Billie & The Outback Dinosaurs
A musical journey through an orchestral storytelling performance, where our hero, Billie, runs away from school bullies, falls through a mysterious waterfall, and discovers a world of dinosaurs.
We all know Tim Ferguson as part of the legendary Doug Anthony All Stars and more lately, as a popular comedic performer in his own right and an advocate for people living with multiple sclerosis. Now Tim brings his considerable talents to Billie and the Outback Dinosaurs. Together with award winning writer Chris Thompson, composer Geoff Willis and educational consultant David Willis, the team has created a musical journey through storytelling, movement and orchestral performance where audiences of young learners can consider the unique palaeontology of the Australian continent while meeting the hero of the story, Billie.
Billie lives in regional Australia, and likes science, history and geography but most of all she likes tinkering with old junk to make new inventions. When Billie runs away from school to escape being picked on by Rodney and his gang, she stumbles across a lost valley which is home to a world of Australian dinosaurs! Afraid at first, Billie soon makes friends with them and promises to keep the lost valley a secret, but that all changes when Rodney follows her into the valley and gets chased back to town by the most ferocious dinosaur. Will the secret of the lost valley be revealed, or will Billie save the day?
Billie & the Outback Dinosaurs by Stella Rose Productions is a rare mixture of music, movement and storytelling inviting audiences to discover the unique palaeontology of the Australian continent, and to meet an amazing young woman who finds her own strength to become the hero of the story.
Following the performance/presentation of Billie and the Outback Dinosaurs the two performers will conduct movement-based workshops for small groups of the audience where children can explore the physicality and sounds of the dinosaurs and the characters in the story, and use that (along with selections of music from the original score) to create their own tales from the Lost Valley.
Beyond the schools touring experience, an alternate version of the script exists where each character in the story can be played by students using live action and puppetry or costumes for the dinosaurs, either as a classroom-based drama project or as a full school production. The original score is also available for those schools with strong music programmes or orchestras who would welcome the challenge to play live as the story is told.
