by
ALANA VALENTINE  

About Hay Institute for Girls

The Hay Institution for Girls was opened in the old Hay Gaol in 1961. It was annexe of Parramatta Girls Training School, and held 12 girls aged 15 to 18 who had committed offences, including rioting to protest their treatment, while they were in Parramatta.

The first girls were transferred from Parramatta in September 1961. Transfers occurred at night with girls escorted by officers on the long train journey to Narrandera, then placed in a lockup van. Girls were usually sedated with largactil or valium during the journey. On arrival they were issued with institutional clothes, had their hair cropped short and were locked in a ‘scrubbing’ cell, usually for a period of 10 days. After this they were placed in another cell, known as ‘cabins’, for the remainder of their stay. Each cell was furnished with a single bad, thin mattress, a blanket, sheets, pillow, Bible and a night can.

Discipline at Hay was brutal, with girls’ every movement, action and word controlled and directed by officers. The daily routine was designed to humiliate and control. All communication occurred via a reporting procedure, where girls remained silent, standing six feet apart, with ‘eyes to the floor’. Girls had no privacy and did not receive visitors, schooling or mail.

Education and training amounting to hard labour: smashing concrete paths; digging; scrubbing; hand sewing leather, and other repetitive tasks, interspersed with physical exercises known as ‘practices’.

The Hay Institution for Girls became the subject of widespread community condemnation and closed in 1974. 

Source: https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/entity/institution-for-girls-hay/

FROM THE DIRECTOR

Theatre can be lots of things – sometimes it brings us joy and an escape into another world – other times it can tell us stories of the human experience – and challenge us with stories that are not easy to hear.

Verbatim Theatre is a powerful form of Contemporary Australian Theatre that is based on lived experience and often told in the words of those who were there.

Eyes to the Floor by Alana Valentine tells the story of the Hay Institute for Girls in NSW told by women who survived it.

Supported by archival footage and images of Hay and its inmates, our Senior Tread the Boards class are proud to tell these stories of survival and strength in the face of Institutional abuse.

CAST

  • SPENCER HERMES-REBELLO

    NAYLOR

  • SUMMER LEDINGHAM

    MRS KAY

  • LUCAS BROWN

    FEURIDI / LENNY

  • DEXTER RYAN

    HAWKINS

NAYLOR BY SCENE

  • TASMAN GREW-JONES

    NAYLOR AND MRS KAY

  • LUAN FITZGERALD

    NAYLOR AND JANE / OFFICER 2

  • DUSTIN BRYANT

    NAYLOR HAIRCUT MONOLOGUE / OFFICER 1

  • NOA FOGARTY

    NAYLOR AND MARJORIE / MARJORIE'S FATHER

THE INMATES OF HAY

  • ARWEN BOYD

    FIONA

  • SAJE ROBERTS

    JANE

  • BRIDGET HENDERSON

    MARJORIE

  • HAYLEY GRIFFIN

    DANIELLA

  • TAVIA WILCOX

    GWEN

HAY GIRLS ENSEMBLE

Summer Staples, Isla Florence, Madalyn Davies, Caitlynn Verster, Erika lane, Link Ly, Eva Thompson, Madison Hirst, Madeline Harding, Summer Andrews

CREATIVE TEAM

Director – Cilla Scott

AV Design – Cilla Scott

Lighting Design — Thomas Bell

Lighting Operator

Costumes – Cilla Scott and Kim ReynoldS

production Photography – David and Beau Reynolds

Program + headshots – Trina Power