Chalkface

Overview

Bullying behaviour, tantrums and tough lessons are all part of a typical day at public-school St Jude’s – and that’s just in the staffroom!

Creatures of habit, the tired teachers of St Jude’s find themselves jolted awake by the arrival of a young and enthusiastic new teacher, Anna Park, a recent graduate known as “the child whisperer”.

Pat Novitsky, the school’s brilliant but bitter and longest-serving teacher, thinks Anna’s Masters of Neuroplasticity and new-age thinking has nothing on her 35 years of experience. Anna thinks Pat is stuck in the past. When the principal assigns school terror Hurricane Little to Anna’s class, the two teachers come head-to-head in a brutal smackdown of old versus new guard, exposing everyone’s darkest secrets.

A farcical new black comedy from multi-award winning Australian writer Angela Betzien (Total Control, Mortido) and starring acclaimed actor Catherine McClements (Water Rats, Tangle, Wentworth) as Pat, State Theatre Company South Australia's Chalkface shows us it’s never too late to change, and you’re never too old to learn, or laugh.