Award-winning Murdoch School of Arts student PhD Stephen Platt is bringing his novel brand of science fiction theatre to the Murdoch stage this month with ‘@lantis’.

After completing his Honours degree and being awarded Theatre Production of the Year award in 2015 for his sci-fi production ‘Thaw’, as well as winning the Theatre Student of the Year award in 2017, Mr Platt decided he wasn’t quite finished with the genre.

“For my Honours, I was looking at Science Fiction in live performance, and the history of it, and reached the conclusion that there really wasn’t much of a history of it at all,” Mr Platt said.

“It’s a genre which is very popular in lots of other entertainment mediums, just not in theatre and I decided there was more to explore there.”

For his PhD, Mr Platt has chosen to further his studies in science fiction in live performance.

“As part of the research, it generally helps if you do something in the field, and that has turned into doing a seven-part series in radio play format.” he said.

The format of the series allows for the audience to listen to or view any of the seven episodes in no particular order.

“I wanted to create something which allows the audience to be present on the night, or to listen in at a later date and my research will involve examining the differences between those two audiences,” Mr Platt explains.

“To achieve this, I needed to establish a setting that the audience could dip in and out of as a casual audience member, without having to watch all the episodes in order, so the premise had to be fairly simple.”

And so the setting for the futuristic utopian underwater city known as @lantis was born. The storyline follows the exploits of a team of scientific researchers who reside in a domed megastructure, which has been built as a safe haven from the chaos of the world above.

It is a place where learned minds live together; advancing scientific knowledge and creating new ideas and contraptions to make the world a better place - all the while generating a decent profit margin.

“In science fiction, there are lot of futuristic utopias, in which characters segregate themselves from the rest of the world,” Mr Platt explains.

“They do this because, while they can’t make the world perfect, they can at the very least, create this isolated setting what they believe to be perfect.

“The idea behind creating @lantis was taking this to an extreme, with the people in charge of this place deciding to hide it by placing it underwater where no-one can find them.

“Lots of science-fiction involves characters being trapped in particular locations. I also thought it might be fun to explore.”

@lantis is being produced by Thought Jar Productions, a company which Mr Platt operates with Murdoch PhD students Ellin Sears as Production Manager and Sarah Courtis as Stage Manager.

They received an overwhelming response to their casting call for the series, spending three days auditioning a total of more than 100 actors for the available roles, with more than half of those who auditioned being Murdoch University students, staff or alumni.

The season of @lantis will open on 22 August, performing twice per week at the Nexus Theatre before closing on 4 October. Tickets can be purchased through the @lantis radio play website.