Entertainment, from play and art to exhibition, was one of the important topics in the local community in 2024.
Here are five of the best entertainment stories selected by Star Mail.
Emma brings the laughs
Warrandyte-based playwright Emma Wood brought to the stage first Australian showing of Piece of Mind.
The dramedy follows the story of two near retirement age nurses who drum up a bizarre business plan to fund their exit from the workforce, at the Lilydale Athenaeum Theatre.
Having been an actress for much of her life, Wood made the transition to playwriting one day in her 30s, when she woke up with a burning idea.
When setting out on starting her playwriting journey, Wood said it was always a desire of hers to create strong female lead roles, especially for ageing women.
“It’s really been a bit of a conscious desire right from the start when I wrote my first play, which is called me Water Child, to write better roles for women,” she said.
“Not because there are none. There are some good roles but in general terms especially with the classics, the cast is heavily based on male roles. Women often end up as the wife or girlfriend or the daughter and so I do like to put women front and centre in all my plays.”
Powerful, profound play
After being delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, powerful, captivating performance paired with the real life complexities of a dementia diagnosis was finally brought to life by the Lilydale Athenaeum Theatre Company.
Director Alan Burrows and lead actress Angela Glennie were both touched by dementia in their personal lives, with Glennie saying “it’s been a bit of a passion project for the two of us”.
Glennie said the play was another attempt at bringing the conversation around dementia into the light.
“Dementia, Alzheimer’s is not a happy topic, but it’s often kept in the dark and in silence, and often not spoken about or only spoken about when you’re living it, when you’re supporting someone,” she said.
“People are now comparing stories, and building connection and support and healing because of what the play has done.”
Actors from the east take to the Wicked west stage
Adam Murphy, from Eltham and Andrew Kroenert, from Croydon, were seen in the latest rendition of Wicked, being brought to audiences in Melbourne until 30 June.
Attracted to unusual characters, Murphy was cast as Dr Dillamond, a goat and teacher of life sciences and a philosopher at Shiz University, as well as the secondary Wizard, when not played by Simon Burke.
Kroenert, cast as part of the ensemble, also stepped into the Dr Dillamond role when not played by his counterpart Murphy.
Each taking different paths to get to their ultimate goal, Kroenert performed while at Maroondah Secondary College before heading off to do a degree in music and drama, landing various roles like those in Frozen, Fiddler on the Roof and School of Rock.
Murphy on the other hand, went from school productions to amateur theatre and then to semi-professional theatre productions, saying “I feel like my whole career I’ve trained on the job”.
Healing Stories of Giants
Star Mail interviewed Olinda-based fine artist Emma Jennings who ran an exhibition Stories of Giants, which was rooted in creative recovery for the Dandenong Ranges community from the trauma of the 2021 storms.
The focal point of the exhibition, launched on 8 June at Yarra Ranges Regional Museum in Lilydale, was the six individual stories of people and places who represented a cross section of the broader community impacted in some way, shape or form.
The subjects of the artworks, many formed from the connections Jennings made throughout the initial recovery period at the Olinda emergency relief centre, include Kalorama CFA captain Bill Robinson, Yarra Ranges Council community recovery officer Deb Sargentson, Emerald SES unit controller Ben Owen, Red Cross volunteer Sharon, Jennings’ former neighbour Errol and Mount Dandenong Preschool.
“I just really wanted to document these stories. There’s only six here, I wanted to do a lot more but they represent hundreds of people in the community who had similar stories,” Jennings said.
“I really wanted to paint this weird and conflicting thing that happened. Throughout this whole period there’s been awful destruction and trauma and grief of people losing their homes and cars and living out of the area and moving several times.
“But then there’s this beautiful stuff that’s happened as well. The connections in the community, the friendships, the regrowth in the forest, the colours.”
The final form of Whyte
A master of pottery, both in life and in death, Alistair Whyte’s legacy as a humble teacher shone through in a posthumous exhibition hosted by YAVA Arts Hub and Gallery.
As a nod to Alistair’s 50-year long career as a potter and artist, as well as a celebration of what would have been his 70th birthday in early August, his family decided to pay tribute to this man of sheer talent but also the kind-hearted educator who gave much of himself to others.
“It’s really an exhibition to show the breadth of his work but also his skill because he was a working artist for about 50 years,” eldest daughter Emi said.
“There’s probably not that many of his early pieces because looking through the studio we tried to find really good examples of the very different styles that he’s done over the years.”
