BEFORE he discovered the Swan Hill Theatre Group, local school teacher Andrew Kelly had yet to produce one of his plays for the stage.
As someone who enjoyed delving into different forms of creativity, Mr Kelly had always dreamed of seeing his words performed for an audience.
Growing up on the family farm at Nullawil, where they ran sheep and grew wheat, Mr Kelly developed a taste for story telling from a young age.
As part of a musical family, he and his siblings played the guitar as a hobby and he enjoyed singing.
At 18, he took up a green-keeping apprenticeship at Murray Downs Resort, starting his life in Swan Hill and later meeting his wife Sarina.
They had three daughters, Emma, Bonnie and Sophie.
For some years, Mr Kelly had put his ambition to become a school teacher on hold, but at 32 decided to take the plunge.
“I started uni the same day my eldest daughter started primary school,” he says.
He says it was well worth the three years of effort to achieve his long-held ambition.
He taught music at schools throughout the region, small schools where he says the students “couldn’t tell how bad I was” at music.
As a teacher, he encouraged his students to sing and even now, at Swan Hill Primary School, plays guitar in class.
It wasn’t until 2011 that he was able to fulfil another goal and see one of his plays performed on stage.
That year, rising flood waters threatened Swan Hill.
The Kellys and their three daughters evacuated their home in the face of increasing flood danger and in the middle of the chaos, Mr Kelly contracted Ross River Fever, and was forced to take weeks off work.
“I would go to work for a few hours, and then I’d need to go to sleep,” he says.
“But then I’d wake up feeling all right, and that’s when I would write.”
The Great Flood became a comedy, something not everyone who shared the experience would have predicted.
However, he says there was never any doubt it would be a comedy.
“It all seemed pretty serious, until we realised how funny it was,” he says.
He found the hilarity in the chaos of a town facing potential disaster, the media coverage, and the speeches by politicians and local characters.
The play was sold out every night of its run, as locals flocked to see their shared experience retold on stage.
“I was blown away,” he says.
The group of small town celebrities went on tour, taking the play to nearby communities with the help of a government funded flood relief grant.
“The Swan Hill Theatre Group is a great place. I’ve been amazed at the people who go there, the talent they have. I don’t think people realise how good they are…”
It was clear the play resonated with people.
“I got into the theatre group because I was trying to learn the ropes, so I could put my plays on,” Mr Kelly says.
“I’d had some plays written already, but when I started writing The Great Flood, that’s when I had the opportunity.
“Enough time had passed that we could laugh about things we never even knew we’d been affected by.”
His next play was The Duckplucker’s Son, a musical which once again tapped into the grass-roots theatre talent of the Swan Hill community.
“The Swan Hill Theatre Group is a great place,” he says.
“I’ve been amazed at the people who go there, the talent they have. I don’t think people realise how good they are.”
He has completed work on his third production as playwright and will begin casting later this year.
The Whistleblower will take the stage in October.
“The Whistleblower’s my best play by a mile,” he says.
“With The Great Flood I dived in boots and all, not knowing what I was doing, but now I have a better idea.”
The Whistleblower is about a school teacher in a country town who loses his masculinity and joins the local football team as an umpire, rediscovering that and more.
He says despite some of the similarities to his own life, the play is not autobiographical.
“You see that growth, and their self-esteem develop, and they get to mix with a different set of kids…”
That said, he says there are themes in each of his plays that resonate with people in regional towns.
“I reckon that country people will identify with it, there are a few old blokes in it, some past legends in football who everyone loves,” he says.
“It’s a play about people finding where they fit in, belonging and community.”
As a teacher, umpire, playwright and leader in the local Swan Hill singing group, it’s clear where Mr Kelly gets his stories of small-town life.
His talent for spinning a yarn has paid off.
Even his children, who in their first audition for roles in the theatre group were shaking in terror, now take to music and acting like ducks to water.
“You see that growth, and their self-esteem develop, and they get to mix with a different set of kids.”
He is proud of the efforts Swan Hill Theatre Group has made in representing the community on the stage.
Last year, the group produced local Emily Smith’s play The Princess and the Swineherd.
“That’s four plays in four years with original local content, which I think is pretty amazing,” he says.
