One Act Play Festival 2026.

Erised Cauldron

St. Jude’s Players, Deadset Theatre Company and Galleon Theatre Company unite once again to present a One Act Play Festival in the Domain Theatre at the Marion Cultural Centre. Across their various productions, they become a solid unit of enjoyable theatre. While St. Judes’ and Deadset’s entries focus on serious themes, Galleon’s entry allows us to breathe for a moment and enjoy the second-hand embarrassment of Sam and Katie as two 5-year-olds in love.
St. Jude’s Players presents “What’s the Matter with Mary Jane”
Originally written by Wendy Harmer as a one-hander, Director Larry Waller, Zoe Battersby and the talented cast have reimagined the text by splitting the role into three, while remaining the one character. The longest of the 3 productions on display, cast members Jade Cooper, Chanelle Le Roux, and Lana Adamuszek cover the monologue in a clever fashion, allowing crossover and personality between the artists.
Individually, each cast member provide believable personalities within the singular character. Collectively, they operated and moved as a single unit. The blocking was synchronised and well thought out, and the overlapping dialogue to ‘pass the baton’ was smooth and crisp.
The text explores the character’s painful history of living with anorexia and bulimia, taking the audience through the agonising mental process of her eating disorder, showcasing her harsh inner critic and the desperation of being trapped. Being able to have someone in the community to ground the text and the eating disorders, ensuring the actions and decisions made are based on fact make this production further impactful.
By the end of this play, I was needing the first interval – not because of any negative connotations, but because of the heavy weight felt from the discussions happening within the production.
Deadset Theatre Company presents “Deep Clean”
An original piece written by Adelaide local, Isiah Macaspac, who is getting around the Adelaide theatre scene in 2026, having appeared in the past two PitchWhite Production pieces, explores two siblings packing up their childhood home, where grief turns into conflict, memories into battlegrounds, and where nothing stays buried for long.
Macaspac has a solid foundation to continue as a playwright should he wish, and would do well in the various writing workshops and competitions on offer annually. In addition to the writing credit, he lends his acting skills to sibling Sam. I understand writing a script with the vision of yourself within a character, however this play may have been further sharpened with another artist in the onstage role while Macaspac maintains the writer’s role. Nonetheless, he does a great job in portraying a sibling who needs to help in sorting out what should be kept, tossed and donated, despite not wanting to move.
The other sibling, Bill, is played by Hannah Goodburn. It seems the acting gene runs deep in the Goodburn household, having just caught Oliver two weeks ago. Regardless, Hannah holds her own in this production, adeptly acting opposite Macaspac and becoming the dominant on stage ensuring the action is moving.
While only featuring via video work, thanks to Charlie Butler, Kaila Barton and Tim Stockel portray the parents, appearing on a questionable NSFW home video. The audience learns early in the story that the mum has passed away after losing her battle to cancer, however the fate or the whereabouts of the dad is unknown and unexplored, leaving room for personal interpretation.
Deadset Theatre Co-Founder Matilda Butler directs this production, delivering a story that swiftly brings us through to our second interval.
Galleon Theatre Group presents “Boy Meets Girl (A Young Love Story)” After two productions focused on eating disorders and grief, I was thankful we were treated to a sweet, comedic short story about Sam and Katie as they go through the trials and tribulations of love at the tender age of five! Directed by Andrew Clark, the play explores how children mirror adult behaviour in love, highlighting the absurdity and innocence of young love.
There is something about this production that gave a warmth within, unable to remove the smile from my face and being compelled to repeatedly sing that song we all know from Barney and Friends… you know the one!
Aled Proeve, returning after last year’s One Act Play Festival, plays Sam while Dora Stamos portrays Katie. Together, they create a believable couple of 5-year-olds, that would inevitably become ride-or-die friends had we continued their journey for years later. Proeve and Stamos work well together, and Deborah Proeve’s choreography is one of many highlights in this within this play.
Overall, this is a well spent 2 ½ hours featuring short plays that deserve equal standing to full length plays. Kym Clayton and Scott Battersby have done well to coordinate and manage the overall festival, ensuring smooth setting and striking between each production and ensuring an array of themes are covered that would speak to members of the audience.
Reviewed by Andrew Broadbent

Theatre Association of SA (TASA) Review

Four years ago I reviewed the inaugural One Act Play Festival initiated and sponsored by the City Of Marion and the Marion Cultural Centre with Galleon Theatre Group, St Jude’s Players and Deadset Theatre Company being the invited participants. It was so popular that I remember finishing my review with the comment that hopefully it would become a tradition rather than a one off – and lo and behold it did.
I missed the next two Festivals, but was lucky enough to review this fourth volume of three very good one act plays performed by some amazing talent. The plays were: “What’s The Matter With Mary Jane?” presented by St Jude’s, “Deep Clean” presented by Deadset and “Boy Meets Girl (A Young Love Story)” presented by Galleon.
“What’s The Matter With Mary Jane?” is a monologue written by Wendy Harmer based on actor Sancia Robinson’s (and the first performer to perform the play) fight with Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia. Although, as I have said, originally a monologue, Director Larry Waller has taken the brave decision of turning it into a trio-logue with three actors portraying Sancia at the same time. Whilst initially this concept sounds somewhat ‘arty-farty’, it does, in fact, work brilliantly. By performing it this way, the audience see and feel the various outer and inner struggles that people (especially teenage girls) suffer with these horrible conditions, usually brought about trying to live up to the idea of ‘the perfect woman’. Jade Cooper, Chanelle Le Roux and Lana Adamuszek are all very believable as Sancia and work brilliantly with one another. It’s interesting to note, that whether by design of by accident when casting, the ladies all bear a slight resemblance to the real Sancia. There is no break in the flow from one actor’s dialogue to another’s. It is more than evident that Waller, Cooper, Le Roux and Adamuszek have all worked together tightly and intensely to produce such a thought provoking play.
Deadset’s contribution to the festival is “Deep Clean” written by one of the performers, 22 year old Isiah Macaspac, a recent Graduate of Flinders Drama Centre and it shows both in his writing and performance. He also did not fall into the trap of some writers by wanting to direct it himself – he has left it to Matilda Butler to garner the script to its full potential. Macaspac lures us into a false sense of security with an hilarious opening but then when Hannah Goodburn as his sister arrives, the play moves into more poignant areas of pain, grief and loss. The siblings are cleaning house ready to move on the next day with their father (a physical ‘deep clean’) and start to share their feelings about the death of their mother several years before of cancer (an emotional ‘deep clean’). This is ‘real’ writing from Macaspac and ‘real’ superb acting from both him and Goodburn. Don’t get me wrong, “Deep Clean” is a beautifully written piece that never threatens to plunge into darkness. Instead it tugs at our heart strings whilst hitting at our funny bone. The climax featuring a ‘role playing’ DVD of their parents (Kaila Barton and Tim Stockel) is as hilarious as the opening and as charming as the entire play. South Australia has some excellent playwrights (e.g. Andrew Bovell, Finegan Kruckemeyer) and I predict that some where down the line the name Isiah Macaspac will be among them. Look out for this young man in both his writing and acting.
Galleon round the program out with “Boy Meets Girl (A Young Love Story)” by Sam Wolfson. Take two 5 year olds, Sam (Aled Proeve) and Katie (Dora Stamos) and let them fall in ‘love’ (or at least what 5 year olds think is love). Wolfson’s play is absolutely hilarious but is made even better by Andrew Clark’s spot on direction of comedy, and the brilliant timing and characterisations of both Proeve and Stamos – they gel absolutely wonderfully. Deborah Proeve’s very funny choreography to Survivor’s “The Search Is Over” has the two performers tripping, sometimes literally (and on purpose) into our hearts. Fantastic stuff from all.
Once again, I say let’s keep this tradition up!
Bravo, all three companies!!
Reviewed by Brian Godfrey