For an extensive production history, please have a look at our 'Past Shows' here.
Some Key Dates
|
1951
1954 1970 1974 2003 2014 |
"The Strolling Players" founded by Bill & Gertrud Tart, Gerald Hobson et al; its first production is Gaslight
Arms and the Man is the first play staged at the War Memorial Hall, Windmill Hill, Launceston The Strolling Players becomes the "Launceston Repertory Society"; its first production is Autumn Crocus The Rep regularly performs at both the National Theatre and the Little Theatre on Tamar St. Amalgamation with the Launceston Players considered and rejected The Little Theatre is leased to the Rep. This continued until sometime in the early 80s. The Rep regularly performs at the TCAE Auditorium at Newnham (later the University of Tasmania) The Rep begins performing regularly at the Earl Arts Centre 50th Birthday of the Rep celebrated with a function at the Seaport; The Launceston Repertory Society is renamed "Three River Theatre" 60th Birthday celebrated with a function at Girl Guide House |
A Speech by Stella Kent
on the occasion of Three River Theatre's 50th Birthday
The Launceston Repertory Society appears to have been born because no-one knew what to do with several flats and a pile of stage costumes.
Back in the early 1950s my father, Bill Tart, was invited to Hagley Farm School to start a drama group. Why a school set up to teach its pupils how to milk cows and manage pig pens should have been so interested in the finer arts is a mystery, but my father used to catch the bus out from Launceston together with Peter Sculthorpe no less - the composer who now has an international reputation - who was travelling out to Hagley to play the piano for the incipient farmers.
Out of the Hagley productions came the pile of flats and costumes, a bit of experience, and a great deal of enthusiasm, and so my father together with other stalwarts like Gerald Hobson founded the Strolling Players, which later transformed into the Rep.
The chief aim of the Strolling Players was to bring drama to northern regional Tasmania. Off they went, to Westbury and Deloraine and Birralee and Queenstown and Scottsdale and George Town, those flats strapped on top of the bus, the costumes up the back, and inside an exuberant bunch of actors singing "Hey diddle dee dee, an actor's life for me".
Their plays were often performed in small community halls initially built for the local weekly dance and the address on Anzac Day, and hence lacking dressing rooms and wing space, and with raked stages which meant the actress playing the wheel-chair-bound housekeeper in Night Must Fall was in constant danger of careering down into the audience. But those flats metamorphosed the stages into cosy rooms, decorated - as can be seen from photos of the productions - with meticulous care and, in the true tradition of amateur and even professional theatre everywhere, with items on loan from the actors' homes. I - aged about 4 - was given the hugely responsible job of painting the globes that made up the footlights - yes, footlights! - but though they always ended up worryingly streaky, they did seem to impart a spooky atmosphere to the thrillers that were the staple fare of the company, along with light comedies and the 'anti-comedy' of Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man. As I remember, the hall was always packed. For many this was their first experience of live theatre, and on occasion the cry would go up from an audience member to warn the hero that the villain was hiding under the table. Gerald Hobson once informed my father he was sick and tired of playing the villain because at the supper with the audience after the show no-one would offer him the sandwiches.
The Launceston Repertory Society made its debut in 1954 with a romantic comedy, "Autumn Crocus", at the old National Theatre which my mother, Gertrud Tart, was given the task of directing with the obvious logic that it was set in Germany and she was born in Berlin. With breathtaking cheek the Rep invited the Governor to the premiere, and to everyone's astonishment, the Rt. Hon. Sir Ronald and Lady Cross accepted. My mother was so nervous on the night that she had to have a little tipple before it all started, a tradition I seem to remember continuing - certainly into the 70s when we were in the dressing room of the Little Theatre preparing to go on in Noel Dicker's production of The Physicists where Maria Saldana produced a bottle of something surprisingly strong, and delightfully invigorating. But on that night of the Vice-Regal opening my father refused to participate in the tipple because the duty had fallen to him of introducing the Governor and his wife to the line of dignitaries in the upstairs foyer of the National - a very long line because the Important People of Tasmania had naturally turned up en masse for this gala event. My father, never one for remembering names at the best of times, was only too well aware that the Governor knew most of these people better than he did. Although he seems to have got through the introductions, a hitch did occur when the person responsible for waving a signal that the Governor had reached his seat and the National Anthem was now to be played, jumped the gun (an excess of tippling, perhaps?) and the Governor was caught half-way down the steps. He gracefully stood to attention where he was, however, and as for how the rest of the dignitaries managed behind him - well, who cares?
Autumn Crocus opens with a little girl me - entering the stage singing, and carrying a bunch of flowers which she places in a vase. Had I not been five at the time, I might have realised that my singing voice was not one for public display, but I had my task to do, and I did it. Unfortunately - again in the true tradition of theatre - someone had substituted a different vase - one whose neck was too narrow for the flowers. But I stubbornly persisted, jamming in those stems as if my life depended on it. Never mind my mother was waving frantically from the wings for me to exit the stage. Never mind the Governor and his wife were probably wondering just what kind of slow-motion, Japanese-inspired production they had committed themselves to. I had my task. But - was it something more? Alone on the vast stage. Me and My Audience. The glare of the spotlight that makes you feel ten feet tall. The intoxicating smell of the No.5 and No.9 greasepaint. All those upturned faces in the front row. The glowing curve of the balcony and the dark masses beyond. Oh, I was hooked for life.
And thus the Rep was launched, discovering and fostering talent - the multi- faceted Barry Olding, the jovial Mollie Hillyard. Everyone pitched in, painting those flats and making more costumes for the Society's steadily growing repertoire of full-length plays and one-acters that were winning awards at Drama Festivals, even when the adjudicator was that feisty local celebrity, Max Oldaker, whose great claim to fame was that he had understudied Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady and got to go on once.
It is particularly apt that the Strolling Players, in this, the third manifestation of the drama group, have transformed into Three River, as it is fitting that the wandering spirit of the Strolling Players has come to rest here at the conjunction of these rivers of northern Tasmania, to begin its new life.
Stella Kent
3 February, 2003
Back in the early 1950s my father, Bill Tart, was invited to Hagley Farm School to start a drama group. Why a school set up to teach its pupils how to milk cows and manage pig pens should have been so interested in the finer arts is a mystery, but my father used to catch the bus out from Launceston together with Peter Sculthorpe no less - the composer who now has an international reputation - who was travelling out to Hagley to play the piano for the incipient farmers.
Out of the Hagley productions came the pile of flats and costumes, a bit of experience, and a great deal of enthusiasm, and so my father together with other stalwarts like Gerald Hobson founded the Strolling Players, which later transformed into the Rep.
The chief aim of the Strolling Players was to bring drama to northern regional Tasmania. Off they went, to Westbury and Deloraine and Birralee and Queenstown and Scottsdale and George Town, those flats strapped on top of the bus, the costumes up the back, and inside an exuberant bunch of actors singing "Hey diddle dee dee, an actor's life for me".
Their plays were often performed in small community halls initially built for the local weekly dance and the address on Anzac Day, and hence lacking dressing rooms and wing space, and with raked stages which meant the actress playing the wheel-chair-bound housekeeper in Night Must Fall was in constant danger of careering down into the audience. But those flats metamorphosed the stages into cosy rooms, decorated - as can be seen from photos of the productions - with meticulous care and, in the true tradition of amateur and even professional theatre everywhere, with items on loan from the actors' homes. I - aged about 4 - was given the hugely responsible job of painting the globes that made up the footlights - yes, footlights! - but though they always ended up worryingly streaky, they did seem to impart a spooky atmosphere to the thrillers that were the staple fare of the company, along with light comedies and the 'anti-comedy' of Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man. As I remember, the hall was always packed. For many this was their first experience of live theatre, and on occasion the cry would go up from an audience member to warn the hero that the villain was hiding under the table. Gerald Hobson once informed my father he was sick and tired of playing the villain because at the supper with the audience after the show no-one would offer him the sandwiches.
The Launceston Repertory Society made its debut in 1954 with a romantic comedy, "Autumn Crocus", at the old National Theatre which my mother, Gertrud Tart, was given the task of directing with the obvious logic that it was set in Germany and she was born in Berlin. With breathtaking cheek the Rep invited the Governor to the premiere, and to everyone's astonishment, the Rt. Hon. Sir Ronald and Lady Cross accepted. My mother was so nervous on the night that she had to have a little tipple before it all started, a tradition I seem to remember continuing - certainly into the 70s when we were in the dressing room of the Little Theatre preparing to go on in Noel Dicker's production of The Physicists where Maria Saldana produced a bottle of something surprisingly strong, and delightfully invigorating. But on that night of the Vice-Regal opening my father refused to participate in the tipple because the duty had fallen to him of introducing the Governor and his wife to the line of dignitaries in the upstairs foyer of the National - a very long line because the Important People of Tasmania had naturally turned up en masse for this gala event. My father, never one for remembering names at the best of times, was only too well aware that the Governor knew most of these people better than he did. Although he seems to have got through the introductions, a hitch did occur when the person responsible for waving a signal that the Governor had reached his seat and the National Anthem was now to be played, jumped the gun (an excess of tippling, perhaps?) and the Governor was caught half-way down the steps. He gracefully stood to attention where he was, however, and as for how the rest of the dignitaries managed behind him - well, who cares?
Autumn Crocus opens with a little girl me - entering the stage singing, and carrying a bunch of flowers which she places in a vase. Had I not been five at the time, I might have realised that my singing voice was not one for public display, but I had my task to do, and I did it. Unfortunately - again in the true tradition of theatre - someone had substituted a different vase - one whose neck was too narrow for the flowers. But I stubbornly persisted, jamming in those stems as if my life depended on it. Never mind my mother was waving frantically from the wings for me to exit the stage. Never mind the Governor and his wife were probably wondering just what kind of slow-motion, Japanese-inspired production they had committed themselves to. I had my task. But - was it something more? Alone on the vast stage. Me and My Audience. The glare of the spotlight that makes you feel ten feet tall. The intoxicating smell of the No.5 and No.9 greasepaint. All those upturned faces in the front row. The glowing curve of the balcony and the dark masses beyond. Oh, I was hooked for life.
And thus the Rep was launched, discovering and fostering talent - the multi- faceted Barry Olding, the jovial Mollie Hillyard. Everyone pitched in, painting those flats and making more costumes for the Society's steadily growing repertoire of full-length plays and one-acters that were winning awards at Drama Festivals, even when the adjudicator was that feisty local celebrity, Max Oldaker, whose great claim to fame was that he had understudied Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady and got to go on once.
It is particularly apt that the Strolling Players, in this, the third manifestation of the drama group, have transformed into Three River, as it is fitting that the wandering spirit of the Strolling Players has come to rest here at the conjunction of these rivers of northern Tasmania, to begin its new life.
Stella Kent
3 February, 2003
