Hilary Bell – June 16 2019

World Music Day – June 21

Hilary is an award-winning librettist and writer for stage, radio, screen and music theatre. A graduate of the Juilliard Playwrights’ Studio, the Australian Film, TV and Radio School (AFTRS) and the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), she has held residencies at the Eugene O’Neill Playwrights’ Conference in the US, at the Russian Playwrights’ Conference, and at the Australian National Playwrights’ Conference. She has been a Tennessee Williams Fellow in Creative Writing at Tennessee’s University of the South, and a Patrick White Playwriting Fellow at the Sydney Theatre Company. Hilary is on the AWG Playwrights’ Committee and is a member of playwrights’ company 7-On. In addition to her theatrical work, Hilary is the author of several children’s books in verse: Alphabetical Sydney, Numerical Street and The Marvellous Funambulist of Middle Harbour.

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The Wedding Song – Composed by Douglas Stephen Rae
Available from RGM Artists
2 female, 3 male (plus ensemble)

A story of first contact between mainlanders and islanders. Newly-weds Michael and Rose venture to an island for their honeymoon, where their pursuit of rumoured gold takes them to the unexplored highlands. There, they are assumed to be sky-gods, and Michael is presented with a gift: the chief’s daughter Mia. Michael and Mia’s love transcends Rose’s murder of the chief, Mia’s sacrificial burning, and Michael’s climactic walk on water.

Photo by Jon Green

The Memmie Le Blanc
Australian Script Centre, 2008 [Music also available]
75 minutes, 2 female, 2 male
Young adult, adult
France, 1731. A savage girl is captured in the woods. Memmie Le Blanc, as they baptise her, is bounced from charity to convent, eventually becoming the ward of a widow who believes she can give Memmie the life she deserves. But in order to do this, Memmie’s wildness must be eradicated. Thus begins the brutal act of civilisation. Memmie is beginning to respond to Catherine’s well-meaning discipline when they are interrupted by an ambitious young doctor, who travels everywhere with an orangutan named Robert. Memmie is soon torn between her aspirations and her natural instincts.
“[Bell] spoon-feeds us nothing, letting us ponder and make our own meaning of things… You have to go see this. Beg, borrow or steal the ticket money and go. Go twice. I would.” – Amanda Tyler, Australian Stage