Aspire and the Catholic Schools Office present 'Dark Matter' - now playing at Civic Theatre IMAGE

Aspire and the Catholic Schools Office present 'Dark Matter' - now playing at Civic Theatre

Countless hours of writing, planning, directing and rehearsing have culminated in the creation of Dark Matter, an original theatrical production written and directed by Anna Kerrigan and presented by Aspire and the Catholic Schools Office.

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Showing at Newcastle’s Civic Theatre, Dark Matter features 150 student actors and musicians from Catholic schools throughout the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle.

Planning for this year’s production started during rehearsals for last year’s production when the International Space Station passed overhead. The entire cast of Aspire’s 2017 production took time out from rehearsals to watch the space station fly across the night sky.

The passing of the International Space Station features in this year’s production.

One of the main characters is Ellie, a student at St Albert’s Secondary College. She has recently broken up with her popular boyfriend, Joe, and she’s looking forward to watching the International Space Station pass overhead with her fellow students. An unexplained incident has the students and the entire school under lockdown and many are worried they might be trapped in their classrooms when the space station passes.

Tickets for Dark Matter are on sale now and selling quickly. Click here to reserve your seats.

Aspire program

Aspire was established in 2011. The program offers student from Year 5 - Year 11 the opportunity to hone and polish their performing skills. Aspire productions showcase student actors, singers, dancers and musicians. Featured in this year’s production is an orchestra made up entirely of student performers.

This year, more than 680 students from 57 schools across the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle auditioned for Dark Matter. From those 680, 150 student performers were chosen.

Throughout the months of February to August, all 150 students travelled into Newcastle once per week to practice and rehearse.

Anna Kerrigan - Creative Director

Each year Anna Kerrigan, Aspire’s Creative Director, writes and directs the production.

While Anna handles writing duties, the final production incorporates a lot of the students’ original ideas and suggestions made during rehearsals and workshops.

As the Newcastle Herald reports: “there are a lot of amusing moments in the play, which runs from around two hours plus an interval. The students, for example, see the school cleaners as the witches from Shakespeare’s play Macbeth because of the often hostile way they respond to people who approach them”.

Tickets for Dark Matter are on sale now and can be purchased via Ticketek.

Category Catholic Schools