BYTE prides itself on having teachers who are industry professionals and qualified practitioners. Since becoming its own entity in 2001, BYTE has presented such plays as :
The Crucible, Twelfth Night, The Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing, Accidental Death Of An Anarchist, The Devil In Drag, Daisy Pulls It Off, Pride And Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, My Very Own Story, Shipwreck, The Hypochondriac, The Caucasian Chalk Cirlce, Astro The Fiddle Cat, Granada, The Skin of Their Teeth, West, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and Astro The Revolution! Hole in the Wall, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Dracul, Time Machine, Maschiera, Prospero's Legacy and As You Like It.
Apart from an annual musical selection concert, BYTES has presented the full
productions of:
Gone With The Breeze,The Nutcracker, In The Beginning, The Wiz, Annie, The Snow Queen, Little Shop of Horrors and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat ,Eurobeat- Almost Eurovision, The Boyfriend, Mulan, Honk! Into the Woods Junior, Aladdin and the Pirates of Penzance.
Students also present gala concerts, several smaller one act plays, participate in the eisteddfod and the Sunshine Coast Drama Festival.
In 2006, BYTES won the Youth section of the Sunshine Coast Drama Festival with GRANADA.
They also took out BEST PLAY< BEST DIRECTOR< BEST ACTOR- Tom Jermyn, BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR- Daniel Marais, BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS- Jordan Barlow.
In the sunshine Coast Eisteddfod Timothy Potter won Senior Drama Champion and Daniel Marais- Intermediate Drama Champion, with Hayley Barker winning the most versatile Actor award and Jeremy Farley Smith top scoring the Eisteddfod with 95 points for his improvisation.
We have been fortunate in having these wonderfully talented children share their abilities with us.
In 2007, the Intermediate Actors won the Sunshine Coast Drama Festival for the second year in a row with ASTRO THE FIDDLE CAT.
Tom Jermyn( Astro) won Best Actor, Katherine Ernst won Best Actress, and Emily Saunders won Best Supporting Actress. Katherine Ernst won an award of distinction for writing the play.
Matilda Davidson took home the Senior Drama Championship and the Award for Versatility at the Eisteddfod. Tim Potter won the Bobby Grono Award.
In 2008 The Odyessy won the Best New Play, Danielle Carney-Best Actress Intermediate,
Nicole Neil- Best Actress Supporting-Inter
-mediate, Joey Lai- Best Actor Senior,
Katherine Ernst- Best Actress Supporting Junior,
Tom Jermyn- Best Actor Junior, Robyn Ernst and Peta Beattie- Best Director, Awards of Distinction for Josephine Harvey and Ben Newth at Sunshine Coast Theatre Fest.
Joey Lai won Senior Drama Champion and Katherine Ernst intermediate Drama Champion- Sunshine Coast Eisteddfod
2009 saw BYTES take out the BEST JUNIOR PLAY with THE SILVER SWORD and BEST INTERMEDIATE PLAY with LASCAUX. Tom Jermyn won Best Junior Actor for the fourth year in a row and Katherine Ernst Best Junior Actress for the third year.
Brandon Maday won Best Support Male Actor over 14 and took out the Outstanding youth Performer Bursary. Peta Beattie won Best Youth Director for Silver Sword and Robyn Ernst Best new play script for Lascaux. Ashley Porter, Alex Brooks won awards of distinction.
Danielle Carney won Senior Drama Champion, Jemima Lai won Intermediate Drama Champion, Kelcie Bourne won Junior Speech Champion. Matilda Davidson won BYTE award for versatility and Joey won the most outstanding perfomance of
the Eisteddfod.
2010 saw BYTES win the Sunshine Coast Theatre Fest with Prelude to A Time Machine with 97 marks. Dracul won Best New Play, Best Director, Best Actor for Brandon Maday, Best Actress-Tayla Micallef and Best Supporting Actress for Caitlyn Elliott. Tilly Allard received a certificate of distinction and Tayla also won the Bursary. At the Brisbane Arts Fest, Time Machine came 2nd and Lizzy Mahoney won Best Lead Actress and Joey Lai Best Lead Actor for Dracul. Alex Zufic Tillack and James Carroll received Certificates of Distinction for Time Machine.
Riley Cope came 1st in the Junior Drama Championship with Jemima Lai coming 2nd. Vanessa Fernandez won the Senior Drama Championship with Katherine Ernst coming 3rd. James Carroll won the Senior Speech Championship, while Jade Dempsey came 2nd and Meg Hickey 3rd. Ryan Forbes received the Alan Beattie Trophy for the highest mark of the Eisteddfod-97.
To celebrate our 10 years, we had a magnificent masquerade ball in September.
2011 saw ROMANOV win the Sunshine Coast Theatre Fest. Best Lead Actor-Patrick Rykiert, Best Lead Actress- Katherine Ernst, Best Supporting Actor Tom Jermyn, Best Supporting Actress- Lizzie Mahoney, Best Director Robyn Ernst, Best Playwright- Peta Beattie, Awards of distinction to Travers Southwell, Ryan Forbes. Brandon Maday won Best Director 25 under for METAMORPHOSIS and Braydon Munro won Best Supporting Junior Actor.
Huge audiences of the general public turned out for CABARET, which received critical aclaim . BEAUTY AND THE BEAST was another fabulous musical which entranced audiences with great performances and exquisite costumes. Two Tribes was a great piece of physical theatre from our Junior Actors and THE CRUCIBLE topped off the year with mesmerizing performances from our masterclass. A Primary School Tour by half of our masterclass got younger generations enthused about performing and a Rotary Christmas performance had the Sunshine Daily reporting about how our young musical stars had given a" knees up performance for the oldies". We did 26 shows in a month. 2011 was a knockout season!
