Christian Tagliaferro and Anne-Louise Rentell, along with the rest of The Strangeways Ensemble, have begun rehearsing in situ at Town Hall for The Seven. Photo: Region.
The Strangeways Ensemble is back this year for its biennial production, and this time, its members are fixing to give us goosebumps.
Home-grown thriller The Seven premieres at Wollongong Town Hall this month, promising a witty approach to horror and conspiracy tropes, exploring notions of visibility and the unknown.
The show is a splice of timelines, starting with a group of seven friends who, on their way home from seeing a concert in Sydney in 1964, disappear and become a local legend.
In 2024, a grisly discovery at the Helensburgh Tunnel forces the reopening of the 60-year-old case, and old grudges and conspiracy theories that have circled the mystery for years bubble to the surface.
Under the direction of theatre-maker Anne-Louise Rentell, The Strangeways Ensemble has been making and touring original theatre work since 2014.
For more than a decade, Wollongong’s only professional theatre ensemble has created genre-bending theatre such as Trash Talk and Something That Happened, infused with trademark humour, gravity and insight.
But The Seven marks the first time the ensemble of neurodiverse actors and musicians has presented something in the horror genre.
Strangeways’s last work Something That Happened was grounded in neurodiverse experience (a hallmark of the ensemble), but was full of light and comedy.
Ensemble member Christian Tagliaferro says this year, the ensemble had a clear appetite for something a bit darker and more mysterious.
“Even before Something That Happened had ended, our cast member Phil (Prentice) was saying he wanted to do something along the horror line,” he says.
“About a week before we were asked the big question, I was listening to an episode of my podcast that talked about the Yuba County Five — a missing persons case/mystery where a group of friends go to a basketball game but don’t make it home.
“We started making comparisons to the Dyatlov Pass incident, and it all snowballed into The Seven.”
The Seven is a departure for The Strangeways Ensemble, in more ways than one.
A collection of colourful characters — a town mayor, a paranormal investigator, a conspiracy theorist and even a ghost — are brought to life by the ensemble.
Anne-Louise says there was also a push to do a site-specific work, hence how the show ended up in Town Hall — another first for the ensemble.
“We riffed on all the ideas, and out came some supernatural elements, conspiracy theories and some thinking around what happens to true crime cases that remain unsolved,” she says.
“So then it became an exploration of belief systems and imaginative leaps.”
The Seven will hit Wollongong Town Hall later this month. Photo: Children of the Revolution.
Past productions by The Strangeways Ensemble have often centred on experiences of disability and neurodiversity — but The Seven marks a shift.
While those themes surface in moments, the focus here is elsewhere: audiences can expect a non-linear journey rich in atmosphere — and more than a few spine-tingling surprises.
The Seven takes place at Wollongong Town Hall from 21 to 29 November — book via Merrigong Theatre Company.
