Dark Road

"I know this; your sister watched as they took you, day by day, hour by hour. And you went. You chose. They showed you that dark road and went down it willingly. Evil isn't something that swallows you up. It's a choice you make..."  - Daimler 

This year saw the Year 11 and 12 Drama Excellence class take on its biggest challenge yet! Under the creative direction of Drama Excellence Teacher, Cameron Sarasola, students plumbed the depths of 'good' and 'evil', the binary oppositions of 'fascism' and 'freedom' and challenged audiences to peel back the layers of their own complacency in PBC's production of 'Dark Road', written by American playwright, Laura Lundgren Smith. Using minimal set pieces, custom made and sourced costuming and making the most of recently updated lighting and command consoles, students dazzled audiences with their authentic and deeply moving portrayal of sisters caught between two ideologies.

The process of building the work however, required more than just costuming and updated facilities to produce. The real lifeforce of the production being the boundless, creative, and inquisitive energy of the cast. All students took to the play with zeal from the very first closed reading. From there they engaged in exploration of post war philosophy, interrogating the works of Hannah Arendt and her seminal work 'Zur Person', identifying through this lens how one can lose themselves to an ideology and absolve themselves of personal accountability. After these teleological underpinnings were understood, the students worked exceptionally hard to refine their performances, creating a communion with the play, its world and transporting their audiences into the belly of World War II. 

Mr Sarasola and his students would like to express their gratitude to the teachers, students and PBC faculty who supported their production by attending our internal productions, and to the broader community for their continued engagement with our excellence program and school productions.

All Shook Up! 

Of the 40 or more musicals I’ve been involved in throughout my career, I’ve never had to stage one amidst a global pandemic. 2020 hey! What a year! But if there’s one thing that has made all of the drama and stress associated with Covid-19 bearable, it’s the opportunity to work with this year’s phenomenal cast. “All Shook Up” is one of my favourite musicals and I’ve worked on it as a choreographer 3 other times - at the GC Arts Centre(2008); Phoenix Ensemble(2011) and here at PBC (2010). So this is its 10 year anniversary at PBC and I couldn’t imagine a more amazing cast to bring this show to life again. The 2020 cast embodies everything that PBC stands for. Not only are they incredibly talented and creative, but they are dedicated, committed and above all, resilient! The whole team has had to work incredibly hard and fast to get the show back up to a performance standard in less than 3 weeks. I certainly could not have done this without this talented cast and my amazing, supportive and hardworking Production team and I want to sincerely thank everyone involved for collaborating with me to stage this very entertaining musical. And to the parents of this wonderful cast, thank you for creating and nurturing such beautiful humans.

“All Shook Up” is a musical comedy inspired by and built around the fabulous songs of Elvis Presley, with beautiful arrangements by Stephen Oremus. The storyline is loosely based on Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” and follows a 24 hour period in the summer of 1955, in a small, you-never-heard-of-it town, somewhere in
the Midwest. It follows one girl’s dream and a surprise visit from a mysterious leather-jacketed, guitar-playing stranger, who together, help a small town discover the magic of romance and the power of music.

Madonna Hall, Director