SLAP. BANG. KISS.

SLAP. BANG. KISS. is about three teenagers, and the seemingly tiny actions that turn the world’s eyes toward them, the actions that unwittingly turn them into revolutionaries.

The slap happens outside 16-year-old Immi’s home in an area controlled by foreign security forces. Her freedoms and movement are restricted, and after a family tragedy, she sees a a security officer, a symbol of her oppression, and slaps him in the face.

The bang happens in a high school. 16-year-old Sofia is in class when a student pulls out a semi-automatic weapon and opens fire.

The kiss happens in the car park of a Wangaratta Woolworths, when 16-year-old Darby locks lips with classmate Daniel in an attempt to set the Guinness World Record for the longest kiss.

Telling their own stories in a fast-moving style of direct address, self-narration and short, sharp scenes where the performers play a range of characters, we watch the teens as these three moments kick-start a series of events that none of them anticipate.

In a moving speech before the world’s cameras, Sofia accidentally becomes the spokesperson for gun control; a photo of Immi mid-slap goes viral, and she becomes a symbol of resistance against occupation; Darby garners national attention after hoons chuck a Slurpee at him and Daniel, and a rapidly growing army of supporters gather to surround the boys with a human shield.

The plays tracks Immi, Sofia and Darby through their rapid rise to global attention and fame. From their small towns, classrooms and apartments, their images and messages are shared and re-shared and re-re-shared, and it’s at this point that their story becomes bigger than them, and becomes about us, the public – about how we mythologise these young people, creating the myth of them, building them out of ideas, making heroes out of them.