Theatre creator and performer Stephen Noonan has been enthralling audiences with his incredible productions for over thirty years. Through his work, he looks for ways of making performances that communicate with his young audiences. Stephen Noonan’s current work is in Theatre for Early Years (TEY), 6mth–8 years of age, field. With over 30 years of professional practice he has devised and performed throughout Australia and internationally.
At this year’s DreamBIG Children’s Festival, Stephen’s wonderful production The Boy and the Ball will be performed over the weekend of May 10 and 11 in the Hazel Lecture Theatre, State Library of South Australia.
The Boy and the Ball is a story about how one friend can become many. In a quiet world, simply constructed from cylinders of all shapes and sizes, we meet a shy boy and witness how he makes a friend with the assistance of his ball. This nonverbal performance is a wondrous tale of reassurance, joy and connection…with a little visual magic.
Stephen spoke to Glam Adelaide about the creative process behind The Boy and the Ball and what it is about creating theatre and performing that he finds so infectious and led him to forge such a successful career in the industry.
“I think it’s two main things. One it’s getting to work with artistic colleagues that really inspire me to find new ways of making a work and engaging the imagination. That’s the other reason why I really do what I do – I love creating. When I’m creating a work, initially it’s quite messy. It’s quite chaotic, and I’m often struggling to see how it’s all going to happen. I think that’s a necessary part of any artistic process. You have to be in a messy world, and let the imagination play. Once you’ve set some things into the logical world, that’s where we start to create narrative and meaning. So for me, and I think for many artists, we love being in that world of the imagination and the ‘what-ifs’. I’m 56 now, and it still surprises me every time I go, ‘Oh! I didn’t know that could happen’. I think a wonderful part of being a human is just surprising yourself. As an artist I think that’s what really keeps me engaged in that process, being in that whimsical world of play and discovery, and then you move into the world of logic, and then out of that, I think, comes real original work and real creativity.”
Stephen currently is focusing on creating theatre for early years. We asked him how important it is to introduce creative and performing arts to the very young.
“I think there’s a couple of ways you can look at that. You can look at it from a rights-based perspective – a human right. All children, all people, have rights to have access to their culture. So, for children, their culture can be an ethnographic culture, but it can just be the culture of play. And I think that’s a completely valid reason why you should be introducing it. But I also think that this is a world that children understand and thrive in. It just makes sense to be delivering artistic work for them, as they understand that world of whimsy and play so well. That’s the world they live in. Especially in the show The Boy and the Ball, which is for three to four-year-olds. By the time the four-year-old is at preschool and starting to work in the world of institutions, whether it’s childcare or kindergarten or school, then that world of logic really kicks in – order and rules. But before that, they really just live in that world of imagination. We want to hold on to that idea for as long as we can and foster that. So that’s why I think we should be creating really high quality artistic works for that age group, because that’s the world that they live and thrive in.”
Stephen shared with us the creative process he and the team went through when developing The Boy and the Ball.
“I’d love to say it was a thunderbolt of an idea that came to me and that I knew exactly what I’m going to do. But like all shows that I make, they tend to take a long time. The director, designer and the musician involved spent a good 12 months looking at ideas before we started to put pieces together. It’s a long process. We created a whole bunch of content and we started to look at what the story that threads it all together could be. Then we landed on the whole concept of a child who is shy with a basketball at a playground who rolls it to another group of kids, who then roll it back, creating friendships and playing through connections. It’s a simple act, but you see it happen all over the world. Once we had that main concept, then the rest fell into place.”
The Boy and the Ball will be performed over the weekend of May 10 and 11 with performances at 12.30pm and 2.00pm on both days.
“This year is as special a festival for me as it was 40 years ago. I did my first DreamBIG Festival when I was in high school. So it’s just a wonderful time to come and present to Adelaide audiences a show that I’m really proud of. It really speaks directly to its rather niche audience.”
The Boy and the Ball
Age Suitability: Ages 3 – 4
Hetzel Lecture Theatre – State Library of South Australia
10 – 11 May, 2025
https://dreambig.adelaidefestivalcentre.com.au/whats-on/the-boy-the-ball
Photo credit: Andy Rasheed (EyeFood Photography)
