Emmanuelle Mattana’s drag classroom satireTrophy Boys schools us on what’s inside the minds of our next generation of young men. When the all-male debate team at St Imperium College find themselves with one hour to prep their argument in answer to “feminism has failed women,” the school’s golden boys are faced with an issue that will confront their prejudices and expose the ways in which their elite education has sealed them off from the issues faced by those of the opposite sex, both within and beyond the walls of their red-brick institution.
“This smash hit has sold out across the country, and I didn’t want South Australian audiences to miss out,” says Petra Kalive, Artistic Director of State Theatre Company South Australia, with whom the play has been on a regional tour of South Australia before arriving at the Space Theatre in Adelaide. The play recently won Best New Work at the Sydney Theatre Awards in 2024 and received several nominations for its writing and production elsewhere; the result of a sold-out national tour, which was followed by an off-broadway run in the US.
Performed by a cast made up entirely of female and non-binary actors (Myfanwy Hocking, Fran Sweeney-Nash, Kidaan Zelleke and Tahlia Jamieson) in drag, the play unfolds in real-time as we watch these young men – future leaders no less, groomed as they are for success in politics, business and beyond – let their silver spoon-fed egos do the talking. They display a rhetoric that has only grown in recent years, with online figures like Andrew Tate and ‘manosphere’ influencers pushing a culture of misogyny onto young men the world over.
The result is a timely light on the undercurrents of male privilege and power that still coarse through the country today, though one which seeks not to condemn its boys but to propose that we can expect better from them with the right guidance and care. Mattana drew on their own experiences on a debate team in an Australian school when writing the play, and has previously said that its creation was motivated by a deep love for the young men they grew up around, and a belief that we can expect better from them in years to come.
“Bold, biting and riotously funny, this brilliant new Australian work will have you laughing, squirming and utterly gripped for its 70-minute ride,” says Kalive. “These are thrilling theatre makers, hitting the zeitgeist where it hurts.”
Trophy Boys, Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre, 17 Mar-2 Apr 2026