Trophy Boys

by Emmanuelle Mattana

fortyfivedownstairs 2-12 February as part of Midsumma Festival
La Mama Explorations - 4-6 December as part of La Mama Explorations

Touring in 2024 including dates at Arts Centre Melbourne, Geelong Arts Centre, Seymour Centre Sydney, Canberra Theatre Centre.

The Age ★★★★★ Theatre Thoughts ★★★★★ ATYP ★★★★★ What Did She Think? ★★★★★ Theatre Matters ★★★★
Greenroom Awards Nominations 2024: Best Production, Best New Writing, Best Director, Best Performer (Gaby Seow),
Broadway World Australia Awards 2023: Best New Play or Musical
The Age: Best Theatre of 2023
Featured participant of VAPAC’s Showcase Victoria 2023.
Included on the 2024 VCE Theatre Studies Playlist.

Trophy Boys is a queer black-comedy and drag extravaganza about power, privilege and high school debating.

Written by: Emmanuelle Mattana
Directed by: Marni Mount
Stage Manager: Oliver Ross (La Mama + fortyfivedownstairs), Caitie Murphy (tour)
Produced by: Ben Andrews (The Maybe Pile), Jo Dyer (Soft Tread Enterprises) (tour)
Production Design: Marni Mount, Ben Andrews, Emmanuelle Mattana
Lighting Design: Oliver Ross (La Mama + fortyfivedownstairs), Katie Sfetkidis (tour)

Cast:
Owen: Emmanuelle Mattana
David: Leigh Lule
Scott: Gaby Seow
Jared: Fran Sweeney-Nash (fortyfivedownstairs), Emily Joy (La Mama)

It’s the biggest night of Melbourne’s academic calendar, the Grand Finale of the Year 12 Interschool Debating Tournament, and the all-boys team from the elite St Imperium college are ready to totally annihilate their sister school – until…

Performed by a female and non-binary cast in drag, the show unfolds in real time as the boys are locked in a classroom for their one-hour prep window, and forced to argue ‘that feminism has failed women’. Aspiring future PM and brainiac scholarship kid Owen, joins sot-boy-jock, Jared, dopey lawyer’s son, Scott, and nerdy enigma, David, to come up with a case that will win them the debate - and save them from getting cancelled

But what begins as a riotously funny satire on insecure adolescent masculinity, entitlement and the ego of Australia’s next generation of politicians and power brokers, quickly turns sour when ews that one of the boys has been anonymously accused of sexual assault enters the classroom.

Using queer methodologies and drag, Trophy Boys playfully and powerfully interrogates the well documented toxic masculinity, misogyny and homophobia of our ‘elite’ private boys schools. Born in response to the Porter allegations and #teachusconsent campaign, the show lays bare the pipeline from school boy, to the highest offices of power.

Debating is framed at the crux of this pipeline, an activity populated by boys clubs of notable alumni where argument is turned into sport, regardless of who gets hurt in the process. When being articulate, commanding, and able to twist logic at your own whims allows you to speak for anyone - or over anyone - there is no wonder this ethos is emblematic of a much broader cultural issue, and seeps so dangerously into other parts of these boys’ lives.

“Trust me. When have I let you down? International politics round you relied on me to know all about the complexities of Pyongyang’s internal power struggle. Technology round I knew all about the ethics of AI in sex dolls. Sports round I knew all the football players with charges of assault. And I don’t even like sport. It’s the same here. I’m on a scholarship. I’m smart. Trust me.” - Owen