Theatre

Cast and Creative

Creative Team and Cast

Writer Finegan Kruckemeyer
Director Craig Edwards
Designer Katie Sykes
Composer Sarah Moody

Musician Ron Phelan
Ashmol Vic Llewellyn
Kellyanne Jordan Whyte

Director's Vision

When people I know heard that we were adapting Pobby & Dingan for the stage it was surprising how many said "I love that story, it's one of my favourites!  When are you doing it?"

When Jude Merrill at Travelling Light first proposed it to me as a future show I didn't know the story.  But once read, it was a story that stayed with me and I can understand why Jude has been so tenacious in the long journey it has been to get it on the stage and in front of a theatre audience.

This is a story set in a particular community in a very particular part of the world - Lightening Ridge, an opal-mining town in New South Wales, Australia.  As the first step in bringing this work alive and giving it an authentic and idiosyncratic voice, we worked on the stage adaptation with award-winning Tasmanian playwright Finegan Kruckemeyer.

Ashmol and his younger sister Kellyanne, who will be played by two brilliant actors, Vic Llewellyn and Jordan Whyte, tell the story.  They are both grown up now and Ashmol is following in his Dad's footsteps - he too has become an opal miner.  And like his Dad, he too is down on his luck, opals are rare to find and the dream of finding one is fading.  But his sister Kellyanne is always there when things are bad, to love him, to reassure him and help him remember their past.

This is the heart of the story - a memory.  A shared memory of when they were childlren.

We see brother and sister tell their story - re-enacting key moments, switching from character to character - first being their younger selves, then deciding who should play their Dad and arguing over how Mum's voice should sound.  Through the two siblings, the actors populate the stage with not only their family but also the entire population of Lightning Ridge.

Designed by Katie Sykes, with original music composed by Sarah Moody and played live by Ron Phelan - The Mysterious Vanishment of Pobby & Dingan will be a testament to the art of great storytelling.  I can't wait to start working on it and I can't wait to see it with an audience experiencing the story for the first time.

It is a story that will make you laugh, that will move you, and it is a story that you will remember for a long, long time.

Craig Edwards