Gold in the Heart
“A wonderful combination of characters, music, information and amusing drama, with students joining the performance, taking on various character roles and actively discovering the amazing journeys of many immigrants who arrived on our shores during the gold rush. Audience members participated by taking on roles as protesting diggers and voicing their displeasure at the government’s Gold License. It was something students and staff all enjoyed.”
Cathy Samson, Castlemaine North PS
In Brief
GOLD IN THE HEART is music and storytelling theatre, telling the broad story of the 1850’s Victorian gold rush and highlighting the diggers conflict with the Government.
Five students take part of the show. (Scripts sent in advance.)
Curriculum: For Primary and Secondary students studying the 1850’s Victorian gold rush and its impact on Australia.
Primary – VELS 5-6, NAT 5 (Colonies)
Secondary – VELS 9-10
Duration: 50 minutes plus questions/discussion
Cost: $4.50 per student. Minimum $450 per show/ 10% discount for extra shows on same day.
A travel/accom. loading may apply in some locations.
Detailed description
GOLD IN THE HEART tells the story of the 1850’s gold rush through the adventures of an Irish gold digger, Denis O’Reilly
Utilizing digger’s songs, music and poetry, documents, maps, flags, newspaper reports and gold-seekers tales – European, Chinese and Indigenous - GOLD IN THE HEART paints a vivid picture of goldfields life and tracks the events that led to Eureka.
And as is typical of Jan’s scripts, GOLD IN THE HEART contains important but little known information about our history:
- How the diggers stand against the government license and police brutality began three years before Eureka, in 1851, with the Monster Meeting of 15,000 diggers near Castlemaine…
- then continued through Bendigo’s 1853 Red Ribbon Agitation…
- and erupted into bloodshed at Eureka/Ballarat in 1854.
It’s a story of how ordinary people dreamt of a better life and of democracy, and how some made it rich whilst others died, the diggers all the while singing of a ‘good time a coming’.
Jan ‘Yarn’ Wositzky lives in Castlemaine, where the gold rush history is etched into the landscape, and so, as always, he brings his personal experiences to this show.
In 2008 Jan produced five audio tours that tell the story of the Victorian gold rush.
Curriculum Details
Primary – VELS 5-6, NAT 5 (Colonies)
Secondary – VELS 9-10
History 1850’s gold rush. GOLD IN THE HEART talks about the 1850’s gold rush through a digger’s personal experiences in leaving home on a great adventure, and intersects that journey with the politics of the day: the government’s gold licence and diggers demand for a vote that led to Eureka and democracy in Australia.
The show also talks about the Jarra people who were displaced by the gold rush in central Victoria, and the many nationalities, including Chinese, that came here and stayed to be part of the mix in Australia’s identity.
Arts: Drama and music, interdisciplinary nature of arts disciplines, role/character performance.
English: Speaking & listening
Teacher Recommendations
Thanks again for performing at our school last week. It was an enjoyable and most informative show and we all gained lots of new insight into life on the gold fields. I hope that you can come again in a couple of years time.
Jenny Penaluna, Daylesford Secondary College
Dear Jan,
Thank you for your performance at Cheltenham Primary School. It was much enjoyed by staff and students alike. You encapsulated the aspects of the gold rush (geographical, social historical, economic and political) all in one, which was great. Sometimes the students need to see a play/ performance rather than something ICT focused to get a real immersion in a topic.
