Wollongong theatre group takes women's soccer to the stage

The Wolves traces the interactions of nine teen girls who are teammates in an indoor soccer team, offering the audience a look-in at everything from the girls' synchronised warm-up to the big battles waged with one another and themselves.

Performed in the round, and pitched as "a raw depiction of what it's like to be a teenage woman", the production centres around "a symphony of overlapping dialogue", so that different audience members will pick up different threads of conversation, depending on where they are sitting and what catches their ear.

The teens cover off topics including eating disorders, sexual pressure, menstruation, the new girl, the Khmer Rouge and more.

Western Crown Street's Side Door Theatre will be transformed into an indoor soccer field for the production, complete with wall-to-wall Astroturf and nets.

The company scheduled its production of the Sarah DeLappe's Pulitzer Prize-nominated work at the start of the year, unaware of the women's football fervour that would be whipped up by Australia's Matildas at the women's World Cup in July-August, said Jarrod Riesinger, creative director at Rising Arts Productions.

"I don't think anyone would have really imagined how they [the Matildas] captured the nation's heart the way they did," he said.

"It's very exciting to try and continue that momentum and try and shine a light on women in sport, women in theatre and women in general."

Directed by Sophie Bentley with an all-female cast and a mostly female production team, The Wolves opens at Wollongong's The Side Door Theatre on at 7.30pm on Friday, November 24 and runs for five shows until December 2.

Visit https://events.humanitix.com/thewolvesplay for tickets.