Malthouse Theatre presents CHASE

Meet Chase. She’s living her best life.

Hailing from the streets of Frankston, Chase is the itch you can’t scratch.

Compelling, repelling, and disarmingly funny, join her as she sifts through the weeds of modern culture with a handy cam and her 33 YouTube subscribers for company. If only Chase understood half of what she helps others discover.

Carly Sheppard has been developing and performing the character of Chase for nearly a decade and has continued to develop its persona through different independent performances over the years. In 2019, she was the recipient of a Green Room Award for Best Production In Experimental Theatre for Crackers N Dip With Chase N Toey.

Though the character has evolved from a skit to a one- woman show, Chase’s role as a mirror back to Australia remains appropriate—due in large part to Chase’s constant inappropriateness. But therein lies her power to spark conversations about race and class.

Combining Carly’s unique comedic skill and political awareness—and with the assistance of projected visuals, she invites her audience into the juxtaposed digital and physical world as she confronts us to consider how we continue to benefit from colonialism.

Malthouse Theatre’s Artist in Residence Kamarra Bell- Wykes (Chopped Liver, North West of Nowhere, Body Armour, Viral and Scar Trees) directs this confronting and sometimes shocking exploration of race, class and gender in a semi-fictional apocalyptic world.

‘Chase is the interruption to the loop, the things you can’t say, the reflection you can never unsee and the tragedy you can’t look away from’ said Kamarra Bell- Wykes.

Meet Chase. And you just might see yourself.

Chase is supported by the 2021 Malcolm Robertson Writers Program, a program which commissions two emerging artists per year to write a new Australian work for theatre.

Tickets on presale now to Malthouse Muses & Mates at malthousetheatre.com.au.

Tickets on sale to general public 9am, Monday 30 August 2021.

Header photo by Gregory Lorenzutti

Gabi Bergman

Gabi Bergman (she/her) is a Melbourne-based performer and educator, and the current Deputy Editor-in-Chief of AussieTheatre.com. She holds a double degree in Theatre Studies and Film/Screen Studies, along with a Master of Teaching (Secondary Education). A passionate advocate for inclusion and diversity in the arts, Gabi brings her deep love of storytelling to the stage, the page, and the classroom. A lifelong lover of theatre, she spends more on tickets than she’d like to admit. Her most prized possession is her ever-growing collection of theatre programs.