Opportunity knocked for Sonny Dallas Law and Allan Clarke. The pair were picked to take part in PACT Youth Theatre's indigenous theatre development program Step Up, assigned two of the country's best directors as mentors and given the chance to write, direct and act in their own plays. Do they feel lucky?
"I'm never doing it again!" groans a sleep-deprived Clarke.
"Me either!" laughs Law, 26. "Writing, acting and directing your own play is insane."
Jokes aside, Clarke and Law say the late nights and long hours spent developing their productions with mentors Wesley Enoch and Kirk Page have taught them invaluable lessons in theatre-making.
"I learned more in one hour with Wesley than three weeks fumbling round in the dark by myself," says Clarke, 24.
"Directing, even basic things like lighting … it's so important for young indigenous theatre-makers to be given the chance to learn those things."
Clarke's play, Wrong Skin, draws on Greek tragedy and indigenous kinship systems. Law's work, Sub.Urban Tracking, reflects on his move from the country to Sydney.
Step Up is part of Gathering Ground, a three-day art and theatre festival that will take place on The Block in Redfern in November. It's also the latest in a series of efforts to develop Sydney's indigenous theatre scene.
"NSW is way behind in terms of having it's own indigenous theatre company," says Clarke. "Brisbane, Melbourne, most other states all have something, and the irony is that many of them were inspired by Black Theatre, which started here in Redfern in the '70s."
Clarke says indigenous theatre does happen, but it's sporadic and often reliant on one-off grants or opportunities from major performing arts companies.
"It would be good for the NSW Government to look into the viability of supporting an ongoing indigenous theatre company," he says.
Enoch, who has directed Stolen, Black Medea, The Sunshine Club, Black-ed Up and The Cherry Pickers, admits grassroots Aboriginal theatre has a long way to go in NSW.
And he knows why Aboriginal dance companies and art galleries have found mainstream success while indigenous theatre has not.
"Theatre is based on word, it's perceived as inherently political and people either get scared or excited by that. It's not seen as a cultural expression but rather as a political expression," he says.
After more than two decades in Redfern, Performance Space has hired Muruwari woman Lily Shearer as an indigenous performance broker. Her job is to bring more black theatre projects and artists onto the Performance Space roster.
"What mainstream Australia misses out on is what happens at our homes and the gatherings and at Aboriginal celebrations; how we tell our stories. We have been lost in the system," says Shearer.
She plans to bring some existing plays to Performance Space, such as Back Home, the Urban Theatre Projects play about young indigenous men that sold out when performed as part of this year's Sydney Festival.
"But my dream is for an Indig Lab at Performance Space next year," she says of the project space where artists and theatre makers can collaborate on short-term projects.
"That's still in the pipeline, depending on funding, but we're inviting artists to ring up and have a yarn about their projects," she says.
Why does Shearer think there are still too few Aboriginal faces in the theatre?
"The plays that are written - there's no Aboriginal people in them or if there are, they're colour-casted," she says.
That could change with more indigenous writers, directors and actors like Clarke and Law, and community projects like Gathering Ground, she says.
"I think we are getting more into theatre but until there's more community theatre happening, indigenous Australian theatre won't evolve. It's got to come from the ground up."
Sub.Urban Tracking and Wrong Skin will be performed at PACT Youth Theatre, Erskineville, from 7.30pm tomorrow and Sunday.