HOLD YOUR OWN READING OF THE PLAY
This play is not just for professional actors.
It's intended to find all sorts of homes and be spoken out loud by all sorts of voices.
With a little preparation, any group can pick it up and read it for an audience.
This is a guide.
Anyone can perform this play
When I was working on the final draft of the script, I got to the point where I needed to step back and just hear it. So we moved the furniture, invited a big group of friends, family & neighbours, and eight women sat down around the kitchen table and read the play out loud.
They'd had no rehearsal. This was the first time many of them had even met. But together, these women gave an absolutely brilliant reading of the play. The conversation that erupted straight afterwards went for about two hours - actually that conversation is still going. After that night, I knew: this play does not just dream of a life in theatres.
It dreams of being picked up by all sorts of groups of women & girls, and men & boys and read out loud around kitchen tables, in libraries, and bars, and book clubs, in aged-care homes and prisons, in universities and schools and bush communities. Wherever smart, strong people are, and will come together to use their voice, and to listen.
Victoria Midwinter Pitt, writer
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10 TIPS FOR READERS
1. Read your part a few times at home to get ready. Don't just read it - read it out loud.
2. Make sure you know which number woman you are and mark up all the pages where your character has lines in the play (including as part of the ensemble), not just your main monologue.
3. Make good use of the numbered breaks inside your monologue – they mark a new chapter or story within the story. Before you start a new part, take a breath, look at someone new in the audience and feel that you’re taking us into a different moment.
4. Don’t rush through it at a million miles an hour. Breathe. Speak in your natural voice.
5. Trust that the story makes sense – don’t feel like you’ve got to do a big acting performance or stretch it out into a big speech. You don’t – these women’s words will really carry you.
6. As you’re reading, feel like you’re having a conversation with the audience – that’s where this play comes from, hours of conversation. So talk to the audience, (not at them).
7. Look at the audience – make sure that from time to time, you take a breath and actually look at the people who’ve come to listen. Don’t be afraid of looking up – be curious– what’s going on for your audience?
8. Really listen to the other readers. And, without drawing focus away, feel free to quietly watch the audience too.
9. Have fun – when it’s funny, enjoy it!
10. Go nice and quiet and soft on the Epilogue. Get closer to each other. Talk right to the audience.
Image of Nikki Keating by Lucie McGough
Here's a Taste
Watch the fabulous women of Currency Press read their favourite lines from the play ...
POST READING CONVERSATION
The play is over, but the story is just getting started ....
You’ll probably find that the conversation just starts at the end of the play.
Get ready to field some of that, and send some of the questions or comments around the room, making good use of the readers too.
