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Act It Out - about (preview)

About Act It Out

What we do, and who’s behind it.

Act It Out is a drama program that dance studios and early learning centres run with their own team. This is the short version: what it is, and who wrote it.

What it is

Act It Out is a drama program your own team runs. Lesson plans, video walkthroughs, voiceovers and scripts, all delivered through an app. Nobody new to hire, and nothing to write.

Dance studios and early learning centres around Australia license it, and their own people deliver it week to week. That is the whole idea. The person a child already trusts is the person standing in front of them.

The five things we’re actually teaching

Every lesson ladders back to one of five. They are the reason the program exists.

  • C

    Confidence

    Standing up in front of people and being fine about it.

  • C

    Communication

    Saying the thing so the room actually hears it.

  • C

    Connection

    Working with the person next to you, including the one you would not have picked.

  • C

    Consent

    Asking before you touch someone, and hearing no without it being a problem.

  • C

    Creativity

    Making something up on the spot and letting it be imperfect.

What we’re not doing

Act It Out is not a talent search. No child is being groomed for a career, and nobody is going to be told they could be the next anything.

The promise is smaller than that, and more useful. A child who can hold a room, and who can say no and mean it, has something they will use every week for the rest of their life.

Who wrote it

Kristy Wright and Zoe Trilsbach wrote Act It Out after decades working across Australian performing arts and education. They have both taught the classes as well as performed. Every lesson and every video walkthrough comes from people who know what it takes to hold a room full of five year olds, and a room full of fifteen year olds.

Zoe Trilsbach

Zoe Trilsbach

Co-founder

Zoe has spent her working life on a stage or in front of a microphone. She was signed to Sony Music with the pop group Cherry in 1998, played in Saturday Night Fever, Dusty, Pippin and We Will Rock You, then co-founded Workhorse Theatre Company in Sydney and was nominated for a Sydney Theatre Award for Best Lead Actress. On screen she has appeared in The Last King of the Cross, Prosper, Janet King and Tricky Business.

She was also the original voice of the ABC Kids albums, which is the part that matters most here. It is why the guided voiceovers hold a child’s attention the way they do. Zoe is a mum of two.

Kristy Wright

Kristy Wright

Co-founder

Kristy landed Police Rescue at fourteen and went on to play Chloe Richards on Home and Away, which earned her two Logie nominations. Her screen work runs from Above the Law and Crash Palace through to Stranded Pearl and Christmas Down Under, with a stint in Los Angeles and Advanced Diplomas in Screenwriting and Producing from AFTRS in between.

Then she started teaching. Kristy founded Indigo Kids, her own screen acting school for children, and has been mentoring there for seven years. She now also teaches on the resident faculty at Ettingshausens PRO. Kristy is a mum of one.

And one more pair of eyes

Troy Harrison

Troy Harrison

Consultant

Troy has spent over twenty years acting and teaching across stage and screen. He heads the Accessible Acting Program and is head acting tutor in the Bachelor of Performing Arts at Actors Central Australia, and he co-founded Workhorse Theatre Company alongside Zoe. He consults on the program.

Where to next

If you run a dance studio or an early learning centre, the program pages have the detail. If you are a parent, there is nothing here to buy. Act It Out is licensed to the studio or the centre, so the person to mention it to is yours.

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Act It Out acknowledges the Dharawal speaking people, who are the Traditional Custodians and owners of the land on which we work and play today. We pay our deepest respects and highest gratitude to the Elders, past and present, who have protected the lands and waterways and all life within since the time of the Dreaming, and to all Indigenous People who honour and keep the community and culture alive today. Always has been, always will be, Aboriginal land.