Imagine a child, a girl, who is living exactly as she is expected to live in a world designed to keep her in her place, tethered to the earth, amid small dreams and even smaller lives. Imagine one night the child hears the roar of a jet engine flying low over her house, rattling the furniture, rattling her heart, telling her to look up, look up, look up and dream. In her dreams that night she reaches up through the clouds and takes that jet plane like a tiny toy in her hand, and she can make that jet do whatever she wants. Imagine that when that girl wakes she knows, without a doubt, she could fly. 

A new work arising from JUTE’s Write Sparks 2020 and JUTE’s Writer-in-residence program, ‘Higher Faster Louder’ comes from author Marilyn Marsh-Booth’s lived experience as one of the world’s first trained female commercial pilots in the late 1960’s, when despite being in the age of women’s liberation, certain careers were considered hopelessly out of reach for women. In fact, the aviation industry, like many others, remains stalwartly male-dominated even in 2021. This play is a call to be brave. It is a call to young women today to never accept the word ‘no’ to their career dreams on the basis of their gender. 

To listen an interview Marilyn did with ABC Far North’s Fiona Sewell, which was aired on November 29th, click here and find the 29/11/21 episode (go to the 1:10:12 mark for the interview).