PLEASE NOTE: While the Old Mill Theatre tries to keep to the advertised program, it is sometimes necessary to alter productions and occasionally dates – please check with the theatre, this website or your latest newsletter before making any bookings. 

The Old Mill Theatre is presenting a year of all-Australian plays in 2015 to commemorate the centenary of the Gallipoli landing.

February 2015 – Jigsaws

Jigsaws is an incisive and witty play concerning three generations of women in the same family where life seems like a jigsaw puzzle. The puzzle is often incomplete; it’s great when all the pieces fit and infuriating when they don’t. As the play opens, a Christmas visit has been taking place but the reunion is not exactly fulfilling the spirit of the season. Revelations of their past and present surface, matched with changing attitudes and circumstances. Set in the mid-1980s, the play deals with sensitive issues and is a fresh, bold and rewarding look at life. MORE…

April 2015 – Hail Mary

June 2015 – Summer of the 17th Doll

This compelling Australian play was a success in London and hailed by critics in New York for its vigour, integrity and realistic portrayal of two itinerant cane cutters: Barney, a swaggering little scrapper, and Roo, a big roughneck. They have spent the past 16 summers off with two ladies in a southern Australian city. Every year, Roo has brought a tinsel doll to Olive, his girl, as a gift to symbolise their relationship, but this 17th summer is different somehow. Old patterns must be broken, new ways found, as all four lovers come to face certain unpleasant truths about themselves. An unusual, compelling love story. MORE…

July-August 2015 – Wolf Lullaby

Is there intrinsic evil in the world? In a bleak, remote town, a small child is murdered. Suspicion falls on nine-year-old Lizzie. Convinced her daughter is guilty, Lizzie’s young mother must make the torturous choice between ignoring her intuition and presenting Lizzie to the police. Lizzie is not the only one who is changed forever by the act. The adults around her, bewildered and full of denial, find their accepted beliefs crumbling around them in a play that explores the sources of violence and its legacy. MORE…

September 2015 – An Anzac Duo

Production September 2-5
Plays by: Yvette Wall, Noel O’Neill
Directors: Mary Wolfla, Valerie Dragojevic

Two Anzac-themed one-act plays, billed collectively as “An Anzac Duo”:

• Dolls From the Sky written by Yvette Wall, directed by Mary Wolfla. MORE…
• Armistice Day, written by Noel O’Neill, directed by Valerie Dragojevic. MORE…

October 2015 – The One Day of the Year

Production October 9-24
Play by Alan Seymour
Director Brendan Ellis

The One Day of the Year explores the universal theme of father-son conflict against the background of the beery haze and the heady, nostalgic sentimentality of Anzac Day. The likeability and genuineness of the characters give the play its memorable qualities: Alf, the nobody who becomes a somebody on this day of days; Mum, the anchor of the family; Hughie, their son, with all the uncertainties and rebelliousness of youth; and Wacka, the Anzac, with his simple, healing wisdom. MORE…

December 2015 – No Names, No Packdrill

Production December 4-19
Play by Bob Herbert
Director Kristen Twynam-Perkins

No Names, No Packdrill is set in wartime Sydney in 1942. After recovering from a gunshot wound sustained during battle, 24-year-old Marine Sergeant Harry ‘Rebel’ Porter docks in Sydney and decides he’s had enough of fighting. After drowning his sorrows in a Kings Cross pub, Rebel is invited to a party in a young woman’s apartment and ends up crashing the night. Sydney postal worker Kathy McLeod is 28 with both her husband and brother both away fighting in Papua New Guinea. Kath finds the US Marine asleep in her lounge room and wants to rid herself quickly of the uninvited guest. But later that morning a telegram arrives and her whole world changes… MORE…