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An old man and young girl are in a boat on the stage. She wears a bright yellow life vest and he's pointing ahead.

Marlin

By Damien Millar

A life and death fishing adventure played in a sea of foam

Billy Grogan’s dad used to tell her life is wild and finds its own way home. But he never did. He went fishing for a marlin two years back and never came home. Now Billy lives with her granddad, dreaming of the ocean and adventure while her life goes down the dunny.


Then, one dark and strange night, a miraculous marlin takes her and her granddad out past the reef, to the open ocean and the deep. But will either of them find their way back home?


Inspired by classic seafaring literature, Marlin is set in the game fishing regions off Northern Queensland and played in a sea of foam.

Marlin explores the special relationship between grandparents and grandchildren with themes of grief, redemption, and victory. 

A co-production with Melbourne Theatre Company, Marlin premiered in the Lawler Studio in September 2014 before touring to the 2015 Bleach* Festival on the Gold Coast.


AWARDS

  • Winner
    Drama Victoria
    Excellence and Recognition Awards 2014
    Best Performance by a Theatre Company for Primary Students

  • Winner
    Australian Writers Guild 2015
    Theatre for Young  Audiences, Damien Millar

Creative team
Writer
DAMIEN MILLAR
Director
CHRISTIAN LEAVESLEY
Designer
MARG HORWELL
Lighting Designer
RACHEL BURKE
Composer
WANG ZHENG-TING
Sound Designer
JETHRO WOODWARD

Format
Live Performance (Stage Show)

Audiences
Created for audiences aged 8+ and their grandparents

Image gallery

Arena Theatre respectfully acknowledges the Dja Dja Wurrung people, and the Taungurung Peoples of the Kulin Nation, the first peoples of country on which Arena Theatre stands. We pay our respects to all of Bendigo's First Peoples, and to their ancestors and elders. Indigenous sovereignty has never been ceded and we acknowledge that we continue to make art on what always was and always will be, Aboriginal land.

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Arena Theatre Company is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.

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