Story of the Red Mountains, commissioned by NIDA, premiered at Sydney’s Carriageworks in 2012. Tom Healey introduces the play, now available for download.
It’s a play dear to me for all sorts of reasons. I got to work with the wonderful Anthony Skuse during its development with second-year NIDA students. The production gave me the chance to reunite with director, Tim Roseman, with whom I had worked with on productions at Theatre 503.
Set on the night of the referendum to ban communism and anyone “who may become a communist” in Australia, 1951, it’s a large cast play, juggling hope, politics and violence. (Does this dynamic ever go out of fashion?)