If I Should Die Before I Wake

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Director: Ellis Ebell

Production Coordinator: Bernadette Wheatley

 

Any family that includes a child with a disability faces an uncertain future.  Often parents, in their efforts to protect the child, neglect their own relationships and are constantly concerned about what happens to that child when they are no longer there to care for them.

 

Gillie, a woman with a lifelong intellectual disability, has lived at home with her mother Joan, for her entire life.  Isabelle, her sister, has married and left the family home, leaving the widowed Joan to manage and live within the boundaries of Gillie’s childlike behaviour.

 

Joan now faces the end of her own life and must decide Gillie’s future when she is no longer capable of being her primary carer.

 

Critical decisions must be made in the midst of unspoken tensions, unconditional love and a great deal of humour.

 

Written by a Victorian playwright, a premiere production.

 

 CAST:

Joan: Shirley Sydenham

Gillian: Rosalin Shafik-Eid

Isabelle: Sass Pinci

 

Stage Manager: Emma Hunt

Assistant Stage Manager: Kerry Drumm

 

Set Design: David Dare

Lighting Design: Craig Pearcey

Sound Design: Ellis Ebell and Neil Williamson

Costume Design: Kylee Armstrong

Props and set dressing: Maria Haughey

Light/sound Operator: Kay Hambling