Curriculum texts brought to life and expertly decoded

about the
PERFORMANCE SYMPOSIA SERIES

Devised by acclaimed director Damien Ryan, Sport for Jove's Performance Symposia Series returns in 2027 with an unmissable fusion of live theatre and exam-ready analysis. Watch the plays' pivotal scenes performed live on stage by actors, then go deeper as our team explore multiple layers of meaning in these classic texts, through sophisticated, evidence-based critical and creative commentary.

This is the full package: the raw, visceral connection to the drama that brings a text to life, paired with the precise analytical tools students need to write with confidence under exam conditions. We distill the key ingredients — language, character, structure, meaning — into curriculum-aligned insights built from more than three decades of teaching experience.

STUDENT RESOURCE KIT PROVIDED

CAST MEET AND GREET AND PHOTO OPPORTUNITY AFTER EVERY SHOW

Texts

When does power become tyranny? When does murder ensure freedom?

Our Performance Symposium of Julius Caesar places these questions at its heart, revealing Shakespeare's political thriller as a work of startling contemporary relevance. Drawing compelling connections with Machiavelli's The Prince, this new symposium explores leadership as performance, persuasion as power and public opinion as the battleground upon which nations rise and fall.

Created for students studying the new NSW HSC course, this fast-paced staging foregrounds the play's extraordinary rhetorical brilliance. Speeches become weapons. Crowds become protagonists. Every political decision reverberates through a society struggling to distinguish principle from ambition, loyalty from betrayal and liberty from authoritarianism.

Rather than presenting ancient Rome as a distant civilisation, the Performance Symposium reveals a world that feels unsettlingly familiar, inviting students to interrogate the responsibilities of leaders, the fragility of democratic institutions and the ethics of political action.

For teachers, the approach offers a rich platform for exploring Shakespeare's dramatic methods alongside the enduring ideas that continue to shape political thought. For students, it demonstrates the unique power of live theatre to transform historical texts into urgent civic conversations.

In an era increasingly defined by contested truth and public spectacle, Julius Caesar reminds us that the questions Shakespeare asked over four hundred years ago remain among the most pressing of our own.

English Advanced – HSC Module A: Textual Conversations.

Students are invited to investigate political leadership, power, ethics and persuasion across different historical contexts. Students explore rhetoric, dramatic structure and political philosophy while considering how composers reimagine enduring ideas for new audiences. Also supports studies in Ancient and Modern History, History Extension and Drama.

Few plays speak more urgently to the twenty-first century than Othello.

Set within a recognisably contemporary world, this Performance Symposium examines Shakespeare's devastating tragedy through the pressures facing young people today: toxic masculinity, racial prejudice, coercive control, misinformation, public identity and the destructive power of manipulation. Without simplifying Shakespeare's complexity, the production creates an immediate point of connection between the play's enduring ideas and the realities students encounter in modern life.

Designed for the new NSW HSC curriculum, the Symposium highlights the play's extraordinary psychological precision and dramatic craftsmanship while embracing the intimacy and immediacy of live theatre. As Iago engineers suspicion and fear with chilling intelligence, audiences witness how language itself becomes a weapon—capable of reshaping relationships, identity and truth.

For teachers, the Symposium supports close engagement with the text's major themes, dramatic techniques and historical significance. For students, it demonstrates why Shakespeare remains one of our greatest observers of human behaviour, exposing patterns of manipulation and violence that continue to shape contemporary society.

More than a study text, Othello becomes a deeply human experience. Shared in the theatre, its moments of tenderness, humour and unbearable tragedy unfold with an emotional force impossible to replicate on the page, reminding audiences that Shakespeare's greatest plays are meant to be lived and felt communally.

English Advanced – HSC Module B: Critical Study of Literature.

Students to develop an informed personal response through close analysis of Shakespeare's language, dramatic structure and theatrical conventions; and examine characterisation, tragedy, race, gender, manipulation and power while evaluating how performance choices shape meaning for contemporary audiences. Particularly valuable for English and Drama students.

Honour is forged in fire. Power in patience. Dishonour can overrule both.

This visceral Performance Symposium of Henry IV, Part 1 returns Shakespeare's history to its medieval roots—a world of mud, steel, ash, blood and relentless political uncertainty. Here, kingship is not an abstract idea but something won, defended and inherited through cunning, violence, loyalty and sacrifice.

Created for students studying the new NSW HSC syllabus, the work explores the play's enduring questions about leadership, honour, power and identity through an intensely physical theatrical language. The volatile relationship between Prince Hal and Hotspur unfolds against a landscape scarred by civil conflict, while the irrepressible Falstaff reminds us that history is always contested, comic and profoundly human.

Rather than presenting Shakespeare as distant history, Sport for Jove reveals the fierce emotional stakes that continue to resonate with contemporary audiences. Students encounter not simply the origins of a future king, but a young leader negotiating expectation, performance and self-invention in a fractured political world.

For teachers, the symposium offers a vivid exploration of the play's major concerns and dramatic structure. For students, it provides the unforgettable and immersive experience of witnessing Shakespeare's language emerge from living bodies, clashing swords and the raw theatrical energy for which these plays were originally written.

History is never static. On stage, it breathes, bleeds and demands to be reckoned with.

English Advanced – HSC Module B: Critical Study of Literature.

Supports close study of one of Shakespeare's richest histories, exploring kingship, honour, rebellion, identity and the performance of leadership. Students analyse dramatic form, language and character while considering how theatrical interpretation reveals the text's enduring significance. Also provides valuable context for students of History and Drama.

The Crucible is one of those rare plays that grows more urgent with every generation and, having left the HSC syllabus, becomes a powerful anchor for Year 11 students toward a profound understanding of dramatic storytelling. Arthur Miller's masterpiece refuses easy answers, challenging students to navigate the dangerous intersection of truth, fear, power, identity and reputation. Why do communities create scapegoats? How does ideology overwhelm reason? When does silence become complicity? And what is a name really worth?

This Performance Symposium places language, argument and moral choice centre stage, revealing the extraordinary theatricality beneath the text's intellectual rigour. The Crucible is a live act of critical thinking and Sport for Jove’s Symposium on the text, led by Damien Ryan, is theatre that doesn't simply illuminate the play—it can inspire and challenge the way students read it and respond to it.

English Year 11 & Drama.

Students meet dramatic literature’s exploration of fear, power, justice, integrity and mass hysteria live in performance; deepening understanding of dramatic form, characterisation and theatrical conventions while encouraging critical discussion of historical context, authorial purpose and the continuing relevance of the play's political and moral questions. An invaluable resource for both English and Drama students.

How does Shakespeare create wonder? How can wonder foster forgiveness?

This unique Performance Symposium transforms the theatre into a living rehearsal room, inviting students behind the scenes of Shakespeare's extraordinary play. Full scenes unfold in performance before opening up for artists to reveal the choices, questions and discoveries that shape interpretation, demonstrating how language, symbols, themes and performative ideas combine to create meaning within Shakespeare’s plays.

Designed specifically for Year 11 students, this immersive experience celebrates The Tempest as both a compelling story and an endlessly inventive piece of theatre. Themes of power, forgiveness, colonial encounter, freedom, illusion and imagination emerge not simply through discussion, but through the practical process of making the play live before the audience's eyes.

Rather than treating Shakespeare as a text to decode, students witness the exhilarating process of theatrical investigation. They discover that every pause, gesture, image and line offers multiple possibilities, encouraging curiosity, critical thinking and confidence in their own interpretations.

Part performance, part masterclass and part creative laboratory, this Performance Symposium reminds students that Shakespeare never wrote plays to sit silently on a page. He wrote them to be questioned, explored, challenged and brought vividly to life in front of an audience.

What happens when authority collapses? When families fracture? When the cosmos itself seems to react to human uncertainties?

Our Performance Symposium of King Lear invites students into one of Shakespeare's most profound tragedies, revealing how the poet and the function of performance wrestle with the play's enormous emotional and philosophical questions. Complete scenes are performed with full dramatic intensity before the creative team opens up the work, examining how language makes living theatre.

Created for Year 11 students, this dynamic experience explores the play's central concerns—power, justice, identity, ageing, love, loyalty and the search for meaning in a world that often appears indifferent to human suffering. Students witness how Shakespeare's language shifts between intimate psychological realism and epic theatrical spectacle, discovering why King Lear continues to challenge artists and audiences alike.

Throughout the performance, rehearsal becomes a form of investigation. Different interpretations are tested in front of the audience, demonstrating that Shakespeare's plays invite debate rather than definitive answers. Students gain valuable insight into dramatic construction while developing the confidence to form sophisticated personal responses.

This is more than a performance and more than a lecture. It is an invitation into the creative heart of Shakespeare's theatre, where every rehearsal asks new questions and every performance uncovers fresh possibilities.

Our brand new Performance Symposium, designed specifically for students studying the new NSW HSC module, explores the emotional centre of Hamlet and Ophelia’s journeys in a world of upheaval, creating in the process an evocative theatrical dialogue with the poetry of Emily Dickinson.

Incorporating scenes from Lizzie Schebesta’s new production, the Hamlet + Dickinson Performance Symposium provides further opportunities to delve into the central concerns of both prescribed texts: mortality, identity, grief, imagination, language and the elusive search for meaning.

For students, this event combines live performance with sophisticated, evidence-based critical and creative commentary. It is an invitation to encounter Hamlet not as a museum piece, but as urgent, immediate theatre—alive with ambiguity, beauty and emotional risk.

English Advanced – HSC Module A: Textual Conversations.

Students examine how these texts converse across time through shared ideas, values and contexts; and how language, dramatic form and poetic expression shape meaning, while developing sophisticated responses to intertextuality, perspective, identity, mortality, memory and the human experience. Highly relevant for both English and Drama students.

why sport for jove?

Practical benefits for students and teachers:

Hear one of Australia’s leading theatre makers, Damien Ryan, and professional actors unpack ambiguities and staging choices that can help illuminate, ignite and reinforce the powerful conversations you are having in class.
The detailed Student Resource Kit gives your students a ready reference for revision and essay scaffolding.
Affordably priced to provide access for all students
Clear, explicit links to syllabus outcomes, including critical appraisal of live performance, and close, detailed study of texts.
Students have access to the actors following the event, deepening a feeling of connection and inter-personal engagement.
Gives students concrete, transferable critical-thinking skills to utilise in their HSC and beyond.

1/4

“The symposium was an incredibly beneficial experience for my HSC students, providing them with unique insights into the text along with analysis and advice on how to apply this new knowledge to potential exam questions. My students feel they have gained a deeper level of understanding of The Crucible and have an increased level of confidence to apply it to their extended responses.”

English Teacher at Wingham High School

Seymour

The Joan

Dates and Booking

SEYMOUR CENTRE, chippendale

julius caesar + the prince

TUE, 9 MAR

WED, 10 MAR

THU, 11 MAR

FRI, 12 MAR

TUE, 8 JUN

WED, 9 JUN

1:00PM

9:30AM

1:00PM

9:30AM

1:00PM

Henry IV, Part 1

TUE, 10 JUN

TUE, 15 JUN

THU, 17 JUN

TUE, 22 JUN

FRI, 25 JUN

9:30AM

1:00PM

Othello

MON, 8 MAR

TUE, 9 MAR

THU, 11 MAR

THU, 25 MAR

MON, 7 JUN

WED, 9 JUN

FRI, 11 JUN

11:00AM

9:30AM

1:00PM

9:30AM

The Crucible

MON, 7 JUN

THU, 10 JUN

1:00PM

JOIN THE WAITLIST

The Tempest

King lear

WED, 10 MAR

FRI, 12 MAR

FRI, 11 JUN

1:00PM

9:30AM

1:00PM

TUE, 8 JUN

THU, 24 JUN

1:00PM

join the waitlist

The Joan, Penrith

OTHELLO

julius caesar +

the prince

WED, 3 MAR

1:00PM

WED, 3 MAR

9:30AM

join the waitlist

Riverside Live At Phive, parramatta

HENRY IV, PART 1

julius caesar +

the prince

OTHELLO

THU, 13 MAY

FRI, 14 MAY

9:30AM

1:00PM

JOIN THE WAITLIST

TUE, 11 MAY

WED, 12 MAY

1:00PM

9:30AM

JOIN THE WAITLIST

TUE, 11 MAY

THU, 13 MAY

9:30AM

1:00PM

JOIN THE WAITLIST

THE TEMPEST

HAMLET + DICKINSON

FRI, 14 MAY

9:30AM

MON, 10 MAY

10:30AM

JOIN THE WAITLIST

THE CRUCIBLE

WED, 12 MAY

1:00PM

JOIN THE WAITLIST

THE CONCOURSE, CHATSWOOD

HENRY IV, PART 1

julius caesar +

the prince

OTHELLO

TUE, 1 JUN

9:30AM

TUE, 1 JUN

1:00PM

JOIN THE WAITLIST

WED, 2 JUN

10:00AM

JOIN THE WAITLIST

THE TEMPEST

KING LEAR

MON, 31 MAY

THU, 3 JUN

10:30AM

1:00PM

FRI, 4 JUN

9:30AM

HAMLET + DICKINSON

FRI, 4 JUN

1:00PM

JOIN THE WAITLIST

THE CRUCIBLE

THU, 3 JUN

9:30AM

JOIN THE WAITLIST

ORANGE CIVIC THEATRE

julius caesar +

the prince

WED, 28 APR

12:30PM

join the waitlist

OTHELLO

WED, 28 APR

9:30AM

JOIN THE WAITLIST

MACBETH

THUR, 29 APR

9:30AM

JOIN THE WAITLIST

ROMEO AND JULIET

THU, 29 APR

12:30PM

JOIN THE WAITLIST

PHIVE

The Concourse

Orange

Curriculum texts brought to life and expertly decoded

about the PERFORMANCE SYMPOSIA SERIES

Texts

why sport for jove?

about the
PERFORMANCE SYMPOSIA SERIES