What happens when a trans girl destined for big things and a Black baddie with a huge heart get together and spark a friendship? SISTREN – that’s what happens. The beloved play is having its mainstage premiere in Sydney/Warrane from April 9th, and we couldn’t be more excited. Ahead of the upcoming season, we caught up with the two leads at the centre of the performance – Iolanthe (who also wrote it) and Janet Anderson – to chat all things detention, third-wheeling and queer and Black stories.

Tell us a bit about SISTREN and your roles in the production. Janet Anderson: I play Violet, a 17-year-old trans girl destined for BIG things. She’s a clown, a model, a dancer and a menace. In the play, she faces some really intense and grown-up circumstances (no spoileez) that force her to grow up super quick. Luckily, her long and complicated friendship with Isla is her pathway back to finding the joy, being a kid, and sticking by your sis no matter what. The show tests them in every way, but I promise they come out victorious (again, no spoileez).

Iolanthe: I play Isla, a 17-year-old Black baddie with a huge heart and huuuuge dreams. She feels most alive and real when she laughs – I think that joy is a really key part of her daily survival. Her reliance on Violet is like a duck to water – there’s an ease between them that she finds peace in, especially within the chaos of working-class South London and growing up with a boisterous Caribbean family. I also wrote the play, which definitely alters my experience – there’s something strange that happens when I hear audience feedback (audible gasps, laughter, deafening silence) to my writing, whilst also having to stay in character and maintain the performance.You’re close friends both on stage and off – how does your real-life intimacy inform your characters and their friendship in SISTREN? Janet: These girls don’t hold anything back, and I think Io and my friendship has been shaped by our honesty with each other. We also have a unique ability to be able to telepathically gossip about a conversation that is happening in front of our eyes. With a simple squeeze of a thigh under the table or a blink-and-you'll-miss-it side-eye, we can have a full debrief without uttering a word. Violet and Isla constantly interact in their shared imagination land (The Sistren Universe) which is such a satisfying realisation of our real-life bestie communication style.

Iolanthe: This show is deeply personal in ways that speak to our identities and I find there’s something powerful in being able to look into the eyes of my real-life bestie, when bearing my soul. The same green eyes that have held me through manyyyy pivotal moments in my life, are the same green eyes staring back at me under the spotlight. It’s so familiar that my nervous system is like, “oh yep, this is home”.How close are your characters to what you both were like in school? Janet: Pretty bloody close. I didn’t know Io in high school, but the accuracy of her depiction makes me suspect that she knew me??? Cut the cameras, dead ass. I wasn’t facing the same heavy life experiences that Violet is though, which I feel really shape her temperament and how she deals with conflict. I had the privilege of being quite mild-mannered, and loved a lot of my teachers. I went to Newtown Performing Arts and was surrounded by other queers and theatre nerds, which I think would be Violet's dream. Her love of a stupid gag comes straight from me though, as nothing brings me more joy than a silly voice and pulling a face.

Iolanthe: “Art imitates life” or whatever they say! I was trying to reconcile a lot of things about my younger self in this work. I remember being very opinionated and curious and those qualities being problematised by the school institution. I generally found the curriculum archaic, the faculty condescending, and the other fab girls in detention! I wanted to write something that could affirm those kids, who (surprise, surprise, were mostly Black or queer), and tell them that their joy, their laughter, their questioning, is wonnnnderful. Later, I went to a performing arts school, where all of those aforementioned qualities were nurtured, harnessed and championed. I no longer found myself in detention – rather, I found myself in a pair of tap shoes with a song in my heart. <3What about SISTREN do you think is connecting most to audiences? Janet: I think SISTREN speaks to right now in a way that a lot of theatre struggles to. I also don’t know that Australian stages have ever had such a fabulous and provocative pair of baddies on stage alone for 90 minutes, and that prospect alone is exciting enough to buy a ticket, I should think. It’s current, it’s new, it’s rule-breaking and it's on sale NOW! Link in bio-type sheeeeet.

Iolanthe: Look, theatre so rarely looks “c*nt”. It rarely looks like something that’s straight off the runway, or that involves the current it-girls, or that could be on a billboard at Times Square. To have trans girls and Black girls at the heart of this show, it’s integral that the work looks professional, elevated and EXCELLENT!

Removing mediocrity from this work is something that I’m really passionate about, and when that is made possible, it really lands with the right audience. Black and queer communities have been the front-runners of the zeitgeist for so long – it makes perfect sense to me that stories that centre their experiences should be honoured in that way. We can’t have the girls looking tacky now, can we?If anyone could third-wheel on Isla and Violet’s friendship, who would it be? Janet: Oooooooh – this is so hard because there are just so many! I think rocking around with Eartha Kitt would be fun because has famously never suffered fools.

Iolanthe: Ian Michael (our director) can ki with us ‘til the cows come home. Doing this show with him is such an honour because it feels like there’s no scary hierarchy or power dynamics – it’s just three silly, goofy artists trying to make the kids in us smile.

Nab tickets to see SISTREN at Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney from April 9th to May 3rd. If you loved this chat with Iolanthe and Janet Anderson as much as we did, make sure to have a squiz at our chinwags with Tahlee Fereday or Yve Blake. Plus, sign up to our newsletter for more rad chats.