4 Plays About Wollongong

4 Plays about Wollongong was produced by Merrigong Theatre Company and opened in the Gordon Theatre, Illawarra Performing Arts Center on the 6th of November 2009.

Merrigong commissioned four writers to each create a work which had something to do with the Illawarra region, on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia. The plays that came back were all wildly different, and the task of making them work together as a single production fell on the creative team. 

The challenge was huge: 25 characters, four plays, one set, one stage, one design and only a few short weeks of rehearsal. Their hard work paid off. The show opened to an extremely positive audience response, leading to packed houses for the entire run.

Read the full production report, including photos and lighting plan here.

Lighting and AV Designer: Toby Knyvett

Director: Anne-Louise Rentell
Set and Costume Designer: Simon Greer
Production Manager: Daniel Potter
Stage Manager: Kelly Ukena
Technician and Audio 'Realiser': Allan Doyle
Set Construction: James Clarke
Assistant Stage Manager: Jessica Martin
Fight Choreographer: Scott Witt

The War on the Hill by Simon Luckhurst
Blame it on Dapto by Mary Rachel Brown
The Sameness of the Days by Van Badham
The Sound by Marcel Dorney

Featuring Adam Booth, Clare Bowen, Liz Burch and Terry Serio

Photos by Andrew Tenison

Terry Serio and Adam Booth in Blame it on Dapto

4 Plays about Wollongong was commissioned by Merrigong Theatre Company. Each of the plays was radically different but all had to be realised within the same space. The major challenge for the designers was to create an environment that would allow for all of the texts to be seen as one production, yet facilitate them individually.