Category: Upcoming

Cost: $150

BOOKINGS

• Friday 23 Jan 10am-1pm
• Sat 24 Jan 10am-1pm
• Sun 25 Jan 10am-4pm
• Mon 26 10am-4pm

The Directors Lab is a hands-on workshop for creatives ready to explore theatre directing. Whether you have never directed before, or you have a production or two under your belt and want to skill up with professional guidance – there’s always something new to learn and fun to be had.

Guided by director, actor and playwright Jane Montgomery Griffiths, you will be led through a four-day workshop exploring the creative, conceptual and practical elements of staging a play.

To ensure that every participant is able to engage and learn from this experience, we only have a limited number of spots available. CTC is committed to improving theatre’s accessibility, diversity and inclusion for all. We encourage women, First Nations, Queer, migrant and refugee folk to apply.

We know that cost is often a barrier to opportunity for many in our community, and as part of our ongoing commitment to accessibility, the CTC has heavily subsidised the ticketed price of the workshop for all participants.

Over the course of four days, Jane will guide you through:
• the role of the theatre director
• how to gain confidence and handle ‘imposter syndrome’
• choosing your play
• conceptualising your script
• pitching your project
• working with the design, stage management and technical team
• auditioning your cast
• planning rehearsals
• working with actors
• what happens in the technical rehearsal
• getting ready for opening night and the run

No experience is necessary – this will be a friendly, accessible and gentle introduction to help you plan your first directorial project and build the confidence and skills to make it happen.

Jane Montgomery Griffiths

Jane is an actor, playwright and director, who was also for many years Director of Monash University’s Centre for Theatre and Performance and Professor of Theatre Practice. Prior to that, Jane was Associate Director at Harrogate Theatre in the UK, where she was in charge of new writing and directed several main stage shows. She has also directed the Cambridge Greek play and had freelance directing positions for UpFront Theatre Company and Redstitch.

As an actor she has performed with major theatre companies across the UK, and in Australia, with Bell Shakespeare, Belvoir, Malthouse, MTC, Theatreworks, 45Downstairs and Red Stitch. TV and film includes Ms Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries; The Rings of Power; The Rooster; The Holding’;Five Bedrooms; Casualty; The Bill; Red Dwarf.

Her plays and libretti have been performed at Malthouse, Belvoir, ABC Radio National, NIDA, Victorian Opera and the Vienna Burgstheater and Theatreworks. She’s received or been nominated for several Manchester Evening News, Greenroom, Sydney Theatre, and Helpmann Theatre Awards and two Premiers’ Literary Awards. CTC is very excited to have a creative professional of Jane’s calibre leading this workshop.

BOOK A TIMESLOT

We will be holding auditions for our first production of 2026, Camp Darwin by Arjun Raina on Sunday 1 Feb from 10am. Camp Darwin is a new play written by Gisborne-based South Asian writer, actor, director and teacher Arjun Raina, and based on his personal experience of being held in quarantine at The National Centre for Resilience, Darwin during the height of the COVID Pandemic.

About ‘Camp Darwin’, a story of human resilience

A hundred and fifty Australian Citizens and Residents return by a Government aided Qantas flight to Darwin after having been stuck in India for over a year and more. They are taken to the Howard Springs Quarantine Facility in Darwin, Northern Territory. At the Quarantine Centre we meet six of them, Raminder and Dalip, both of Indian origin, Peter Xu, a Chinese Australian and Jack, Larry, and Chris, Australians of Anglo-Saxon heritage.

Welcomed and escorted by members of the Australian Defence Force, they are housed in steel dongas with little porches on which they are allowed to sit masked, to protect the wider community from their potentially virus infected bodies and breath. For fourteen days, these six characters live their restricted lives in these dongas and porches, being tested for Covid three times, each test bringing the threat of a positive result, leading to being moved to the mysterious ‘red zone.’ The living out of the lives of these six characters in the restrictive, and at times oppressive regime of the Quarantine Centre, and within the greater threat and stress of the Coronavirus Pandemic, offers a deeply empathetic insight into the human drama being played out with the lives of Australians desperate to return home to their families and loved ones.

The gruelling testing regime, the surveillance systems and presence of Cops and Guards, the intimacy between strangers, sporadic explosions of humour, of dance, of laughter, the moments of great stress, anger and breakdown, all lead the drama to its climax when on the last day one of the six men tests positive.

Characters

There are 6 lead characters, and an ensemble of up to 4 police officers and up to 4 nurses. This gives a cast of a minimum of 8 and a maximum of 14. This is a great opportunity for actors of Indian and Chinese descent, and also for actors who would like small parts with opportunities for ensemble humour and movement.

Main Characters:

Jack Gold, age 60 – 75 Anglo-Saxon male. A gold prospector who lives in a caravan in a small town in the Central Victorian Goldfields. Has been visiting India since the 1970s.

Raminder Singh, age 35 – 50 Indian/Punjabi male. A taxi driver and chef, lived with his brother in Melbourne and then resident in Sydney before spending the previous 4 years in India, caring for elderly parents. Now has a wife and child in India.

Dalip Singh, age 30 – 40 Indian/Punjabi male. A truck driver from Victoria. Dalip doesn’t like talking and has less lines than the other characters for most of the play. At the end he as a dramatic speech which is final climactic scene.

Peter Xu, age 45-70 Chinese-Australian male. Lives with his family in Melbourne. Travelled to India for a work project and found a spiritual guru and learned yoga and the secret art of finding inner happiness.

Larry Johnson, age 40 – 55, Australian Anglo-Saxon male. An ADF veteran who lives ‘on the run’. Had been sleeping in a car in South Melbourne, before being in India for 18 months. Has been locked down in his accomodation in India for 7 months.

Chris Connery, age 45 – 60 Australian Anglo-Saxon male. Has a been visiting India on and off for many years. Loves his 15 year old Labrador Maya, and wants to get home desperately to see her before she dies.

Ensemble:

Cops, up to four – any gender or age

Nurses Testing team, up to four – any gender or age

Prep

Camp Darwin Audition Prep