Let Me Know When You Get Home
A new theatre work
2016 – 2021
Let Me Know When You Get Home is a new theatre work about growing up queer in Western Sydney. It’s a coming-of-age Australian play, deconstructing the myth of queer youth needing to “escape” Western Sydney. It draws from personal experience with suburban isolation and Filipino (and Filipina and Filipinx) diasporic identity to create a work which explores the inner lives of isolated queer people and the discomfort that exists when no place fits. Let Me Know When You Get Home is a personal narrative on birth and chosen families, friendships and first loves, and ultimately, the universal desire to make a home in other people.
The work was been picked up for National Theatre of Parramatta’s 2020/2021 Season and had its world premiere March 18th-20th. You can read more about the premiere here.
SYNOPSIS
Val, a Filipinx teenager, is desperate to escape the purgatory period between high school and university so she can finally be seen as an adult. She makes a break from her religious, overbearing mother and childhood best friend, Thi, to set out to the city in search of the queer community she lacks back home in Fairfield. When she joins a Mardi Gras float and meets Prince, an enigmatic, older artist, Val is sure she has finally found her queer utopia – even if it means leaving Thi behind. But where do you turn when it turns out no place fits?
PROCESS
Miranda started writing Let Me Know When You Get Home in the original Curious Creator’s Writer’s Group in 2015, under the title Into the Closet. It was further developed in 2016 as part of the Curious Creators first team residency as part of the Bundanon Artist Residency Program. Later that year, it was selected by PWA for New Play Development, and had its first public reading at Urban Stories 2016 in Riverside Theatre.
In 2018, Miranda continued their process with a four day creative development at Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre. Miranda, with the support of Q Theatre at the Joan, Playwriting Australia, and a grant from the Blacktown Arts Centre, held a showcase night for the work on August 9th.
In 2019, Let Me Know When You Get Home was selected as part of Mardi Gras 2019’s PLAYLIST, a partnership program between Seymour Centre, Mardi Gras and Siren Theatre Co, that celebrates new work by established, mid-career and emerging LGBTQIA+ artists. It was shown at the Seymour Centre on February 16, 2019. Miranda’s reflection on the experience can be found here. In April, Miranda was invited to show their work as a part of Q Theatre’s Long Table project, specifically as a part of Vonne Patiag’s Homeland curated month. You can read more about the experience here.
It then underwent a four day creative development in June 2019 which led to its first public reading of the full script at Fairfield PYT. Their last creative development, Miranda had a week-long residency as part of Sydney Fringe Writer’s in Residency Program in September 2019. You can check out more about the residency here.
Miranda wrote about their experience with their different creative developments and he audacity of trying to get a ‘niche’ queer, Western Sydney work programmed here.
It was picked up for as part of National Theatre of Parramatta’s 2020/2021 season as part of Launchpad, a double-bill program supporting new Western Sydney work. Check out the photo gallery from its first performance, with all photos taken by Noni Carroll for National Theatre of Parramatta’s Riverside Theatre.
JUNE 2019 DEVELOPMENT VIDEO
LONG TABLE VIDEO
AUGUST 2018 DEVELOPMENT VIDEO
READING AT PLAYLIST 2019
Photography by Clare Hawley
PERSONNEL
Writer: Miranda Aguilar
Dramaturgs: Tasnim Hossain, Iain Sinclair
The Riverside National Theatre of Parramatta cast and crew for the March 18-20 season was credited as:
Playwright
Miranda Aguilar
Director
Valerie Berry
Cast
Brooke Lee
Gloria Demillo
Tommy Misa
Rose Maher
Jemma Rivera
Costume and Set Designer Melanie Liertz
Lighting Benjamin Brockman
Sound Design Me-Lee Hay
Supported by CuriousWorks, National Theatre of Parramatta, PWA, The Q at The Joan Theatre, and Blacktown Arts Centre.
The project’s presentation was supported by the Australia Council of the Arts, the Australian Government’s arts funding and advisory body.
Miranda’s development as an artist and community leader on this project has been supported by Curious Women, a program funded by the Australia Council of the Arts.