WA Youth Theatre Company presents The Comprehensive A-Z of Missing Persons Australia at Liberty Theatre

Each year, some 55,000 people go missing in Australia, and young people make up a disproportionate number of that figure. While most of those reported missing are found soon after, the whereabouts of thousands remain unknown. This is the startling statistic Asian Australian theatre-maker, playwright and actor Grace Chow could not shake after learning it during a Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company project, where a diverse range of writers from across Australia and New Zealand were commissioned to respond to the 2021 case of Cleo Smith’s abduction. The first thing WA Academy of Performing Arts 2020 graduate Chow did when receiving the writing commission was jump into research mode, discovering the Australian Federal Police’s long-term missing persons register, and a determination to create a new work out of this registry. “Going through those cases really touched me,” the 24-year-old creative from Crawley shares. “It just became very apparent that our pop culture relationship to the missing persons issue in Australia is just more wayward than we realise. That it’s a community issue, not necessarily a police issue, or just an issue for podcasts, true crime and salacious gossip. I wanted to use my skills as a writer in some way to platform the voices who really want to be heard.” Needing a new theatre company home for her script, Chow returned to her old stamping ground of WA Youth Theatre Company, pitching the play to new artistic director Amelia Burke who, coincidentally, has firsthand experience of a missing friend. “It was a really great fit for the WA Youth Theatre Company because half of missing persons Australia cases are youth related,” Chow says, who was awarded the prestigious Griffin Award in 2022 for her play The Promise Land. “I had written it as just a WA piece, and I really wanted to expand that to Australia wide, to platform all 800 cases, and to reference all those names in the registry. Amelia was really keen on it, and she commissioned the work, and we have developed it with youth in mind and with youth actors in the room.” Directed by Burke and performed by a cast of 10 WAYTCo youth members aged 18 to 26, The Comprehensive A-Z of Missing Persons Australia will be performed in November at Liberty Theatre — the abandoned cinema a most dramaturgically fitting venue. “It’s a forgotten space, and these are forgotten stories,” Chow says. “I guess the mystery of the space and the stories and the walls kind of echo and reflect that. There’s something really awesome about a space that is abandoned and filling it with life, and then leaving, what that means in the context of this work.” Chow could not have written the play without fostering a number of relationships with people in Australia’s missing persons community who either have firsthand experience of a missing loved one, or helping those left without answers, including families and first responders. “It was one of those issues that you really wanted to handle with care during the interviews,” Chow says. “But what I found was that they were really keen to platform the stories and the needs of people who have been left behind by those missing Australians. More often than not, those families want opportunities to engage with the media, and so this was another opportunity for them to platform their stories. What I found was actually a real openness . . . because there is so much to share when you’re experiencing ambiguous loss or working with that.” Designed as a national conversation starter, the play weaves together the stories of more than 800 long-term missing Australians listed on the register — from Aaron Clear to Zoran Kostantinnovic — through surreal scenes, verbatim reports and a central storyline featuring Em Wells, a young radio host who has a missing family member. “She’s one of the through lines of the play,” Chow explains. “She is a sister to someone who has gone missing and you kind of see the rainbow of the work through her lens, of what she’s experiencing as someone who’s going through ambiguous loss. You kind of experience the grief and the issue and the kaleidoscope of scenes through her internal experience. “I hope audiences find a sympathy and an empathy for the families of those who have been left behind. I hope that it renews a fresh and different understanding of the missing persons Australia issue. How pressing it is and a sad sense of ‘Let’s do something about it’.” The Comprehensive A-Z of Missing Persons Australia is at Liberty Theatre, Perth, November 19 to 30. Tickets at eventbrite.com.au.