Very exciting news from the Graduating Company of 2024! Fresh off graduation, a group of our talented acting students are making their first professional mark. They’ve successfully pitched and will be self-producing their Third Year play Stags and Hens by Willy Russell for another run from 8-25 January 2025 at the renowned New Theatre in Newtown.
We had the opportunity to sit down with producer Chester Lenihan (Blank Slate Productions) to discuss the journey from pitch to promotion. Read on to learn about the pitching process, accent training, and best of all—a special discount for tickets!
ACA: Congrats on successfully pitching Stags & Hens for New Theatre’s 2025 Season! Tell us how it all happened.
Chester: Well, it started with all 11 members of our cast falling in love with the play when rehearsing an performing it for our graduation play back at ACA in August 2024. Along with our Director Johann Walraven who already had a very fond appreciation of Willy Russell’s work.
Having had a very successful and enjoyable two runs of the show in August, there were strong suggestions from various ACA staff members (Johann included!) that this production deserved a public audience. From there we found New Theatre’s open call for expressions of interest from Sydney based production companies. We thought, “Why not?” and quickly gathered to form the production company ‘Blank Slate Productions,’ put together a pitch, and send it off to New Theatre in the hope they may say yes, which we are overjoyed to say that they did!
ACA: How does it feel taking your student production into the professional theatre industry? What have you learnt?
Chester: We are absolutely ecstatic to take this production to the public stage and naturally feel incredibly blessed to have an opportunity to perform publicly so soon after graduating.
When the email came through that our pitch was successful, there was certainly some wild celebrations around the ACA hall. Personally, as the producer, the main thing I’ve learnt is the ins and outs of how mammoth a task it is to mount a play in the public sphere and just how much is involved to make it a success. Which fingers crossed it will be!
I think throughout the season we will all learn lots as actors. It’s such a great opportunity to continue to build the skill sets that we started developing during our time at ACA.
ACA: What was your rehearsal process with director Johann Walraven like?
Chester: Can’t speak highly enough about it! Johann is an incredibly generous director who truly lets you play freely as an actor. For myself I felt a great trust that I could offer anything and everything in the room, knowing that anything that needed culling would be culled. On the flip side of that, if a choice was left untouched then as an actor you could trust that it was up your sleeve, so to speak. This meant each and every run of a scene or moment within the play we all made fresh and new offers, which helped make such a dynamic and engaging two hours of theatre come performance time.
ACA: Tell us more about your characters … and the accents! How did your Voice and accenttraining at ACA help with preparing for your roles?
Chester: Well… a good magician never gives away his secrets! But in all seriousness, the characters are an eclectic, eccentric, and hilarious bunch of individuals who whilst so outrageous in the extreme, are still easily relatable to a wide audience. We’ve all either gone through or are going through the process of coming of age in our early twenties and these characters speak to that experience in an abundance.
The accent work has been a dream to work on. I personally love the scouse accent and the general voice training undertaken at ACA was very helpful to understand how to articulate particular sounds, what needed to change physiologically, how to wrap our mouths around the sound and in general, how does this accent further inform who these people are? In my case my accent work was a big part of finding the character of Robbie and further developing relationships between each member of the cast.
ACA: If you could go back to give yourself a pep talk on day one of ACA, what would you say?
Chester: Wow, it would be one long pep talk I can tell you that for certain. I guess the main crux of what I would want to say to myself on that memorable day three years ago would be, “believe in your commitment to the work carrying through art worthy of performance.”
I find as an actor I am constantly questioning my work—not in a self-deprecating way but rather as a critical reflection on my employment of the craft. As my time went on at ACA, particularly at the beginning of third year, I finally came to trust that the work itself will shine through in a performance and allow you to act in a truthful and significant way. That being said, the work must be done, and without it we are nothing as craftspeople of the stage. Confidence and calmness in a self-belief and hard work—that’s the message I’d reiterate to myself.
ACA: Why should people come see Stags & Hens?
Chester: This truly is a special production. In short, it’s a hilarious, rambunctious, and overall, incredibleproduction that will have you truly entertained, through a combination of the set, costuming, characterisation and most importantly, fantastic writing by one of the UK’s most successful and acclaimed playwrights, Willy Russell.
Furthermore, the play does touch on some very important issues that are just as prevalent today as they were in the 1970s, when the play is set. Gender roles, misogyny, loyalty vs. leaving, and the want for bigger and better things are just to name a few. This is the sort of production that I believe you watch as a comedy, and only after the final curtain realise it is in fact a tragedy.
ACA: Where can we follow along to learn more and book tickets?
Chester: Check out our Instagram @stags_and_hens_! We post various character and cast videos that are a fun watch in themselves, but also give a great idea into the raucousness of the play. Please also check out our New Theatre webpage, that includes a ticket link at the bottom. Book before 8th January 2025 and use the early bird discount code WORM25 to get the special price of $25 tickets!
ACA: Anything else you’d like to share?
Chester: Overall, I’d like to thank the support and nurturing environment that ACA has provided over the last 3 years and particularly in the pitching and mounting process for Stags & Hens. We wouldn’t be in the position we are without the support of the school and the various figures within it. We are truly giving our all to this production and it would mean the world to see as many of the ACA community as possible—students, alumni, everyone—at New Theatre throughout the season. The support would mean the world to us.
Bring your friends, bring your families, and come enjoy what will be 14 shows to remember! From me and the rest of the Stags & Hens team, wishing everyone a great holidays season and we’ll see you come January 2025.
Thanks so much to Chester, and best of luck to all the ACA graduates on this production! Don’t miss Stags & Hens at New Theatre this January. Book before 8 January 2025 and use the early bird discount code WORM25 to get the special price of $25 tickets.
