theatre of Croatia; Troisieme Bureau, Grenoble; Red Stitch; Merrigong Theatre Company; Sydney’s Mardi Gras Festival; Midsumma Melbourne; Melbourne Festival; Hothouse Theatre; and Australian Theatre for Young People. -
Zoe Scrogings
EP/CEO CORRUGATED IRON YOUTH ARTS
Zoe Scrogings is an arts manager and creative producer with over two decades’ of working in cross cultural collaborations, major events, and business development. Her local knowledge of the Top End comes from her previous roles as Business Development Manager with the Yothu Yindi Foundation, Garma Festival and Development Manager at Darwin Festival stewarding a significant portfolio of corporate and philanthropic partnerships. Zoe has produced and developed social circus projects for young people with Rock n Roll Circus, Circa, Vulcana Women’s Circus and has produced a range of arts, digital activism and cultural exchange projects in Thailand, Timor Leste, Indonesia, India, and China. Zoe has held positions in leading youth arts companies as Executive Director Backbone, and Artistic Director and CEO of Contact Inc in Brisbane, Queensland as well Lecturer and sessional academic at QLD College of the Arts, Griffith University
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Caiti Baker
MUSIC CONSULTANT
Caiti Baker is a singer, songwriter, performer, dancer, producer, vocal engineer, graphic designer, editor, project manager, mentor, absorber of entertainment and co-founder of sietta creative from Darwin, Northern Territory.
A multifaceted genre defying independent artist, and collaborator, Caiti Baker first joined the music scene as one half of electro-soul duo Sietta (with James Mangohig), since working with the likes of Emily Wurramara, and Taiwanese Paiwan Indigenous singing group The Ancient Ballads Troupe, and many more.
Over the last few years, Caiti has delved head first into vocal engineering, producing an ARIA nominated multi-artist lullaby album The Moon, the Mouse & the Frog: Lullabies From Northern Australia for ABC, alongside her own releases, and winning Folk Category for NT Music Song of the Year Awards with her unreleased music. Her music has taken her across Australia and internationally, having performed alongside A.B. Original, Briggs, the Ministry of Sound, Jessica Mauboy, George Benson, Tim Minchin and more.
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Benhur Helwend
DESIGN CONSULTANT
Benhur Helwend, a NIDA graduate and proud member of Corrugated Iron’s alumni, is an actor, designer and Creative Producer (Programs) at Corrugated Iron.
Benhur most recently designed Corrugated Iron’s 40th birthday festival, including the work-in-progress showing of Life is Swift.
Benhur boasts a diverse performance background in Australian theatre, film, TV, and festivals. Notable for his lead role in Bastard Territory and appearances on Australia’s Got Talent and ABC’s Les Norton. Benhur is also an Engagement Specialist and Clown Doctor, bringing joy to hospitals and aged care facilities. Co-founding the Outside In Collective during the pandemic he championed arts engagement for aged care residents.