Belvedere Social

I’m a week out from performing on stage in a new play. It will be performed in a small and beautiful town not far from Ballarat called Daylesford. I love Daylesford so much, particularly in winter. Our rehearsal space is just around the corner from a delicious restaurant and bar called Belvedere Social. Not only do they have a delicious range of gin, they also make mulled wine and hot buttered apple cider. Even though I’ve been rehearsing nearby I haven’t been able to capitalise on their proximity to me as much as I would like. The times that I have done have been wonderful. The staff are beautiful and charming.

The show that I’m in is the first production of a play called Hollow. It’s the story of three children who went missing after wandering into the bush around Daylesford. The first performance will be on the 150th anniversary of their disappearance. The children were all boys, under the age of seven. The local townspeople searched for them for two weeks without finding them. Then, three months later, they were found huddled in the hollow of a tree after a dog brought one of their shoes home to its owner.

Two of the boys were of the one family. Tragically, in the year prior to their disappearance, their baby sibling had died from measles and their older sister had also died of illness. At the time of their disappearance, the two missing boys were the last surviving children in their family. The other child was from a Canadian family, neighbouring that of the two boys. He was one of eight children and tow years prior one of his young siblings had also died from a snake bite. I play this mother in the show. The story begins the morning the boys went missing and ends at their funeral. Naturally, it’s quite an emotionally powerful show and takes a lot of energy to perform.

The show has been written by our incredibly talented Director, Megan Riedl. Megan is the Artistic Director of the theatre company, which is called Tripwire. She’s ambitious, creative and incredibly professional. I feel lucky every day that I am able to be in the show. I get to work with actors from all over regional Victoria and from Melbourne and I’ve never worked with any of them before. I’m so excited for our show!

If you’d like to come along, you can find details here.