By Mr Nick Akhurst, Head of Co-Curricular Drama, Dance and Technical Theatre

In 2019, then Year 11 student Tom Berger and his fellow technical theatre students took up the challenge of making the human-eating Venus Flytrap, Audrey II, for the Little Shop of Horrors musical. After seeing the cost of hiring the prop and not being impressed with the quality, the technical crew came up with a plan. This was a huge undertaking, with Tom and his team creating an original design and building the plant from scratch; easily more than 150 hours went into its creation. The plant came alive in Tom’s garage and then on stage in T.B. Millar Hall.

So far, we have had two schools ask to copy our design, and two schools have used the plant in their productions. Last year, it was used by St Edmund's College in Canberra and in Week 1 of this term, it went on a little trip to visit the previous Head of Music Heidi Anthony at Kinross Wolaroi School in Orange. This is a testament to the high quality of work our technical students do to enhance each show.

We hope Audrey II had a nice trip, was well fed and will, hopefully, return home soon.