Set somewhere in Outback Australia over 100 years after the British atomic bomb tests at Maralinga. The descendants of those animals who managed to survive the explosions now live in a complex network of underground caves, and have developed a new society- 'Narkindie'-with its own set of rules and taboos. The eight Tribes: Emu, Red Kangaroo, Rock Wallaby, Possum, Python, Kookaburra, Wombat and Lizard, all co-exist in relative harmony. Up until now. To avoid the perceived dangers of solar radiation the Tribes may only venture outside at dusk, and this and other rigidly enforced restrictions rankle young Boomer and his school friends, who are anxious to leave on the Quest. As it is their final year of school they are thus regarded as 'Rangers', and during their many adventures will meet characters and objects from the past and the future, and ultimately learn that the real purpose of the Quest is to heal the land from the depredations of the humans-the Fellers-before it's all too late. Only Fril, the rebel leader of the Lizard Tribe, has another agenda in mind. Written entirely in verse, with the possibility of adding music and converting it to Rap, Hip-Hop, Techno or whatever feels good, the play has around twenty-eight main parts and the opportunity to involve the whole school community. While concepts for sets may be quite minimal, the many changes in appearance from animals to Fellers and back again, will offer the costume designers plenty of opportunities to be creative.
About the Author: The first BoomeRangers book, 'Dead Centre', was originally written in rhyme, and this version is closely modeled on that concept. Since publishing 'Dead Centre' in prose there have been two more books in the series, 'The Taranaki Oracle', and 'Maralinga Countdown', and somehow I have always visualized them as performance pieces, ideally with music, song, dance, and as much colour and movement as could reasonably fit on a stage, and within a limited school budget! Having no personal musical talents whatsoever, I will leave it up to you to find a way to turn this into 'Mad Max meets Priscilla meets Skippy on Broadway' or whatever. Original music would be fantastic, but there are a lot of very 'hummable' songs now in the public domain, so that could be a starting point. I'm sure with the right 'rap' delivery, most of this could sound good with even the barest minimum of original music or accompaniment, but if you have a school band or choir that's up for it, even better! Friends and family in the teaching profession have often bemoaned the difficulty of staging a school play or musical that could provide a role for all their students, from the little preppies through to the high-school graduates. Well, hopefully here it is! Time, space and money may no doubt require certain scenes to be cut or even abandoned completely-I'm not going to get all precious about that-just do it such a way that what remains still makes some sense! For schools and bona fide educational institutions no performance fee will be charged, but please contact me so I can acknowledge giving permission. andrew@boomerangers.com www.boomerangers.com