Following a highly successful season at Tuggerah, Jopuka Productions, in association with Australian Theatre for Young People and the NSW Department of Regional Youth, took Jamie Hornsby’s The Boys on the Bus to Sydney for a limited engagement earlier this month.
Performed at the Australian Theatre for Young People’s The Rebel Theatre over two nights, the production featured a passionate team of 14 young artists from the Central Coast-based Jopuka Productions.
Jopuka Productions Creative Director Joshua Maxwell, who directed the play, said touring the show had been a very rewarding experience for the young artists and there was a new energy to explore more touring options in the future.
“Touring this show has been such a rewarding experience,” Maxwell said.
“To play the show to a wider audience and to have it received so well is a brilliant confirmation that the work of our artists in regional areas stands up in the city.”
The Boys on the Bus is a raw and raucous coming-of-age drama and another masterwork from multi-award-winning playwright Jamie Hornsby.
Gritty, gripping, and layered with a jet-black sense of humour, the play examines class, identity, despair, and masculinity, bringing to light the realities that unfold at 2am in the car park of a 24-hour bakery.
Maxwell said the play was more than just a youth drama.
“It’s a knockout piece of storytelling that speaks directly to the forgotten young people of the outer suburbs of big cities, those caught in a limbo between mundane and mayhem,” he said.
As one of Australia’s leading youth theatre providers in regional Australia, Jopuka Productions is renowned for fostering new talent and delivering unique and innovative performances.
“Taking the 14 young artists to Sydney for this project was a huge milestone,” Maxwell said.
“There is such a sense of accomplishment in the company.
“In 2016, I toured with Tantrum Youth Arts to the Australian Theatre for Young People’s old wharf 4 venue and words can’t explain the feeling of walking out of ‘work’ and seeing the harbour bridge every night.
“I’m so glad I’ve been able to create that experience for our young people now, nearly eight years later.”
John Bell, artistic director of Bell Shakespeare and Central Coast resident, was invited to the Sydney performance.
“Two cast members, Kani Lukuta and Max Lindhart-Ward, and myself are all previous John Bell scholarship winners,” Maxwell said.
“For him to come and support us, and also stay after to give his time and praise, was such a privilege for our young people.”
Source:
Jopuka Productions