Hello there ...

Today's rehearsal went quite well and on the p.i.a scale ranked a lowly 3/10. The fairies went through the rehearsing of the original song and exceeded expectations. The lover's were being put through their paces in the theatre and coped with their vague director quite well. One of the difficulties I find is trying to keep the imaginative picture of the set in my mind as I move people around a blank stage - in an entirely different venue from the performance. It's not something I have a lot of experience with especially with this sized cast ... wait! I haven't counted them yet ... Okay, at this stage I've counted 21 but it might be 22! It may indeed be 22 by virtue of the fact I need to find a fill in for my Theseus for one performance ... thus the minor register on the p.i.a scale.

The learned gentleman playing Theseus is a valued cast member so I'm reluctant to recast, so ... as Clint Eastwood's character in Heartbreak Ridge would say, "improvise, adapt, overcome." I used to annoy my son with this sage wisdom so it seems silly not to take my own advice. I was always full of stories ... I like stories. Anyways, rehearsals are chugging away, the teething problems are being sorted and there isn't an open bottle of Chivas Regal in sight ... yet ;-)

I thought I'd take this opportunity to fill in the director's back story especially in relation to working with people with disabilities. From my birth till the day I left home for the last time I lived with people with mental health issues. That's all I want to say about that here; besides that could fill up a whole other blog on its own.

In 1982 I started volunteering with St Vincent de Paul staffing and running children's holiday camps for disadvantaged kids. And yes, some of the kids we had on camps had disabilities - not serious ones, obviously, but let me tell you giving a piggy-back to a 10 year old with calipers on her legs up a steep hill is damn hard work! Couldn't do that now-a-days because I'm old and grumpy. In the summer of 82/83 I worked at a Summer school run by the ACT Schools Department for kids with severe disabilities. There was lots of activities and helping out with physio sessions and time in the physio pool. The pool was my favourite thing and the kids I worked with seemed to really enjoy that too but it was always quite devastating when someone had an 'accident' in the pool and we couldn't use it for 3 days while it was disinfected.

After a not very successful attempt to start my nurses training in 1984 I returned to my home town of Canberra to work as a Wardsman in Royal Canberra Hospital. Before that I had a 3 - 4 month stint working in a group home for young people with physical disabilities. That was an amazing experience as most of the residents in the house were my peers in age and I discovered that there wasn't a lot of difference between myself and the young people I was working with except for the physical limitations. They had the same concerns as I did. Same desires and the same sense of humour! 

After my time as a Wardsman and some other bizarre job choices (Bank Clerk, Suit Hire Assistant are top of that list) I started working with an orginisation called Koomari in 1986. They ran group houses and as they were called then, sheltered workshops, for people with multiple disabilities. I worked in 3 group homes for Koomari over a period of 2 years. There were some fun times and some days when it was just hard work. Probably my favourite story of that time is when they moved all of the staff from the first house I worked in because of problems with a resident who had been violent with the staff. Some of staff moved on to other jobs and some to other houses. I, however, was moved to another group home where one of the residents had just chopped through the staff room door with a Tomahawk shouting, "I'm coming to save you from the evil spirits!" Was this a message from my employers? Was it just because I was big and brave and young and stupid? Who can say? I was 21/22 years old, I was married, had just become a Dad and was a little sleep deprived. I'm not even sure that I didn't just dream the whole thing!

In 1988 I was offered and accepted a paid job working for St Vincent de Paul in a curious place called the Thomas Cahill Cottage. Nicknamed 'Bogey St', by virtue of the fact it was located on Bougainville St, it was set up as a combined youth and psychiatric out-patient drop-in centre. If my life in the service of the disabled community wasn't bizarre enough things were to take a most amazing turn. I couldn't, in description, do justice to the quality and eccentricity of our clientele. To say there was a need in the community for this service is an understatement of Godzilla sized proportions; but that St Vinnies couldn't see their way to continuing to support it is about as baffling a moment in life as I've ever had.

Since that time I did some public service time as any Canberran is almost compelled to do and in 1992 I moved to Wollongong. For a 13 month period, as I was preparing to get myself into Uni, I worked at Wollongong Hospital. Initially as a member of the domestic staff but I soon moved over to work as a Wardsman. For my final 6 months at the hospital I worked as the morning shift Wardsman in the Operating Theatres. Then it was time for Uni ...

In 2006 WWT donated some money to Altogether Drama and it was after attending their performance that year that a conversation began towards this production. 

And so the story continues ...