A happy meal has been a long-standing tradition to brighten a child’s day, but what happens when the last one is sold, and the last McDonald’s has closed down? Set in a dark world and exploring the tough decisions teenagers are going to face, Happy Meals, Happy Kids hits the stage at Daramalan College for one night only, Friday 26 May.
The debut play from Sunny Productions sees a group of six teenagers meet for a study session in a derelict McDonald’s in a not-too-far-off dystopian future. The breakfast club of the Apocalypse features the teenager stereotypes you expect to see – a popular girl with a troubled home life, an academic who is on the verge of a breakdown, and others. Together, they work on an assignment that will have lasting impacts. Playwright Jade Breen says it is an insight into the issues teenagers experience.
“Once I’m out of school, how am I going to make an income? How am I going to provide for myself? How am I going to rent in a housing crisis? … How can I establish an identity in a world that is so deeply ingrained in their ways?” says Breen.
Taking the reins with the production, Breen is also the producer, director, casting director and actor. Founding Sunny Productions through an entrepreneurship class designed specifically for driven double major drama students, the course takes theatrical learning further than a grade and creates professional adjacent opportunities. Breen says it is showing students that the arts are a viable career option.
Happy Meals, Happy Kids is very much a reflection of the playwright’s own experience of approaching adulthood and the mounting pressures of life ahead. Breen says their generation is just a few years out of making big decisions regarding the consequences of things they have never had control over, such as climate change.
“I think it’s very clear that the directions we’re currently going in are not great. So, what’s going to happen when our planet is gone, what’s going to happen when our air quality has hit an all-time low? How are we supposed to regain that and rebuild a sustainable environment, a liveable environment?” Breen says.
In a unique position, Breen believes the decisions for the upcoming generations may be easier for them than the generations in control previously.
“I believe that young people have this sort of unity in the way we want our world to be. The characters in the play, particularly, they’re very united in the fact that we do need to do something. I think young people are very driven in that way as opposed to some of the older generations who weren’t necessarily facing these consequences.”
Breen fell in love with theatre at a young age and has been involved in productions since they were eight years old. The welcoming warmth Breen experienced had them knowing theatre and productions were where they were meant to be. Theatre provides a platform for ideas, experiences and opinions to be shared; Breen says that young voices often aren’t valued as much as older generations even though they have complex ideas they want to share.
“As students, we have such a power to be able to create these things and we have a voice that deserves to be heard,” Breen says.
Happy Meals, Happy Kids by Jade Breen at Daramalan College, Friday 26 May 7pm; events.humanitix.com/happy-meals-happy-kids
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