Maybe if I was older. Maybe if I was larger. Or smaller, or prettier, or uglier, or gruffer. Maybe if I was something else I would feel like I existed.

In an ordinary town, something is amiss. It’s not the maths exam the teens are about to fail, or the overdue essay, or even global warming. It’s a low buzz of anxiety, a quiet terror in the middle of the night. Girls have been going missing. No one knows if they’ve been taken, or if, for some reason, they have ventured into the bush themselves…

The adults aren’t taking any chances. A high fence is being erected. All young women are now required to be registered with the authorities and wear a tracking device. They will be monitored and controlled; they will be safe. But this thought will not leave the girls alone: I am my own person; take me seriously.

Little Girls Alone in the Woods is an inventive adaptation of The Bacchae that puts a contemporary feminist lens on the Greek legend of Dionysus. It dares us to go into the woods and seek out what knowledge lies beyond the border of respectability and rules. What new worlds await us?