R emote outback Australia and the emotional landscape of teenage life must seem like foreign countries for many theatregoers.
Sugarland, a touring Australian Theatre for Young People play being co-presented by Barking Gecko, brings both worlds to the fore as a result of a 2011 residency in the Top End town of Katherine by co-writers Rachael Coopes and Wayne Blair.
In some ways Sugarland sits as a trilogy that began in 2012 with Barking Gecko's Driving Into Walls, the John Sheedy-Suzie Miller burst of teenage angst and tenderness followed up in 2014 by Onefivezeroseven.
Those plays grew out of interviews and workshops with hundreds of young people. So did Sugarland, which is undertaking a national tour after having its premiere in 2013.
Coopes in particular spent two months working with and listening to the stories of hundreds of teenagers in Katherine, the adjoining Tindal air force base and surrounding indigenous communities.
"Sugarland gives a snapshot of what life is like for young people in remote towns such as Katherine in the Northern Territory but also other parts of Australia," she says. 
"I was very conscious to tell a story that was common enough and representative of being young in that part of the world but at the same time search for the universality of that experience.
"The stakes are so high when you are a teenager. Your emotional world and sense of identity are being formed and you are developing a sense of independence and a level of control in your life." 
Teenagers in the town of 10,000 people, 320km south of Darwin, contend with isolation (the region is often cut off in the wet season), transience, homelessness, self harm, substance abuse teenage pregnancies, unemployment, family violence and other problems facing youngsters everywhere. 
These all feature in Sugarland, which follows the lives of five teenagers and is aimed at audiences aged 14 and above. It is co-directed by ATYP artistic director Fraser Corfield and the late David Page from Bangarra Dance Theatre.
Coopes fell in love with acting and storytelling as a six-year-old doing theatre classes with ATYP in Sydney. Best known for her roles on the SBS parody series Life Support, Dance Academy, McLeod's Daughters and as a presenter on Play School, she trained with Philippe Gaulier in Paris and has written several plays.
"My intention with Sugarland was not to  get too heavy with these issues because for the kids that I worked with they are simply the basic economics of their lives," she says. 
"For me it's a play about friendship and how it has the power to save your life. It's also about Australia and the responsibility each of us has for what is happening to the country."
Sugarland  is at the Studio Underground, State Theatre Centre, from   May 27-30.