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OCTOBER 11 2013 ISSUE 1124
PROUDLY INDEPENDENT CIRCULATION: 59,069
THE HEARTBEAT OF PENRITH
HEALTH WORRY Over 50 per cent of Australia’s young adults do not have private health cover and are playing Russian roulette with their health. 52.8 per cent of young adults aged between 18 and 24 don’t have private health insurance and of those aged 25 to 34, 48.6 per cent are living without it. And it seems that the cost of such cover is what is holding local people back from taking the leap.
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PLEA TO FIX EMU
‘Truck Stop’ was hugely popular when it played at Penrith’s Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre last year.
Our arts revolution
Aitken throws spanner in Bridge works PAGE 5
Penrith embraces new wave of stage productions
P
TROY DODDS
enrith is on the brink of a performing arts revolution with local productions winning big awards and Penrith-based theatre companies taking on risky projects of huge proportion. It’s a far cry from a few decades ago when Penrith’s arts scene was almost dormant apart from the loyal few who attended the old Q The atre on Station Street. Now, Penrith is leading the way with cutting edge productions that are being recognised nationally.
‘Truck Stop’, which played at the Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre in 2012 to much critical acclaim and was a Q The atre Company production, last weekend won a prestigious AWGIE Award, presented by the Australian Writers Guild, for playwright Lachan Philpott. It won the ‘Theatre: For Young Audiences’ gong at an awards ceremony hosted by writer, comedian and songbird Sammy J at the Plaza Ballroom in Melbourne. The latest recognition follows enormous success at the prestigious Sydney Theatre Awards earlier this year. Meanwhile, ‘Kids Killing Kids’, which opens
next week at the Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre, was awarded Best New Experimental Work at the Melbourne Fringe Awards on Saturday night at the Fringe Club, North Melbourne Town Hall. ‘Kids Killing Kids’ is a joint Q Theatre Company and MKA Theatre of New Writing production. Grant Jones, who is the President of the Penrith Musical Comedy Company, believes that the local area is becoming more adaptive to riskier, more inventive theatre productions, like the musical ‘Avenue Q’, which his company is presenting later this month. Story continues page six
CHAMPIONS Panthers win Holden Cup Grand Final PAGES 69, 72 Lic No. 102962C
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