Bass performer takes leap into musical role

FOR cast member Kate Bindley-Jones, joining Wonthaggi Theatrical Group’s production of Come From Away has breathed new life into her acting.

The Bass resident has 30 years of performance experience behind her, including tap dancing, theatre and television commercials.

Despite that long history, Come From Away will be a first for her, as she has never performed in a musical.

“I’ve never done a show where I have to sing,” Kate said.

“I just wanted to audition with these guys because I know they’re amazing, and I just wanted them to see my face.

“I wasn’t actually expecting to get a role, let alone the role I auditioned for.”

The 54-year-old moved to Bass Coast in 2008 and admits that it originally felt like she’d left a lot of her performance life behind.

While at first she still travelled to Melbourne for some professional work, she started watching local productions and quickly realised the strength of community theatre.

“The stereotype of community theatre is that it can be dinky,” she said.

“But when we saw the shows, they were so amazing.”

In Come From Away, Kate plays multiple characters, but her main role is Diane, a Texan professional woman whose flight home is diverted to Gander,

Newfoundland after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Diane is based on a real person who is still alive today, and actually married the man she met while she was stranded in Gander.

“She’s amazing,” Kate said.

“Diane was kind of a bit rigid and a bit proper, and this gave her an opportunity just to relax and let her hair down and be a bit different than she normally would be.

“I feel a little bit the same in taking a bit of a leap and doing something I have not done before.”

Kate said that playing a real person adds another layer to the role, watching interviews and looking through old photos to help become the character.

She said the production’s biggest challenge from an actor’s perspective is the set’s unique setup, made almost entirely from tables and chairs, which the cast are constantly required to move to create planes, buses, and anything else the scene requires.

“There’s about 40 scenes,” Kate said.

“We have to know which number chair we’re moving, sitting in, standing next to, and it changes every scene.

“At one stage, I’m sleeping on chairs.”

Kate said managing dialogue, singing, choreography, accents and the set at the same time presented a massive challenge but also provided a unique opportunity.

“It’s pretty much almost two hours of just constant moving from one thing to another,” she said.

Outside theatre, Kate works as a graphic designer and a web designer.

She said her husband and son had supported every show she had been part of.

“They’ve come to every single show I’ve been in and they come every night,” Kate said.

“So, they end up knowing the show dialogue as well as I do, sometimes better.”

Kate said that nerves still find their way into her head, although she was more so excited about the production.

“We’ve worked so hard and everyone’s amazing,” she said.

“We just want people to enjoy the human stories out of something really, really awful,” Kate said.

“It comes back to what the truth is of people, that they are actually really good and want to look after each other.”