Please note: Many of the plays listed on this site have been produced primarily in festivals, which often means runs are too short to generate reviews. This page is updated as new reviews become available, so please check back.
Reviews of Somewhere In Between (or) The Ghost of Molly Malone Reviews of Will and the Ghost Reviews of Short Plays in Festivals (including Hell Hath Three Furies, Talk, Beach With Telephone, Elephants and Coffee, and Dead In The Water) Other Interviews and Articles
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The Ghost of Molly Malone |
Henry's Wives |
Elephants and Coffee |
Interview ABC "Dob in an ex-pat"
Assembling a playwright's career, UNSW Uniken, 1998
Three Wise Monkeys BOA Festival (article temporarily unavailable due to SF Examiner site upgrade). For more information visit the Three Wise Monkeys Website
Last Frontier Theatre Conference
Timeless Tales, Anchorage Daily New 2002
Henry's wives find a voice in new play at UW, Laramie Boomerang, 2004
Sex (Wives) Appeal, University of Wyoming Branding Iron, 2004
By Rory McGuire, for Uniken, May 1998
| If Ophelia had been able to have a word in Shakespeare's ear, before he committed her to a nunnery in Hamlet, would that great play have gone a different way? This is one of many questions that will be answered when Aoise Stratford, a UNSW English and Theatre Studies Honours Student (who graduated on 12 May) stages six short plays next week. Each play has been conceived, written, cast, directed and staged by Aoise and each takes a fresh look at old themes - whether it is Ophelia giving Shakespeare an earful, a Stoppard-style political farce, a macabre comedy on death or a a poetic love triangle. All six plays, each lasting between 10 and 20 minutes, will be presented each night at the Studio One theatre....Aoise has chosen the 13 cast members mainly from past and present members of NUTS, the student-run NSW University Theatrical Society, with some UNSW students, and others from the Sydney University Dramatic Society. One other question Aoise will be answering with this presentation is: Do people like her creations? And, needless to say, she would like to test her hypothesis on the largest possible audience. |
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| Playgoers who saw her NUTS productions last year of Euripedes' Electra [director] and the short play Ripe in Spasms [director] or her performance in Louis Nowra's Radiance [Cassie], will have no doubts about Aoise's theatrical ability. Now, she has decided, is the time to test her skills as a playwright. At the end of this year, Aoise goes to the University of San Francisco, where she will begin a two year Masters-in-Writing course. | |
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These plays may look like a single-handed effort, but Aoise says she could not have staged these plays without all the support she has received from...students and staff who have joined her cast and crew - and encouraged her to bring her ideas to life. One interested playgoer wll be Professor Conal Condren from the school of Political Science, who will be casting his analytical eye over the production. The fact that he is Aoise's father will not sway his assessment of the evening's offerings. "He is my harshest critic, and his knowledge of Shakespeare and politics has been invaluable to me." |
| "But I want to have some experience of how my [theatrical] work is accepted. I hope the reception these plays get will indicate...which writing styles suit me best.... Is my writing strong? How does my written work translate to live work?.... But another thing I want to do is to encourage other young writers to get their work performed. A play is not a play until it has been tried in front of an audience," she said. Studio One is an intimate theatre...first in best seated. The first play starts at 8pm. Cost is $7....These are ridiculous prices when you consider that decades from now you will be able to boast: "I saw her first plays, back in 1998 at UNSW written when she was only a student." |
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California playwright finds a receptive audience in Alaska, by Susan Morgan 12/1/2002
excerpt from this review/interview still to be posted: please check back later...
Henry's Wives, written by award-winning playwright Aoise Stratford, is being showcased at the University of Wyoming Fine Arts Main Stage Theatre this week [April 27-May 2, 2004]. Catherine of Aragaon who was the first queen consort of King Henry Viii of England...has served 500 years of penitence in an existentialist purgatory, and believes hse is given a second chance to rewrite history....To accomplish this feat, [she] attempts to summon Henry in order to elicit his forgiveness and admittance of her innocence so they can renew their vows and have destiny "set right." |
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| But instead of Henry showing up, his other five wives do, causing words and egos to clash. On the surface [the play is about] the experiences of the six women who were married to Henry Viii..."these women had really tough lives," Stratford said. "Every one of them died in pretty miserable circumstances. The play is partly about these women in this period of English history....Thematically, the play is about the idea that once you touch someone's life, that life is changed...any person you go on to have a relationship with is going to be impacted by [that]. The past is part of what makes you who you are." | |
by Rachel Peterson, Excerpt from the UW Branding Iron, 4/22/04
Henry's Wives in rehearsal at UW |
Henry's Wives brings one of the most "volatile and extraordinary periods of history " to the stage, said playwright Aoise Stratford. The play [about] the six wives of Henry Viii will premiere at UW wednesday. "We really love to do new work," said Harry Woods, program coordinator for theatre and dance. "It's exciting and challenging for the actors." The script bases much of the personalities and events discussed in the play on historical fact, and couples it with imaginiation by asking "what happens if you put these women all in a room together," Stratford said. What happens is an entertaining form of history lesson in which Stratford leads the queens' spirits to plot against each other to rewrite history...."How we are mattered remembers very greatly," states Anne Boleyn, played by Heather Kaloust. Boleyn was Henry's second wife and in 1536 was found guilty of treason and beheaded. "It's a pretty fascinating era of British history," said Stratford. "They were amazing women."The play also puts Henry in an "interesting light," said Rebecca Hilliker, the director and department chair of Theatre and Dance. As portrayed in the script, it becomes evident that he was a King manipulated not just by women, but also [by] politics and religion, she said.... |
| Hilliker first met Stratford when judging another Stratford play as aprt o fthe American College Theatre Festival. Hilliker said she was instantly inspired by Stratford's use of feminism and history. "We don't have a lot of women's voices in the theatre," she said. "I was really interested before I even read the script." Stratford said her initial intrigue [into] Henry's wives came when she was about seven and visited Hever Castle, Boleyn's childhood home. "The whole time I was there, I was wondering if she was still haunting it," Stratford said. | |
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Heath Wilder and Rebecca Jee in rehearsal 
Danny Kingsley and Phillip Hopper in rehearsal 