Offshore might be offline but the show must go on

COVID has played havoc with community groups, and Phillip Island’s Offshore Theatre group was hit with a triple whammy during the pandemic.

They lost continuity with their audience when they were unable to get productions to the stage, including an in-your-face, controversial play by Aussie playwright Jonathan Biggins called ‘Australia Day’.

They had a great cast lined up, which they hope to reassemble by the way, for their first outing at the new Black Box Theatre at Newhaven College in March 2023.

And they even went so far as to negotiate a change of name for the play so as not to alienate those with sensitivities about 'Australia Day'.

Their storage shed was robbed of upwards of $10,000 worth of lighting and sound equipment.

And they lost their website, with all of its contacts and archives.

But they’ve been soldiering on.

They recently staged a highly successful series of dinner shows at the Rhyll Hall, featuring a sophisticated reading of the play ‘The One Day of the Year’ and they also launched an Offshore Theatre ‘Script Club’ where they’ve already had several excellent play readings, including Away by Michael Gow.

It’s a play that tells the story of three internally conflicted families holidaying on the coast for Christmas set in 1968. They might easily have workshopped the story and dialogue in Cowes.

But, there’s still something missing, according to Offshore Theatre Group President Amanda Price.

“It’s great. We got a grant from the Bass Coast Shire Council for $4690 towards the $6900 cost of replacing the lights and sound equipment that we need. We couldn’t replace it all but it was great to get that support,” Amanda said.

“We’re hopeful of putting the cast back together again for a play we’re calling ‘Australians All’ which is the Jonathan Biggins' Australia Day play but it’s not really about Australia Day and has been wrongly maligned I believe for being about that.

“It’s all about a small-town Australia Day committee preparing to put on their Australia Day celebrations and it raises a lot of issues about small towns, people getting together on committees and also about what they are going to do.

“Jonathan has been an Australia Day Ambassador in regional New South Wales and also involved in Australia Day committees himself, so it’s a lot about his experience.”

So, the program is getting back on track and the equipment is being replaced but what’s missing, according to Amanda, is connection with the audience and those who might be interested in getting involved in a local theatre group.

“There’s no doubt that we’ve got a lot more people from Melbourne and outside the area who’ve moved down here to live and there are bound to be a number of them who have been involved in theatre before and may not even know there is a local theatre group.

“We do what we can with Facebook but lots of people don’t use it, so we really must get a new website up and going.

“We’ve had a quote for around $4000 to get the one we need built locally by Bass Coast Design and we are going out to try to attract funding from organisations like Australia Post, Bendigo Bank and the like.

“They want you to demonstrate a strong connection with the community and also that you are having a positive impact on community health outcomes, especially things like mental health, and it’s well known that the type of interaction you get from community theatre has that sort of positive affect.

“I think some people believe we might have stopped making contact with our former members and supporters, but we simply lost all those contacts. We started collecting names at the play reading but that will be one of the big things with a new website, engaging with our audience again and also those we don’t know, who might want to get involved.”

Clearly there’s a whole new era of performance coming Phillip Island’s way with the opening of Newhaven College’s boutique theatre and, next year, the opening of the Cowes Cultural and Community Centre and Offshore wants to be well placed to help the local community play its part.

Offshore Theatre’s next Script Club night will be later in July, watch their Facebook page for details, and hopefully, the new website won’t be all that far away.