Shortlisted for the Stoddart Playwrighting Award, 2022

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Tiger is sixteen and lives with her aunt in Burnie, Tasmania. A typical teen – she has school, a group of close friends and a part-time job at Woollies. She's in love with her best friend Nick or Wally as he known: high school golden boy, handsome, footy hero and a good guy. But what's on the outside isn't always true to what's happening inside. Wally takes his own life, Tiger and their friends are left to cope however they can.

 

The strong emotions and sensitive subjects in this story are delivered with a light touch: this is a surprising, tender, coming of age story where friendship, nature and a spirit of adventure have the power to heal when your world splits open.

 

In award winning Tasmanian novelist Kate Gordon’s (2021 Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book of the Year Award) Girl Running, Boy Falling is a beating heart of messy, wild, characters and their lives lovingly adapted for the stage by Kate Gaul. 

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The play is for an ensemble cast of 5 actors playing all the roles.

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‘Girl Running, Boy Falling is everything you could hope for …it’s thoughtful, artful, deftly crafted, raw, real and deeply affecting.’ - Nick Earls, Penguin Books

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‘When Tiger was talking, I felt like she was saying my words. Watching things on stage, its likes it’s from another world.  This felt more like my world and that was cool.’ Student at play reading

 

‘I loved Melody, I haven’t ever seen a person like Melody on stage before." Student at play reading

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"It’s how we are.  It just sounded like US" Student at play reading

 

"We attended a play reading of Girl Running, Boy Falling. What an amazing piece of Theatre. Our students expressed how different it was to sit and watch a show that was ‘about me’… ‘my region, my town. Places I know’. They spoke about how they love theatre, but it away feels like the stories are about a land and life far away from … they loved that this story felt close and relevant and that a playwright knew about things that were relevant to them and their lives. Thank you" Dayna Dennison, Don College. Devonport. Tasmania

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From Kate Gordon “I have been working on various incarnations of Girl Running, Boy Falling, for many years. When I was 19, one of my friends killed himself. He was a hugely popular kid – funny, smart, handsome, popular, athletic, completely beloved. Everyone who knew him was in utter shock at his passing, and it rocked our close-knit world. 3 years ago, another childhood friend took his own life. He, too, was so loved, and I was completely shaken to the core at his loss. I began Girl Running, Boy Falling as a way of dealing with his passing, and of examining the impact that my other friend’s death had on me, at an early age. I wanted to look at the things we tell other people, and the things we hide; how we can never truly know people – even in this world of social media where we feel like we know everything. I also wanted to look at the ways a community might deal with the death of one of its favourite sons; and how we “should” process grief. Word to the wise: there is no “right” way."

 

From Kate Gaul “I have always been attracted to YA fiction and coming-of-age stories about the young adult experience, that resonate deeply with adult audiences. In Kate Gordon's novel I found the perfect source material. The story is set on the North-West Coast of Tassie, it examines a dark, high stakes events, and demands a surreal adventure to find its way back into the light."

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