Love Drama Class? This Writing Program Needs To Be On Your Radar!

If you're studying drama, the planets have aligned for you to find this article and be introduced to Laneikka Denne. Laneikka is absolutely ✨killin' it✨ in the playwrighting and acting sphere and her newest project needs to be on your radar. 

Are you pretty sick of all the drama monologues in high school being written by crusty, white blokes? Eeek. 😵‍💫  Laneikka's one-year program: 'The Monologue Collective' is aimed at Year 12 drama students wanting to develop their skills in writing for performance. You'll come out the other end with your very own 6-8 minute monologue. Then that monologue will be published as a resource for other teenagers to perform for their HSC Drama Individual Performance. Whhhhaaattt???!! So long crusty dudes! 😂

But for real, we loved the sound of 'The Monologue Collective' so much that we had to ask Laneikka some more cheeky Q's–grab a cuppa as you read along to our catch-up with the creative mastermind herself.

Year13: What inspired you to create this initiative?

Laneikka: As a recent HSC graduate, I HATED picking my drama monologue because everything was written by old conservative white men. Lol. Most of the monologues I read felt like they were written by someone reminiscing on their teenage years. I also felt like all the teenage girls had NO AGENCY. 

My HSC was the reason I wrote a play at seventeen [DEAD SKIN]. The feedback I received was that everyone felt these teenagers were real people, yet because of my age, getting someone to read that play in the first place was ridiculously difficult. "Young emerging writing groups" only accept people that have been to NIDA, have a play at some fancy theatre company, and are 26 and up. So I decided to create my own program that would help teenagers get into writing and write for teenagers. 

"I love seeing new writing that resonates with my life and makes me think deeper about what's going on around me. New work by teenagers is just the best."

Year13: How will The Monologue Collective benefit teenagers?

Laneikka: I think it'll get teenagers excited about theatre because the monologues they're doing are actually relevant to their lives. Theatre is a dying art form with an aging population because none of the work performed is relevant to anyone under 50. Companies say this is because young writers aren't skilled or ready to write yet. 

So I decided to curate a program with theatre practitioners who have worked for Belvoir, Sydney Theatre Company, and even internationally at places like the Royal Court Theatre in the UK! 

"My plan is to create work that is relevant to young audiences because it was written by young people and hopefully, regenerate the Sydney theatre scene because of it."

Year13: What’s the structure of this program? How does it compare to the normal journey of creating a monologue?

Laneikka: I didn't have quotas. All I did was reach out to organisations from all regions of Sydney and ask them to share the program with their teenagers. The result: 80 percent of the teenage writers are either queer, living in Western Sydney and or POC. I also didn't have a quota for the diversity of practitioners. I just reached out to people who I thought made sick work and 80 percent of the practitioners are either queer, living in Western Sydney, and or POC.

"I think a lot of writing programs either tokenise people for their diversity or say 'it's too hard to find diverse people, blah blah blah'"

We have two in-person developments with dramaturgs, seven zoom workshops with established practitioners, and a final staged performance at Kings Cross Theatre to show the monologues off at the end of next year. Planning this took me a total of ten hours max and I've achieved finding the most talented people from different backgrounds without being an idiot about it.

Year13: When and where can someone get started?!

Laneikka: You can follow the entire journey on socials: Instagram and Facebook! #themonologuecollective (on all socials)

If you're a fan of the arts and in your final years at school, you don't want to miss this!