The Bell Shakespeare Company's ACTORS AT WORK programme will be performing in Darwin for the first time at the Northern Territory's Open Education Centre thanks to Bell Shakespeare's Principal Education + Youth partner OPTUS and NT Department of Employment, Education and Training.

The workshop will be broadcast to remote students across the Northern Territory via OPTUS' satellite technology through the Interactive Distance Learning (IDL) satellite-teaching initiative.

Ninety remote families and 76 small schools use IDL in the Northern Territory, a large number of the students are indigenous. For many of the students this will be their first exposure to Shakespeare.

ACTORS AT WORK is Bell Shakespeare's main education activity, presenting programmes for students that focus on themes and issues from a number of Shakespeare's plays.

The Open Education Centre uses IDL to work with remote locations across Northern Territory including small schools, homesteads and isolated communities. Students have real-time interaction with educators and enjoy a greater participation than previous school of the air activities. Bell Shakespeare's ACTORS AT WORK broadcast and on-line interaction will be the first performing arts broadcast on IDL.

Bell Shakespeare tours the ACTORS AT WORK programme to all states and territories each year but due to lower population density and higher touring costs, have not previously been able to perform through much of the Northern Territory. Live performance is an important part of Bell Shakespeare's mission and the IDL performances enable a real-time interaction with students who would not otherwise have access to live professional theatre performances.

'Bell Shakespeare is particularly proud to be presenting ACTORS AT WORK through IDL to the Northern Territory's isolated students and communities,' said Bell Shakespeare General Manager Jill Berry. 'We pride ourselves on touring regardless of geography but some locations are a little hard to reach. By working with IDL, NT Open Education and our Principal Education + Youth Sponsor OPTUS, we have been able to provide an interactive performance broadcast into classrooms, homesteads and communities across the Territory.'

The performance has also been embraced by OPTUS as Bell Shakespeare's Principal Education + Youth Sponsor and major project partner with IDL.

Matti Urvet, OPTUS' State Manager for the Territory said OPTUS continues to provide innovation through our products and services - this time helping to bring Shakespeare alive to the remote students via satellite.

'This is a great example of how OPTUS works with partners like Bell Shakespeare and the Department of Employment, Education and Training to deliver the latest technology to benefit Territorians', he said.

Director of Distance Learning Strategies and Technologies at the NT Department of Employment, Education and Training, Tony Richards, said that: 'The chance to partner with Bell Shakespeare to deliver this educational activity over IDL provides a fantastic opportunity for our students and enables us to extend the technology and the options available to teachers and students within the Northern Territory.'

IDL has been established with direct support of the Australian Government's National Communications Fund, OPTUS, NSW Department of Education and Training and NT Department of Employment, Education and Training.

OPTUS has established interactive distance learning infrastructure for small rural communities and homesteads in Alice Springs, Darwin, the North Coast of NSW, Murray-Darling and Dubbo areas.

OPTUS has also built satellite-teaching studios at Alice Springs, Darwin, Port Macquarie, Broken Hill and Dubbo to service these areas. Each site is linked terrestrially to the OPTUS Earth Station in Sydney.

There will be two ACTORS AT WORK performances on Friday 23 April 2004 and media are welcome to attend the second performance starting at 1pm sharp.

Date: Friday 23 April 2004
Start time: 12.50pm
Venue: Northern Territory Open Education Centre Conference Room 21 Chrisp St, Rapid Creek Darwin

For more information:
Simone Bergholcs OPTUS Corporate Affairs Phone: +61 2 9342 7850 or 0412 206602
Tatia Sloley, Bell Shakespeare publicist Phone: 0403 305 395