Company Name: Gay Sweatshop Theatre Company
Writer: Phillip Osment
Director: Philip Osment
Cast: William Elliott, Trevor Ferguson, Diane Hall, Suzy King, Margaret Robertson, Richard Sandells, Dougray Scott
Designer: Kate Owen
Year:1988
In 1988, Gay Sweatshop produced This Island’s Mine. Written and directed by Philip Osment, the title was taken from Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The play explores the correlation between political exiles and refugees and those experiencing alienation and marginalization within their own communities. The play shows how individuals are marred by their gender, class, ethnicity or sexuality, and excluded from the dominant culture by the stigmatization of being ‘other’. The Shakespeare line that is spoken in the final scene of the play, is a claim to entitlement and belonging, a member of a culture, that seeks to exile him.
Seven actors performed the show, sometimes addressing the audience in the third person and sometimes directly. This Island’s Mine was one of the most widely celebrated productions produced by Gay Sweatshop, it was highly applauded for both the writing and the performances.