The Initiation

There’s a place in the bush balanced between stone, sky, water.
Past stars sending ancient light.
You’ll find what you need for the initiation and you will come out changed.
A double-dare draws six seemingly normal teenagers into the twilight bush of Black Mountain. As night falls and time shifts around, they realise they are lost. When a knife keeps turning up, despite their efforts to get rid of it, they fear they’ll never come out alive. The Initiation by Cathy Petocz is about the horrors of the early teen experience; that uncanny period between childhood and fully becoming an adult, and the scary things you feel you have to do to get through. Exploring teen horror movie tropes, real teen experiences, and the deeply spiritual site of Black Mountain, The Initiation asks us to find our way to the core of our fears in order to discover where the real threat lies. The Initiation is a new play written and developed with young artists from Canberra Youth Theatre.