Beth "Betchay" Williams

My Works

iMPERFECT is an original Australian-Filipino musical on the life & times of David, hero of the Bible and the Tanakh and revered prophet in the Quran. It is both ancient and contemporary; combining Eastern & Western; mingling theology with the temporal.

“iMPERFECT” is a new Australian musical on the life and times of an ordinary teenage boy tasked with an extraordinary responsibility.

The iMPERFECT Story

A gentle and warm-hearted teenage shepherd boy is love-starved, lonely and friendless. Yet he gets chosen to build a nation out of 12 fragmented tribes, To ascend to this role, David has to become a ruthless warrior, a shrewd politician and a Machiavellian leader as well as become the progenitor of Jesus the Messiah. But all David ever wanted to do was play music on his harp and watch his sheep! The drama is gritty, bordering on confronting; sometimes sensual; oftentimes poignant with the occasional comic relief to give respite to the audience' sensibilities. It is ancienct and yet contemporary. There are 19 scenes in 2 Acts and more than 26 characters to be acted out. The songs and music of iMPERFECT are a fusion of ancient and modern; Eastern and Western. iMPERFECT is not a sung-through musical. It has a total of 28 songs, recitatives and musical ditties.

iMPERFECT Website

Northern Territory, Australia

Betchay was a community arts powerhouse within the Darwin Community from 1990 - 2014, both as a high quality artist in her own right, as well as for her constant striving to further the development of multi-cultural performance art. She has worked in areas of cultural maintenance, progression and in the way cultures fuse when they develop side by side. Betchay has also brought her considerable cultural knowledge to her work with Indigenous Australians. Betchay Mondragon has produced and directed dance and theatrical events that reflect and represent the Territory’s multicultural community since moving to Darwin from the Philippines. She has a commitment to the development of different cultural backgrounds as artists as demonstrated by her creation of the performing groups Kulay Lupa (Filipino cultural performing group), Kilos Kultura (Filipino traditional and contemporary fusion show pieces), Dynamic Energy (D-NRG hip-hop,breakdance and music), Artsprouts (children's performing arts program).

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The social and political climate in the Philippines during the Martial Law years (Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship 1972-1981/86) gave rise to an enhanced aesthetic and pedagogy towards a people's cultural movement in the Philippines.

Art and Cultural Work in the Philippines

Desiring to be a stage actress, Beth ("Betchay") joined the Philippine Educational Theatre Association - PETA, in the nation's capital, Manila in 1979 (PETA is the Philippine's premiere organization for nationalist and pro-people dramatic works), where she accelerated from member-actor to theater-trainer; from Chief Production Manager to Executive Director of Broadcast and Film. Midway, she also spent years in the Philippines' second capital region, the Visayas, producing theatre works, building repertory groups, running a centre for culture and facilitating an alliance of 200+ community cultural groups.

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