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Joshua Maxwell, Artistic Director of Jopuka Production’s latest play, Summer at Suspended Stone Camp, talks to The Point hours before opening night about the year-long journey to put this brand-new play on stage.
By Jackie Pearson
“After almost a year now of planning it is opening night,” says a breathless Joshua Maxwell hours before 16 young people ranging in age from 12 to 19 take the stage at Tuggerah’s Red Tree Theatre for the first performance of Summer at Suspended Stone Camp.
“The kids are really excited,” says Josh. “I think the interesting thing about this production is that there is not one element of the show that has not been affected by COVID. The interviews were done via zoom, the panelists were socially distanced, the first rehearsal was in masks. The playwright got into the rehearsal room the day the Avalon cluster happened and had to race back across the border into Victoria before she was in lock-down in NSW over Christmas.
“Opening night, tonight, is the first time we’ve had a full cast on stage. Thank god we’ve got doubles and have been able to cover it.”
Young Melbourne playwright, Madelaine Nunn, once again due to COVID, will miss out on seeing her first play to be produced on a main stage. The Melbourne lock-down is slowly lifting but she would’ve needed to spend 14 days in quarantine to enter NSW. As Josh says, every element of this production has been impacted by the pandemic.
Tonight is the culmination of a year-long joint project with Red Tree Theatre and the Elderslee Foundation.
“They engaged us to create a program of new works by young people over the next couple of years,” says Josh. “We ran a three-month writer’s callout and received 40 applicants from across the country as far as Broome and Tasmania, quite a few locals too,” says Josh. “A team of young people who might eventually be in the production helped us work through the applications, all blind.
“We worked the applications down to a shortlist of 11, six finalists and Madeline was the winner. We conducted six interviews via zoom. The six young people from Jopuka’s Youth Advisory Panel interviewed the writers and ask questions about the work and what they wanted to do with it and their plans for the play and then the young people held a vote about what play they wanted to produce.
“A big part of what we do here is give creative control back to young people. We were really careful and focused on making sure we had a diverse range of young people including First Nations, immigrants, Muslim young people, queer young people. We had a wonderful group and they picked this really great piece of theatre.
“I think it is a really nice piece of theatre because it is just a fun show. All the applicants were responding to the world around them but all the finalists we picked were not shows that were going to make young people focus on the world around them.
“Escapism is the word. This play is just about a group of kids sent on a camp because they were delinquents, who stumbled across a plot to brainwash young people. It’s whimsical, it’s light and fun. Theatre is healing and this show has an ability to make you just forget the world for a bit.”
The average age of the actors in Summer at Suspended Stone camp is 14 and the play has been directed by a young Central Coast artist, 19-year-old Elyse Hayhurst.
“She was in two shows in our second year and she has been with us ever since. She is on our board, chair of Jopuka’s youth advisory panel and she is only 19 herself and is at university doing international media relations,” says Maxwell.
He says ticket sales are OK but not as strong as hoped. They’re available via ticketek and the season runs until June 20 so secure your seats now.
“I think that is a reflection on Job Keeper, the community doesn’t have as much expendable cash… We don’t care about the final figure. We care about young people getting the experience.”
In any standard year Jopuka engages between 300 and 400 young people across its programs.
“Since we were established I think the total unique opportunities we have created for young people would be around 1200, engaging between 500 and 600 young people. Unique. We are one of Australia’s largest youth theatre bodies,” he says.
In fact, Jopuka is bucking a national trend. “Youth theatre is going through a depression at the moment,” Joshua says. “Under this government 29 youth theatre organisations have lost their funding – it is the most affected arts sector. The national youth theatre body – the Australian Theatre for Young People – lost its federal funding and has had to find other funding channels to sustain itself.
“It is a really weird time to be developing a youth theatre company especially in regional Australia. Nationally I think there are only eight regional youth arts bodies. To get funding a lot of us a knocking on doors that are not arts funding, going to infrastructure and social funding.
“People don’t realise just how much the arts contribute to our everyday lives. So many young people you see on TV and radio and in media started with the national youth theatre body. It is interesting to see how unengaged people are with youth arts. They assume it is just somewhere to you’re your kids for weekend drama classes but it is actually more than that.
“We often joke that we are a youth service with a theatre company attached to it because it is so much about developing young people as people rather than just as artists. Our goal is to create a safe space where young people can come with anything.
“If they need help with can get them help included access to services, and we have relationships with the police. We have chats and the most active of those is the welfare chat. If a young person looks like they are suffering we do check-ins with them at rehearsals.
“If a young person is really good at remembering their lines why aren’t they remembering their lines today? We run a tight ship making sure people are safe. We have youth workers, community workers and teachers on our board to point them towards people who can really help.
“I think our goal here is to just give young people a safe space and if that is in the form of a theatre company and the arts then the end goal is for the person to have their own goals.
“I guess some of the most eloquent speakers and influential people in the world have started in the arts as a young people. Even Australia’s current Prime Minister was once in a production of Oliver in Manly.
“The arts change lives and particularly for those young people who have the ability to engage in it. We want to make sure it isn’t only for the rich white kids. We want to make sure it is accessible for all kids, so if that means scholarships or funding we will do that.
“Anything we can do to better these young people’s lives artistically, creatively or personally we will do our best,” Josh says and Summer at Suspended Stone Camp is a case in point.
“It’s one of those shows where you kind of can predict where it is going but you enjoy going there anyway. The plot is about a young girl who ends up on a correctional summer camp and has to realise that being perfect isn’t always the right answer and sometimes being bad isn’t always a bad thing and that everyone’s skills and traits have a place in the world. Nothing is as it seems.”
It’s an ensemble piece and to maximise participation Jopuka works with two complete casts. There will be 16 young people on stage every night. Two actors alternate in each role so they are given five performances each over the season.
“We are unique on the Central Coast as far as theatre goes. We follow industry best practice which says young people shouldn’t perform more than four or five times a week.
“Most shows we do we try to double cast everybody. Sometimes if we have a cast in the 20s we will have a single cast with a couple of understudies or swings. When we did 13 this year we had three casts and did 21 performances.
“Our show schedule really depends on what the show is. With Stone Camp we have a matinee tomorrow and on Sunday, two mid-week matinees at 11am Wednesday to Friday, then we only have night shows. We work with what the cast schedule looks like.”
Red Tree Theatre can hold 140 but to stay COVID-safe Jopuka is restricting its audiences to around 80 per performance.
Use these links for more information about Jopuka and to purchase tickets.
