Mystery with a message
ARTS
THE upcoming Winter Solstice Play Festical at the Potato Shed Theatre will showcase the talent and creativity of our region’s performers and playwrights.
Audiences will experience two exciting plays, What Became of the Hooded Plovers? and Until Next Week, which explore local social and environmental issues.
“Visitors to our beaches are aware that shorebirds are critically endangered, yet may not know why,” Geelong playwright Shane Foyster, who wrote What Became of the Hooded Plovers? said.
“So I wrote a classic murder mystery for people to get involved in and try to find the answer.”
The result is a quirky whodunit set in a mythical Bellarine Peninsula town, where the tranquillity of life by the sea is disrupted after the disappearance of a young girl, Polly Ann Plover.
“The play looks at our local en- vironment as a neighbourhood, and each animal has a human face. The audience is encouraged to investigate the disappearance of the hooded plover, in the same way they would if a young girl went missing in their own street,” Foyster said.
“Hopefully they will leave the theatre and keep looking for answers on our local beaches.”
The second play, Until Next Week, provides a dramatic insight into the lives of people who attend a weekly group for recovering alcoholics.
Each character learns that saving each other begins with saving themselves and taking their first step towards redemption.
Writer of Until Next Week, Amy-Jo Reynolds, said the play “wasn’t her first idea”, but once she began writing, it came naturally.
Reynolds said the main message she hoped the audience would discover was “that no matter how deep and dark your life is, there is always hope that it can get better”.
“Battling my own experiences with addictions and watching those I love go through addictions and all the emotions they go through inspired me to write Until Next Week,” Reynolds said.
“Some of the stories are based on real people in my life who have battled addictions and beaten them.”
Reynolds and Foyster penned their plays for the festival after winning the critics and audience choice awards at the annual 12x12 Short Play Festival at the Potato Shed Theatre in December.
The Winter Solstice Play Festival, which is now in its 10th year and is produced by Theatre 3Triple2, features live folk music by local artist Melody Moon, bonfires, mulled wine and entry to the two original one-act plays.
The event is on June 29 and 30 at 8pm at the Potato Shed Theatre, Drysdale. Tickets are $20 and bookings can be made by calling 5251 1998.
For more information visit www. geelongaustralia. com. au/ potatoshed. Both plays contain adult themes.