Beyond the Stage
Explore the creative process
Beyond The Stage is an exciting opportunity for Secondary Schools to understand the creative process involved with new works commissioned by Victorian Opera.
The first study will look at the recent commission from author and Muruwari woman, Jane Harrison, along with composer and Dharug man, Christopher Sainsbury, to adapt Harrison’s playscript for The Visitors to the opera mainstage. This important piece explores the landing of The First Fleet at Sydney Cove from a First Nations perspective and will be written, directed, and performed by a team of First Nations people.
Beyond the Stage will be delivered across 4 on-demand workshops, an on-demand or in-theatre viewing of a new operatic work and be concluded with a live streamed interactive Q&A session. The basis of each workshop will be interviews with industry experts from the production team who will provide insight into their work, artistic choices, and career pathways as they work to bring original Australian stories to life on the opera mainstage.
Workshops can be completed with an isolated focus on either Music or Drama, or can be completed as a whole series for students with an interest in both Performing Arts areas. (Workshops 2 & 3 have a Music focus, Workshops 1 & 4 have a Drama focus, Workshop 5 brings like-minded students together to discuss their learning).
This program is available now until 28 June 2024 and forms the basis of our Victorian Challenge and Enrichment Series workshops for students in Years 7 – 10. It is also ideal for students studying VCE Music or Theatre Studies, who have a strong interest in devising new works for performance.
Registrations for Beyond the Stage are open now.
For more information, please contact our Education Team on (03) 9012 6659 or via email.
Workshop Information
Workshop 1 to 4 are now available on-demand and run for approximately 30 minutes each.
Workshop 1: Choosing the Story to Tell
Join author and playwright Jane Harrison as she explores the cultural significance of The Visitors and how she came to the decision to tell this story. Students then use Jane’s advice to choose and begin writing their own story and converting this into a libretto for an opera.
Workshop 2: Music and the Art of Storytelling
Composer of The Visitors, Christopher Sainsbury explores techniques he has used to write melodies and ways of manipulating music elements to draw out the meaning of, and characters in, a story. Using these techniques as a guide students then write melodies for the story they have written.
Workshop 3: From Page to Stage – 1
Christopher Sainsbury joins us again and takes us through the orchestration process with the aim of encouraging students to choose instruments that enhance the time and space of the story they have written. Christopher talks through his challenges and offers advice to budding arrangers.
Workshop 4: From Page to Stage – 2
In this workshop we meet Lighting Designer, Rachel Burke and Director Isaac Drandic who talk through the decisions they make to bring a story to life on stage. We also meet some of the performers from The Visitors who explain how they make decisions about their characters and how they remember the directions they have been given. At the end of this workshop students are asked to create a mood board and create a simple blocking map for the story they have written.
Performance
The performance of The Visitors will be livestreamed on Thursday 19 October and will then be available on-demand. Approximate runtime of 1 hour.
Workshop 5: Discussion and Evaluation
This is a live and interactive webinar where students can share their work. This will be held on Tuesday 14 November at 10.30 am. There will be future opportunities to be involved in Workshop 5 in Semester 1 of 2024.
