Top class performance

Olive Weeks (OW2019) will take to the stage in the annual VCE Season of Excellence showcase, Top Class Drama and Theatre Studies, on Tuesday 17 March at the Arts Centre Melbourne.

In 2019, Olive wowed VCAA judges with her six-minute monologue performance from the Australian play Carrying Shoes into the Unknown. The book and the play, by Rosemary Johns, is a fictionalised account based on the true story of a Western family living in Iran during the last days of the Shah and the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini. She was awarded a perfect score for the performance and the Wesley College prize for VCE Theatre Studies.

Olive, and Year 12 student Palmer Rosenberg, were both invited to audition for Top Class on the strength of their individual VCE performances, an achievement in itself. Olive was subsequently selected for the public performance at Top Class.

Olive has always ‘loved and prioritised’ cocurricular activities and was part of the orchestra, wind ensemble, three choirs and multiple school productions in her final year at Wesley.

‘The productions were always a highlight for me. I’m keen to pursue an acting career. I’m super excited about Top Class and sharing my work with a larger audience,’ Olive says. ‘It makes all the hard work I put in seem even more worthwhile. My teachers were a great support, not just my Year 12 class teachers, but also ones from all areas of my school life and my cocurricular teachers. I loved that at Wesley I could build strong relationships with teachers from previous years which made me feel so supported throughout the VCE.’

This year, Olive has deferred a Bachelor of Arts at The University of Melbourne to take a gap year to travel and focus on her acting. She will be undertaking a masterclass with theatre director Imara Savage in Sydney in February and has just been accepted into a short intensive acting course at the prestigious international acting school in Paris, Ecole Jacques Lecoq, whose alumni include Geoffrey Rush and Isla Fisher.

‘I do see acting and performing at the forefront of what I want to do, ultimately, and long-term. I want to continue working hard at auditions, engage in training and complete my Bachelor of Arts. The performing arts program at Wesley was where I thrived and was most happy.’

Top Class is part of the VCE Season of Excellence and comprises 12 concerts by outstanding VCE students in professional venues around Melbourne.