Playfight
A play by Julia Grogan
Under their tree, three fifteen year-old girls, Keira, Zainab, and Lucy, wrestle with sex, shame, and growing up at different paces. It starts with a game and a dead possum. It ends with someone getting hurt.
Role
Set & Prop Design
Year
2026
Produced By:
Silo Theatre Company
Venue
Silo Hall & various schools
Creative Team
Director - Brita McVeigh
Lighting Design - Rob Larsen
Costume Design - Tautahi Subritzky
Sound Composition - Paloma Schneideman
Stage Manager - Eliza Rutter
Set Design Mentor - John Verryt
Cast - Mirabai Pease, Liv Parker, Ana Chaya Scotney
Production Manager - Spencer Earwaker
Production Stills - Andi Crown
We had a lot of discussions around materials. My first instinct was to use cold, harsh and rigid materials like aluminium and steel, to represent that inhospitable and male-centric structures and systems the girls were growing up in. Also to throw homage to the metallic jungle gyms of our youth.
Brita’s first instinct was to lean into the organic. She very poetically said at our first meeting, that she wanted the audience to be reminded that ‘the world will hold you if you let it’. With very two conflicting instincts going on, I went back to the script. My design mentor John, very wisely reminded me that the playwright had written the story around an ancient tree for a purpose. That would be my key in.
And it was. I looked at a lot of trees. And what really stuck out to me was the way in which trees grew past and around any bracing or fencing they were held up or contained by. Inorganic and organic intersecting.
A couple weeks later, I came back to Brita with a new concept. It wasn’t one or the other. It was both. We used a restricted palette of jute, kraft paper, cotton and aluminium to create a world that was both structured and heavy, yet promised a freedom beyond the floating canopy.
The world will hold you if you let it
“The set design was stunning, an effortlessly simplistic design that took your breath away. It felt like we were right under the tree with them, listening to all their secrets. ”
