To celebrate our 30th anniversary, the Victorian Youth Theatre (VYT) is proud to present a remount of our acclaimed production of Peter Brook & Jean-Claude Carriere’s masterpiece The Conference of the Birds. Based on the epic poem by 12th century Persian poet Farid ud-Din Attar, this beautiful production combines movement, music and storytelling to create a moving theatrical experience. The Conference of the Birds is a captivating tale of birds that live in a world that has slowly fallen into a state of disarray. Travelling through hope, despair and dreams, the birds chase the mythical Simorgh, the King who will bring order and restore all that has been lost.

It has been an honour to work with such talented young actors and to bring quality entertainment for and by young people to the Fringe Festival. The Conference of the Birds is an endlessly fascinating text, and the performers have risen to challenge of creating a piece that can only exist in the theatre.

My first experience of this wonderful play was as a student actor, in a production directed by VYT Head of Drama, Tony Nikolakopoulos. To a young performer, The Conference of the Birds was a terrific introduction to a form of theatre completely removed from the realism of film and television, and from the traditional youth theatre productions of pantomimes, musicals, potted Shakespeare and kid’s theatre scripts. This production owes its genesis to Tony’s production of 1994.

After the joy of our 2013 production, the chance to re-embark on this adventure with another great cast has been very exciting. Rehearsed over an intensive eight days, we have once again been blessed with the invaluable support of Jennifer McKenzie our costume designer, Linda Hum our lighting designer and Lucy O’Brien our musical director, alongside new team member, Josh Mulcahy, our Assistant Director.