Cathy McGowan (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In my local community of Yackandandah, the power of art and theatre to tell our stories is so strong. Last Saturday night I had the enormous pleasure of being part of the Yackandandah Theatre Company's performance to a packed house—in fact it was a packed church—of their play From Here to There. These were six monologues inspired by the lives and experiences of real people who have lived in Yackandandah. Today I would like to acknowledge and say thank you to everyone involved, particularly to the playwrights and the actors—to Beverley Lello, to Pete Denahy, to Lisa Mason, to Kate Rotherham, to Brendan Hogan, to Andrew Ferguson, to Emily Cope-Williams, to Bridget Doyle, to Terry Moriarty, to Trevor Matthews—for your acting and your storytelling, and to all the musicians and singers for the power of song as we walked into the church and the feeling you created of how history was in Yackandandah in those golden days. Thank you to the musicians, to the Yackandandah Historical Society, to the cemetery trust and to the Anglican Church.

I would particularly like to do a special call-out today to Brendan Hogan, who is the local director and sort of artist-in-residence in our community. Not only does he work with the adults; he works with the children—with the schoolkids—and he provides enormous opportunity in our small towns for young people to learn about acting and theatre. Thank you, Brendan. We all appreciate what you do.