For some people the fear of buying dark chocolate may be about the effect on one’s waistline. However for someone with severe social anxiety and agoraphobia, venturing outside at the request of your psychologist becomes about a whole bunch of other things as well.
Having acted out the challenges for his HSC Drama assessors, The Armidale School’s Calliden Hunter was thrilled to learn that his individual performance of Pete Malicki’s monologue Shallow, Quick has been nominated for OnStage, which showcases the best HSC major works in Drama.
“When I stumbled across this piece online I knew immediately that it was something I could play to my strengths,” Calliden said.
“As I’ve had my own struggles with social anxiety I thought it would be funny to ramp this up for my performance. It’s a very fast and comedic script, so one of the biggest challenges in learning it was being able to speak very rapidly without getting completely tongue-tied. I had a lot of doubts about my ability to pull the performance together at all, so it was incredibly rewarding to have set myself a challenge and come out on top of it.”
With a passion for the performing arts that he hopes to pursue after leaving school, Calliden said he was “absolutely ecstatic” about the nomination.
“It could really open a lot of doors for me,” he said.
Headmaster Murray Guest congratulated Calliden on the nomination and said it was all the more impressive given he is studying three other subjects that also have a major work component: Visual Arts, Design & Technology and Music.
Around 60 works from students from across NSW have been nominated for OnStage, with the finalists announced later in the year.
Calliden Hunter’s individual HSC Drama piece has been nominated for OnStage.
