I have spoken. To have this truth spoken CAST WRITER’S NOTE aloud on a stage so close to where their ordeal took place can certainly only be CORAL Since I began consulting with more than Riverside Productions understood by those who have been through CHRISTINE ANU thirty former inmates of Girls Training School ALANA it, but is a significant historical and cultural MAREE (GTS), Parramatta to write Parramatta Girls, achievement for Riverside Theatres, an act VALENTINE HOLLY AUSTIN the Parliament of Australia has undertaken Playwright of community reconciliation and retribution the 2004 Senate Committee ‘Report on JUDI which is at the heart of all works of art, and I Forgotten Australians’, the 2009 report In 2013 her play Grounded won three Australian ANNIE BYRON acknowledge Camilla Rountree, Robert Love ‘Lost Innocents and Forgotten Australians Writer’s Guild Awards – in Youth and Community LYNETTE and this dedicated cast and creative team VANESSA DOWNING Revisited’ and, on Monday 16th November, PARRAMATTA Theatre, the David Williamson Award for for their commitment to it. Excellence in Theatre Writing, and the Major 2009, a National apology by then Prime MELANIE Minister Kevin Rudd and then leader of the I would like to warmly acknowledge the AWGIE for 2013. Her play Ear to the Edge ANNI FINSTERER Opposition Malcolm Turnbull, acknowledged ongoing support and my inestimable of Time won the International STAGE Script GAYLE esteem for former inmate Bonney Djuric By Alana Valentine Competition for best new play about science the often destructive treatment of children in SANDY GORE who I continue to work with as part of the and technology in 2012, judged by an esteemed institutional care in Australian history. Most Directed By Tanya Goldberg KERRY recently, the experience of women at the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct Memory GIRLS panel of judges that included Nobel and Pulitzer SHARNI MCDERMOTT GTS, Parramatta formed part of the testimony Project, a team striving to preserve and Prize winning authors. Parramatta Girls was interpret the GTS and other sites of historical nominated for two Helpmann Awards and has MARLENE being heard by the Royal Commission into TESSA ROSE significance nearby as sites of conscience been on the HSC Drama syllabus since 2010 Child Sexual Abuse in 2014. for all future Australians. Most of all I thank and Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah will go onto Since the play was produced in 2007 at the women who trusted me with their stories the HSC English syllabus in 2015. For more Belvoir in Sydney, I have been humbled by the for the play’s creation, you lived this story information including availability for workshops CREATIVE many ex-inmates of childhood institutions, with your time and your bodies and I never and school visits go to alanavalentine.com most especially GTS, Parramatta, who have DIRECTOR forget it for a moment. TANYA GOLDBERG told me or written to me of their gratitude in PRODUCTION DESIGNER seeing this story told publicly. Many of them, Alana Valentine TOBHIYAH STONE FELLER who have either not been able to tell their May 2014 families about their ordeal or who have told LIGHTING DESIGNER VERITY HAMPSON them only the barest details, have related TANYA their relief at being able to bring their families SOUND DESIGNER GOLDBERG JEREMY SILVER to see the play and use it as a way to begin Director to speak their pain aloud. It is these women RIVERSIDE THEATRES STAGE MANAGER and men, the ones who are still struggling to ALISON HEPBURN-BROWN Tanya is the co-founder and co-artistic even bring their dark horrors into the light of DIRECTOR ROBERT LOVE director of independent theatre company Ride PRODUCER day and own them as their own experience, On Theatre. CAMILLA ROUNTREE who I think about when I watch the play. For BUSINESS MANAGER PAMELA THORNTON For Ride On, Tanya’s directing includes: The TECHNICAL MANAGER the still silent, still suffering women and men SEAN CLARKE Blind Date Project (3 Clubs Los Angeles, Sydney who keep their own vulnerable selves hidden MARKETING MANAGER JONATHAN LLEWELLYN Festival and Brisbane Powerhouse), The Story PRODUCTION STILLS inside them, frightened that if they open up to of Mary MacLane: By Herself (Griffin Theatre, HEIDRUN LÖHR their pain they may never find their way out TECHNICAL COORDINATOR again. They will. They can. With support and SEAN CLARKE Malthouse Theatre & Merrigong Theatre MAKEUP Company), Way To Heaven (Griffin),An Oak Tree, PEGGY CARTER acknowledgement they must. This is the hope PRODUCER, RIVERSIDE PRODUCTIONS that Parramatta Girls speaks aloud. CAMILLA ROUNTREE Merchant of Venice & Loveplay (all BSharp), and COSTUME ASSISTANT Debris (Tamarama Rock Surfers). CATHERINE CAPOLUPO This play is not a documentary. It is not Other directing: Clybourne Park (Ensemble SCENIC ART legal evidence. It is not biography or Theatre), Dreams In White (Griffin Theatre SARAH HARVEY autobiography. It is a play about the nature ASSISTED BY EMMA PRESSMAN of memory and the triumph of community. I Company), Lovely Ugly (Griffin Theatre AND ELI FAEN THANK YOU Company Studio), Der Gelbe Stern (Adelaide am proud of the fact that it has been given & Melbourne Cabaret Festivals, Seymour SINGING TUITION amateur productions all over Australia, that BONNEY DJURIC AND THE PFF MEMORY CHRISTINE DOUGLAS Centre), The Crucible (Sydney Theatre it is studied by HSC students in NSW, and I PROJECT AND THE PARRA GIRLS Company), Macbeth (WAAPA), Sparkleshark VOCAL COACH am burdened by my ongoing responsibility to ALANA VALENTINE (NIDA), The Girl on the Sofa (New Theatre). JANE HARDERS try and bring this story, which happened all SPORT FOR JOVE Assistant directing includes: The Steward of MOVEMENT DIRECTOR over this country, to mainstages elsewhere Christendom (Mark Taper Forum, LA), Above SCOTT WITT in Australia. That it is happening this year in SOPHIA KOUYOUMDJIAN AND PARRAMATTA ARTISTS’ STUDIO The Fold (Pasadena Playhosue), Stockholm Parramatta is of immeasurable significance SET BUILD (Frantic Assembly and STC), American THOMAS CREATIVE to me and to many ex-inmates to whom CHEF’S WAREHOUSE Document (SITI Company & Martha Graham Dance Co, NYC), War of the Roses (STC), Gate ADDITIONAL PROPS BELVOIR CREATIVE Theatre Dublin’s Sydney Festival Beckett season of First Love, Eh Joe and I’ll Go On; and L’Orfeo (Pinchgut Opera). Jesus Hopped the A Train and Benedict Miracles in Brisbane (2009); A Midsummer Andrews’ The Threepenny Opera for Belvoir Night’s Dreamtime (2008); Reflections (2008); Street; Othello for the Bell Shakespeare I’m Only 40 Years Old (2007) and Equus (2006). ALISON Company; The World’s Wife and Macbeth for Sharni sang the National Anthem for opening of CHRISTINE ANNIE the Melbourne Theatre Company; Rabbit for the 2011 Indigenous All Stars’ Football Match, as VERITY HEPBURN- ANU BYRON the Griffin Theatre Company; andKimberly well as being a lead singer at the National HAMPSON BROWN Coral Judi Akimbo for Ensemble Theatre. NAIDOC Ball 2009. She performed at both the Lighting Designer Stage Manager Deadly Awards, and the Opening Ceremony of Anni received an AFI Award for Best Christine Anu has made appearances in Baz Recent theatre credits include the first play the Brisbane Festival in 2008. Verity is a NIDA graduate with over 10 years’ Alison worked as a stage manager for the Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge, The Matrix Reloaded Annie has written - a one woman show called Supporting Actress in a Television Drama for experience as a lighting and projection designer. Ensemble Theatre: Last Of The Red Hot Lovers, and Dating the Enemy; on television in Wildside, RU4Me, which opened at Riverside last year her performance in Rowan Woods’ telemovie, Verity has designed for over 70 theatre Brooklyn Boy, The Sunset Limited, And The Cow The Alice, East West 101, Play School, Outland, and toured NSW. She appeared in Australia- 3 Acts of Murder. Other television credits productions working with some of Australia’s Jumped Over The Moon, Tuesdays With Morrie, Dance Academy and was a judge in Channel wide tours of Biddies and Calendar Girls, and include Underbelly: Badness, 3 Acts Of Murder, most talented directors and choreographers The Thank You Dinner, Death Of A Salesman, 7’s Popstars. Stage includes Bad Boy Johnny an international tour with Force Majeure City Homicide, All Saints, Love My Way, Home including Sam Strong, Lee Lewis, Julian Meyrick Derrida In Love, Are You There, I Get The Music and the Prophets of Doom, Little Shop of in The Age I’m In. She was part of the STC and Away, Stingers, Blue Heelers and Halifax f.p. TESSA and Meryl Tankyard. For television Verity has In You – An Evening With Jan Van De Stool, End Of The Rainbow, The Violet Hour and Kimberly Horrors, Kissing Frogs, Rent, Rainbow’s End, production of Hedda Gabler which followed a Films include Johnny Ghost, David Caesar’s ROSE been a lighting director for the ABC’s Live at the Akimbo. For Griffin:Wicked Sisters, Presence, South Pacific and The Sapphires for which she successful season in Sydney with a sell-out Prime Mover, Queen of the Damned, Touch, Marlene Basement & The Roast. Verity was awarded the Black And Tran and Rabbit. For Company B: received the Judith Johnson Award for Best run in New York. Strange Fits Of Passion, Julia Leigh’s Sleeping Tessa received a Diploma in Dance from the Mike Walsh Fellowship in 2012 which took her Svetlana In Sling Backs, Conversations With Performance by an Actress in a Musical at the There have been many other productions with Beauty, The Clinic, and Scott Hicks’ The Boys National Aboriginal Islander Skills Development to Broadway New York to work with projection The Dead, Our Lady Of Sligo. Richard III - Siren Sydney Theatre Awards. STC, Griffin, Nimrod and Belvoir, including the Are Back. Association (NAISDA). designers 59 Productions. Verity was also the winner of the 2013 Sydney Theatre Award for the Theatre Company. Fox and Bugalugs Bum Christine is a multi-award winning recording original production of Parramatta Girls. Her film Appearing in television shows White Collar Best Mainstage Lighting Design for her work on Thief for Monkey Baa. At Riverside King Lear, artist touring nationally and abroad. Christine credits include the recently released Wolf Creek and Blue, Corroboree Walk, ICAM SBS TV Machinal at the Sydney Theatre Company. Codgers, Who Killed Mario Lanza, RU4Me. has performed at many events including 2, Fran for which she won an AFI Award, and Station ID for ABC TV, Tessa has also starred in Sydney 2000 Olympics Closing Ceremony, Doin’ Time for Patsy Cline. On TV she played Lou short films Immortal Man, Lyan and Two Bob Women of APEC, G’Day Australia, 50 Years in The Sullivans, and has worked on A Country SANDY Mermaid. Tessa was a finalist for Female Actor of Television, APEC Cultural Performance, Practice, G.P., Always Greener, BackBerner, All of the Year (Deadlys 2013). Sydney Paralympics, FINA World Swimming Saints, Home and Away and many others. GORE Recently in TV Championships, 25th Anniversary of Carols in Gayle The Gods of Wheat Street CAMILLA Drama for ABC1, – Short JEREMY the Domain and flicked the switch to launch Sandy is a graduate of NIDA and a well-known Redfern Now, She.Say ROUNTREE Film, for verityhampson.com “JED” SILVER National Indigenous Television in Australia. face on stage and screen. On stage, her The Lion Tamer, Gift of Life, Bloodland Producer Sydney Theatre Company, Queensland Theatre Sound Designer credits include: STC’s Under Milkwood and Camilla is the Riverside Producer. Her Company, QPAC and Adelaide Festival 2012, Jed has spent the last decade working as a VANESSA Uncle Vanya (Kennedy Center of Performing productions include the award-winning This Heaven for Belvoir St Theatre. Others for sound designer, composer, mixer and teacher. Arts Washington DC & Lincoln Centre NYC), Rainbow’s End, RU4ME, All The Blood and All DOWNING STC include The Cherry Pickers, The Dreamers, His recent productions include: The Dreamer Love Lies Bleeding, Scenes from a Separation, The Water, Codgers, Shakespeare’s R&J, King Lynette Black Medea, Blacked Up, A Midsummer Night Examines His Pillow (Unpathed Theatre Morning Sacrifice, Amy’s View, Medea, Les Lear, Hamlet, Madame Butterfly and Carmen. HOLLY Theatre: Dream and The Sunshine Club, Black Chicks Company), Namatjira (London Tour), Hip Bone Much Ado About Nothing, Cyrano de Parents Terrible, Gift of the Gorgon and Antony She also ran True West Theatre, Riverside’s (Sport for Jove); Talking and Fountains Beyond. Sticking Out (Canberra Centenary Festival - Big AUSTIN Bergerac The Glass Menagerie, & Cleopatra. Belvoir Street: Small and Tired. independent theatre season and programs Maree (Ensemble hArt) Namatjira (2012 National Tour for Big The Busy World is Hushed, Afterplay MTC: As You Like it, The Rivals, Electra, The Tessa was a dancer in Fish for Bangarra and main stage, music and education programs Theatre); hArt), Empire, The Removalists, I Want To Sleep Holly graduated from NIDA in 2003. Theatre: Faustus, The Taming of the Shrew Alchemist, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll. Yothu Yindi’s Treaty Film Clip. for Riverside. For Sydney Festival Camilla (Bell Shakespeare); Pygmalion, Influence, With Tom Stoppard (TRS), Transparency Murder (Darwin Festival/Erth), Hamlet, People of Bell Shakespeare: The Taming of the Shrew. produced Into with dancer Kathryn Dunn and (Seymour Centre), Thursday’s Child, I Am Jack, the Soil (STC), Boxing Day (MAKEbeLIVE/TRS), Howard Katz, The Lady in the Van, Morning Ensemble: Wit; Retreat from Moscow; Becky choreographers Francis Rings and Narelle Sacrifice, A Cheery Soul, Macbeth, Chasing Hitler’s Daughter (Monkey Baa Theatre For Uh-Oh Tony (TRS), Little Beauty (Theatre of Shaw. Sandy created roles in Australian plays Benjamin and directed Slamming (2005). She The Dragon, The Madras House, Measure for Young People); Loot, Ying Tong – A Walk With Image), Richard III, Twelfth Night (MAKEbeLIVE including David Williamson’s Jugglers Three directed and co-wrote with John Turnbull, Measure (Sydney Theatre Company); King Lear the Goons (Sydney Theatre Company); Edward Productions/Siren Theatre Co), The Illusion and Sons of Cain, Ray Lawler’s Kid Stakes Birth Of The Cool (2003) for Sydney Festival at (Riverside); Bone (Ride On Theatre); Equus, TOBHIYAH Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Stuff (MAKEbeLIVE/Darlinghurst Theatre) Cloud Nine and Other Times, Alex Buzo’s Makassar Reef, Riverside, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2005), Three Birds Alighting on a Field, Ring Round Happens (Belvoir St Theatre); Bad Jazz, Pool (no (R and C Group/Darlinghurst Theatre), Duck Rooted and Big River and Nick Enright’s STONE FELLER the Rhurfestspiel, Germany and Melbourne the Moon, Private Lives, As You Like It, Traitors, Production Designer water), How To Act Around Cops (The (Siren Theatre Co/B Sharp), Tony Oursler’s Blue Daylight Saving and Chasing the Dragon. Festival in the Spiegeltent (2006), nominated Invasion (Sydney Festival). Pericles, A Month in the Country, Who’s Afraid Tobhiyah graduated from the NIDA Design Darlinghurst Theatre); Boxing Day, Capture The (STCSA); Her television credits include Rake 3, Brides of as Best Cabaret Production in the Sydney of Virginia Woolf? Live Acts on Stage course in 2005 and previously attended CoFA Flag, Cross Sections, This Blasted Earth, Thrall Film: Black Balloon, Footy Legends, Candy and (Griffin Theatre Co). Television: Christ, Farscape, Prisoner, Newly Weds and for Theatre Awards. and Away Rake, UNSW, where she studied sculpture. Tobhiyah (TRS at the Old Fitzroy Theatre); Somewhere, Mask 2: The Son of Mask. TV: All Saints, COPS Home and Away, Packed to the Rafters, Water film,Now Add Honey, Baz Luhrmann’s Australia, Camilla was co-producer for the opening of shares a studio with her business partner Car Gods Burn (Q Theatre); Defiance (Sydney’s LAC, Sixpack. Rats, All Saints, G.P., Bullpitt!, Melba. Evil Angels, Lorenzo’s Oil, Undercover and Paws. Luna Park, Sydney including Sunset Boulevard and long-time design collaborator architect Quarantine Station) and RU4Me (Riverside). in Concert and the Luna Park Opening Concert. She was co-writer/director/performer for Daniel Beasly. Sound Operating credits include Namatjira the hit comedy CuBBYHOuSE (MAKEbeLIVE She was Producer for Sydney Theatre Company Professional credits include set and costume (Big hArt), The Women Of Troy (STC), Measure Productions/TRS, Adelaide Fringe Festival, (STC) Foundation Events and Associate design; Clybourne Park (Ensemble Theatre), for Measure, Keating!, The Sapphires, The Summer Play Festival NYC) and Connie Chang’s Producer for STC productions including Dein Oneness (Vedanta Society), Daisy Bates at Threepenny Opera (Company B). Television Cabaret Roadshow (Melbourne Comedy ANNI SHARNI Perry’s Steel City and Lush. Ooldea (Sydney Conservatorium of Music), credits: Kitchen Whiz, Pyramid, Magical Tales. Festival/Cracker Comedy Festival/Great Escape FINSTERER MCDERMOTT Variant (Performing Lines), My Name is SUD Sound Design lecturer at NIDA for the Second Festival/Sydney Opera House). Kerry Melanie (Blacktown Arts Centre), Anna Robi and the Year Production Course (2006-2013). Sharni is an actor, singer and dancer and Holly is also an accomplished musician and Anni Finsterer’s career has spanned film, House of Dogs (Tamarama Rock Surfers), Fugee Nominated for Best Sound Design/Score at the graduate of The Aboriginal Centre for the beat boxer. television and theatre. (NSW Public School’s Drama Company),The Sydney Theatre Awards for The Removalists Performing Arts (ACPA) 2010. During her time at Rimers of Eldritch (AADA), A View of Concrete (B (2013) and Capture the Flag (2006) and he was This year, Holly is developing her own television Stage credits include Poor Superman, The ACPA she worked closely under the direction of Sharp), and Bustown (ATYP). nominated for The Greenroom Awards for Best series Ultimate Fanj, as part of the ABC’s Fresh Threepenny Opera, Antony & Cleopatra, The Leah Purcell. Her credits include: The Maids Sound Design for Ying Tong (2006). Blood, and a theatre show for the young at heart Loaded Ute and The Women of Troy for the (2011); Stolen (2011); The Rock (2010); Low tobhiyahfeller.com Ruby’s Wish premiering at Belvoir in July. Sydney Theatre Company; Ray’s Tempest, (2010) Soul Music (2010); X-Stacy (2009)