JOSIPA k DRAISMA
THE HEN HOUSE
IN DEVELOPMENT
BY JOSIPA DRAISMA & MARA KNEZEVIC
DIRECTOR ANTHEA WILLIAMS
MUSICAL DIRECTOR ZELJKO PAPIC
PRODUCED BY PYT FAIRFIELD
ABOUT
It’s 1976. Howzat’s No.1 on the charts. Industries are booming and it’s the migrant women cashing in. Pavica, a young Croatian mother is dressed in her crisp white uniform, smiling proudly on the production line, elbows deep in chicken carcass, loving her new Australian life.
The Hen House is a new music theatre work weaving extraordinary, humorous, and tragic multi-lingual stories of female migrant factory workers from Western Sydney with distinctly live and loud original music nodding towards Australian pub-rock bands of the time.
A fierce, funny, and electrifying experience, The Hen House elevates diverse women’s voices as powerful and hugely significant to Australia’s social and economic history.
DEVELOPMENT HISTORY
2021 – PYT Fairfield, 2 weeks (upcoming in November 2021)
2020 – PYT Fairfield, 2 weeks
CREATIVE TEAM
Co-Creators/ Performers Josipa Draisma and Mara Knezevic
Director Anthea Williams
Musical Director Zeljko Papic
Dramaturg Sime Knezevic
Producer PYT Fairfield
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
Josipa Draisma is an award-winning interdisciplinary performing artist and cultural leader working across theatre, music, cabaret, and comedy. Her original work has been programmed across national comedy and arts festivals in Australia including Sydney Comedy Festival, Melbourne Comedy Festival, Melbourne Cabaret Festival and Adelaide Fringe Festival.
Mara Knežević is a theatre-maker, performer, and singer-songwriter. She co-creates music under MARA DUKE and has released music on major platforms since 2015. She is an ongoing member of the female/non-binary collective All Girl Electronic based in Parramatta. Her credits include the Helpmann Award nominated dance-theatre work PLAYLIST (dir. Karen Therese, PYT Fairfield, 2017).
Anthea Williams is an award-winning theatre and film director and a Churchill Fellow. Anthea develops both theatre and screenplays and has worked in development at Causeway Films, Screen Australia, Belvoir, and London’s Bush Theatre. Anthea was awarded Best Director of a Mainstage Production at the Sydney theatre Awards 2017 for Hir. This production won several other awards including Best Mainstage Production.
ABOUT PYT FAIRFIELD
PYT has a reputation as a brave and transformative company who make urgent work that explores the critical issues of our times. We challenge the conventions of traditional theatre by creating innovative performance and social artistic experiences in theatre spaces and across diverse urban sites of Fairfield, Western Sydney and beyond, and with a key focus on cultural diversity. PYT has presented work across Australia including at the Sydney Opera House, Sydney Festival, Arts House Melbourne, Adelaide Festival Centre and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.
