The Green Prince 

Stage Production

FROM Sophie Masson, Author of the novel THE GREEN PRINCE

I've always loved the theatre, having been taken there from a very young age. My mother in fact tells me I was taken as a babe in arms to long performances of the Ramayana-based wayang puppet plays in Java, where I was born! My Father would often read us plays and and exposed us to opera. As a child in Australia, I also went to drama school every week in the Marion St Theatre in Killara, Sydney (we actually lived in Marion Street itself). Being introduced to Shakespeare too broadened and deepened that love.

For quite a while, I thought I might become an actor until puberty and shyness kicked in, and I found my other love, writing, becoming more and more important. One day in 1999, I bumped into Christopher Ross-Smith in the Armidale Mall, and he asked if I'd ever thought of writing plays. This set off a powder trail of ideas and excitement in my mind.

What Chris originally had in mind, I think, was not what I proposed - an ambitious, complex, technically challenging fantasy play, set mostly underwater, with a cast of weird and wild magical creatures, wicked rulers and fateful crystals! But he took to the idea of turning my novel The Green Prince, into a play with characteristic gusto and energy. Though I wrote the first lumbering draft, struggling to make what had been so flowing a novel into a drama that would carry both zing and clarity, we worked together on subsequent drafts, with wonderful help also from Barbara Albury.

Chris' sense of the theatre, his understanding of what was possible, his flair for dramatic movements, and my own feeling for the moral and emotional heart of fantasy, which holds the strongest metaphors for human life, seem to combine extremely well. Those playwriting sessions were both arduous and a lot of fun, exhausting and inspirational. When we heard Lesley Sly's haunting score for the play, that added extra dimensions, as did Lenore Croker’s costume designs and Timothy Clark's set ideas, and later, the cast's and choreographer Michael Sjoholm's concepts and ideas. From the start we knew this was to be a play that did not just focus on one art, but would embrace several and which would both express an eternal human story, the struggle between good and evil, the need to find identity, the place of love; and a journey that would be fun, exciting and moving.

FROM Christopher Ross-Smith: Director's Note.

This adaptation by Sophie Masson and myself of Sophie's novel The Green Prince had its start in a chance meeting we had together outside the Armidale Post Office. I had long wanted The Armidillos to present an 'end of year' play which would appeal to all ages as well as discover a script that came from our own community. Sophie's novel seemed an ideal vehicle. A young bewildered and angry hero is chosen, against his will, to undertake a dangerous journey to defend an unknown kingdom against destruction by a very powerful force. Along the way he has several adventures involving strange and monstrous creatures.

The project also allowed for the combining of talents from local groups and individuals -writers, composers, designers and actors. Hence this production is presented in association with the New England Writers' Centre and mixes young artists with experienced amateur and professional talent. This play could not have existed without the work of my fellow collaborators Sophie Masson, the composer Lesley Sly and technical director and set designer Timothy Clark. It would have been impossible to attempt this adaptation without the generous help of all our sponsors, particularly Armidale Third City of The Arts, The NSW Ministry for The Arts, Macsound and Hodder Headline Australia., University Theatres, University of New England.

We have chosen to concentrate on the novel's theatricality - particularly its characters, colour, music, language and appeal to the imagination. The concept behind this production employs fantasy laced with magic and music to present a strange adventure into the unknown. Observed from a different angle, however, it also relates to our everyday realities and fears. Throughout our collective history there has always been the reality of a 'Grimlow' waiting to rise up unexpectedly to confront and destroy us - no more so than today and we have always needed champions young and old to confront and disable that reality. The play should be fun and a challenge - a flight of fancy as well as a plunge into the deeper waters of our hopes and fears.