If you are interested in joining FAMDA or you have any questions, please phone our helpful president Tania Pell on 0427 832 303 or use the contact form.

A BRIEF HISTORY

Foster’s theatre company is known as FAMDA – Foster Amateur Music and Drama Association.

FAMDA is an award-winning, community theatre and singing company that has involved, inspired and enriched the South Gippsland community since 1953.

We like to do a variety of shows so we stage plays as well as musicals, pantomimes and the occasional music halls. We really enjoy setting ourselves to plays which are a challenge – ‘Oedipus Rex’ in 2006 and also much more modern plays like Shadowlands, Shirley Valentine and The Cemetery Club.  We have also presented some locally written productions such as Stringlines and Bush Magic.

We have an affiliated choir called the Prom Coast Singers. Some choir members perform in FAMDA’s stage productions as well as in the choir’s independent performances.  In 2009 the choir was heavily involved in the multi-arts spectacular, Promontory Dreaming, as part of the Prom Coast Seachange Festival.

We like to get involved in community events. FAMDA recently presented a piece called ‘In Their Own Words’ (which was written with Alzheimer sufferers with their helpers in mind), and the Prom Coast Singers perform at Community Christmas Carols.

Most performances, productions, rehearsals and singing practices are held at the Foster War Memorial Arts Centre though we have occasionally done outside events such as Alice in Wonderland, staged in Pearl Park, and have even toured to Yarram and Georgetown in Tasmania.

Every year we host a one-act play festival over the weekend of  the second Saturday in August.

We are fortunate to have some very talented people working behind the scenes to make sure that we produce top quality theatre – Geoff Davey has won numerous awards for set design and scenic art, Bruce Crowl has incredible expertise in set building and he is also a brilliant director, Andrew Oldroyd and Rob Ellis are extremely creative when it comes to lighting and sound design so FAMDA productions are always extremely well crafted.

RECENT SHOWS

In 2007 we staged the Broadway musical, The Producers, and we began 2008 with a locally written pantomime called Twisted Tales from the Woods.

Our next production was Blue Remembered Hills, a very challenging play which concerns a group of seven year olds playing in the Forest of Dean one summer afternoon during 1943, when Britain was in the depths of World War II. Our adult actors had to behave like children and at the end of the play we had to burn down the barn – our sound and lighting people made this truly spectacular.

Blue Remembered Hills was entered in the Victorian Drama League competition vying with plays from 25 of Victoria’s leading theatre companies. It was one of only three plays in the whole competition to be nominated in every production category – best lighting, sound, costumes, director etc. and FAMDA won two judge’s awards, one for ensemble playing and the other for the magnificent ‘pyrotechnics’.

In the 2008 Gippsland Theatre awards, Blue Remembered Hills won four major trophies. Max Hastings won two awards, most outstanding director of a drama or comedy and most outstanding support actor.

Andrew Oldroyd won the award for best lighting for his work on Blue Remembered Hills and the company also earned the inaugural Alby Fisher Memorial Award for excellence in creativity and design for the outstanding creation of the fire effects in the burning barn.

Wonthaggi Judge, Jill Allen, gave her special adjudicator’s award to FAMDA for “producing Blue Remembered Hills as a different and challenging theatrical experience”.

2009 PROJECTS

• In January FAMDA staged a happy home-grown pantomime filled with puns, perfidy and puppets. Called Bush Magic, it was written locally by Edwin Coad with music by Rob Ellis. There were forty two performers in the cast playing humans (good and bad) bush animals, farm animals and numerous puppets. We have everything for cows to tap dancing lambs, kangaroos and cockatoos.

• Our next production was a black comedy set in contemporary rural Victoria called Dinner at Hugo’s. This gourmet thriller by Edwin Coad was served as the entrée to the 2009 Prom Coast Seachange Festival and was staged in Foster 17 – 24 April with Raymond Dunstan as the director.

• 1 – 3 May 2009 FAMDA’s affiliated choir, the Prom Coast Singers, participated in a huge multi-arts project called Promontory Dreaming.  Locally written, it involved more than 100 singers, musicians and dancers in performances at the Foster Arts Centre.

• FAMDA hosted the ninth annual South Gippsland One-Act Play Festival on the weekend of 8th August with the largest number of entries to date.

• FAMDA’s final project for the year was Stephen Sondheim’s fractured fairytale musical, Into the Woods, staged at the beginning of October.

ALL PROJECTS

To see a complete listing of FAMDA Production from 1953-2009, >>Click HERE<<

FAMDA COMMITTEE 2010 – 2011

President:  Tania Pell
Vice President:  Dianne Paragreen – raphoto [@] dcsi.net.au
Secretary:  Andrew Oldroyd
Treasurer:  Norm Willoughby -  normanwilloughby [@] bigpond.com.au
Publicity Officer:  Jennifer Paragreen – sgas [@] dcsi.net.au

General:  Nicole Cooper,  Linda Giddy,  Louise Harfield,  Amanda Mahomed,  Jane Park,  Barbara Partridge, Peter Rushen

LIFE MEMBERS

Verna Anderson, Paddy Broberg, Bruce Crowl, Geoff Davey, Barbara Fleming, Patricia Fleming, Robert Fleming (dec), Jack Giblett (dec), Max Hastings, John Kahsnitz, Brian Paragreen, Dianne Paragreen, Jennifer Paragreen, Robert Paragreen, Arthur Smallwood (dec), Ethel Smallwood (dec), Dick Straw.

Foster’s theatre company, FAMDA, has been staging productions in South Gippsland since 1953.

On Friday 17 October FAMDA celebrated its 55th birthday with a party at Source Café in Foster and used the occasion to launch FAMDA’s 2009 season menu.

Inaugural life member, Pattie Fleming, a foundation member of the company and in the cast for its very first production, was in attendance and Barbara Fleming commented that another founding member, her mother, Jean Gotch, has sent her best wishes for the occasion.

John Laurie added to the party atmosphere by providing musical entertainment and Genevieve Moore presented an interesting selection of visual memorabilia from past shows.

President, Max Adam, provided an entertaining summary of some of FAMDA’s past achievements before revealing the tantalising fare being cooked up for FAMDA audiences in 2009.

IN THE BEGINNING

FAMDA is an award-winning, community theatre and singing company that has involved, inspired and enriched the Corner Inlet community since 1953.

Its history goes back even further than that to 5 May 1948 when W. S. Pearl, the Shire Secretary, and hardware store owner, Doug Davis, convened a meeting attended by seventeen others to form an organisation to take advantage of cultural opportunities provided by the State Film Centre and the Council of Adult Education.

The group was to be known as Foster Film, Art, Music and Drama Association and its first aim was to sponsor regular screenings of films sent by rail from the State Film Centre and touring companies, principally the Council of Adult Education, bringing musical groups, plays and even ballet into the district.

The visiting artists, including musicians from the Zelman Orchestra, an affiliate of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, were usually billeted in the private homes of FAMDA members.

Another aim was to provide a centre where members could pursue their own interests in fields of visual arts, orchestral or recorded music, selected documentary films or dramatic art including choral singing. Each group was allocated one night per month to enjoy its particular art and a general meeting was held to plan activities well ahead.

FIRST PRODUCTION

At Foster FAMDA’s 1953 AGM the president, Ivor Gazzard, the first head master of the then Foster High School, suggested that dramatically minded members might like to stage a variety show at the Foster Hall and Foster Frolics hit the boards on 4th November 1953.

FAMDA thus takes its official birthday from the time it began staging its own shows rather than imported ones.

Foster Frolics was a variety show based loosely on a night club, the Ragwort Rendezvous, which was famous for its can-can ballet and its solo vocalists wickedly plagiarising the popular stars of the day. The cast was listed as including Mrs. Fleming, Mrs. Gazzard, Mrs. Gotch, Mrs. Carruthers, Mrs. Smith, V. A. Roney, Mrs. Traill, C. I. Gazzard, H. Davis, T. Burns, L. Traill, D. Cunningham and R. Carruthers.

This show was a tremendous success and plans were immediately made for a similar event the next year and FAMDA forged ahead with its other activities. The music-lovers formed a recorded music group which met at private homes to listen to and discuss the composers and their works and usually electing a leader for the next month’s program. The visual artists met for painting sessions and occasionally were able to invite an artist to assist. Those interested in films were able to arrange screenings using Foster High School facilities.

Advancing from the early variety shows, the company decided to tackle something more ambitious and for the third annual production included Trial by Jury with Len Tosch, Joyce Pearson, John Kahsnitz and John Fleming among the cast.

This was so popular that it was followed by The Mikado the next year. With all the confidence of the youthful society, members created kimonos, black wigs and long regal fingernails fashioned from old X-ray films.

During the relatively short life of the society, the musicians had started a nucleus of an orchestra which became the mainstay of the musical comedies. This group became so important that an orchestra pit was built into the floor of the old hall to accommodate it.

Membership increased, musical evenings gained popularity and the art and film groups flourished but, over all, ‘the stage’ was favourite and the name, FAMDA, became synonymous with stage productions. Musical comedy, pantomime, Gilbert and Sullivan operas, mystery dramas and melodramas appeared year after year.

In 1962 the Foster Mechanics Institute burnt down, theatrical productions ceased but all the other activities continued.

NEW HALL

With the advent of the new Foster War Memorial Arts Centre in 1966 with the large stage and the provision of more sophisticated lighting, more ambitious productions were undertaken and two or three productions have been staged nearly every year.

FAMDA celebrated Foster’s centenary with a locally written historical play, The Great Uncertainty. For Victoria’s Sesquicentenary FAMDA commissioned a melodrama based on life in Foster as a goldfields town. The result was Felicity’s Fortune written by Patricia Fleming with music by Barbara Fleming.
Some shows were taken on the road. In 1982 a controversial production of Don’s Party was staged in Leongatha and Yarram as well as Foster.

FAMDA’s Bicentennial show, 200 Not Out, had two performances in Yarram. In 1990 Follow the Star was performed in Georgetown, Tasmania and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum toured to Yarram in 1991.
Enlargements and improvements to the stage area at the Foster Hall, which FAMDA has always assisted financially, made possible larger productions such as Oklahoma! directed by Glenn Smith and staged in conjunction with the local secondary college.

FORTY YEARS ON

In 1993 FAMDA staged a splendid performance of Fiddler on the Roof.  Directed innovatively by Neil Goodwin, FAMDA used newly constructed tiered seating to convert the hall to a veritable theatre.

It was also the first time FAMDA had entered itself in theatre competitions and Gippsland Theatre awards went to John Watson as Best Actor,  Max Hastings as Best Supporting Actor and the Dream Sequence earned the award for the Most Innovative Contribution. There was also a Judge’s award for community involvement prompted by the large number of local businesses providing sponsorship for the production. FAMDA’s sponsors are still very much appreciated for their generous contributions to the company.
In 1995 FAMDA decided to change its name officially to Foster Amateur Music & Drama Association in recognition of its focus on theatrical pursuits rather than film and visual arts and Geoff Davey designed FAMDA’s new Dancing Stars logo.

AWARDS

FAMDA has enjoyed a remarkable run of success with its recent productions.

From 1998 to 2006 FAMDA won the Gippsland Theatre Most Outstanding Play trophy every year, except for 2000 when FAMDA did not stage a play, as Best Play awards went in succession to Round and Round the Garden, Educating Rita, The Woman in Black, Hotel Sorrento, A Month of Sundays, Shirley Valentine, Shadowlands and Oedipus Rex.

There were also awards for Bruce Crowl, Max Hastings, Murray Maclean and Raymond Dunstan as directors and numerous trophies for actors, sets and lighting.

Productions of Annie, Oliver!, Guys and Dolls and The Producers have earned several Music Theatre Guild nominations and the 2000 Most Outstanding Technical Achievement trophy went to FAMDA for its staging of Oliver!

Since 2002 FAMDA’s plays have impressed VDL judges with many nominations. A set design award went to Geoff Davey for the set design of Hotel Sorrento, Rob Ellis has twice won the sound design award while Bruce Grainger won the best supporting actor award and Cate Aitken the Best Actress in a Minor Role trophy for their performances in Oedipus Rex.

2009 FARE

The first course was Bush Magic, a playful pantomime of perfidy plus puppetry to be presented in the Christmas holidays between 14 and 25 January.

Dinner at Hugo’s, a gourmet thriller by Edwin Coad, served 17 – 24 April as the entrée to the Prom Coast Seachange Festival.

The final course on the menu is Stephen Sondheim’s delicious musical, Into the Woods, fractured fairy tales with a cautionary note to be careful what you wish for. This delightful confection will be staged 2 – 17 October.

In addition the Prom Coast Singers  tempted the taste buds by singing in the extended Prom Coast Seachange Festival program on 1 and 2 May.

The annual South Gippsland One Act Play Festival continues on the weekend of Saturday 8 August.

Watch out for juicy details of these tasty morsels as 2009 unfolds.

PHOTOGRAPH
FAMDA Past, Present and Future – Pattie Fleming (Life Member and cast member in FAMDA’s very first production),  Max Adam (FAMDA President 2006 – 2009) and Louise Dower (young performer in FAMDA shows such as Ebenezer’s Dream, Twisted Tales, Open Call, Bush Magic, Into the Woods and many more to come.

There are 2 motels:

The COMFORT INN is on the south side of the H’way just before the Foster turn-off as you approach from Melbourne.
Their rates range from $95 single or $99 double in a Queen sized bedroom [2 people] thru’ to $115 for 3 people in a Queen & Single room, to a divided room [2 bedrooms] at $205 holding 6 people.
All rooms are fully serviced, and there is an on-site Café Ole’. Breakfast is not covered in the charge but room service is available from the cafe. The motel is 3 minutes walk thru’ parkland  to the hall where the awards presentation takes place.
Talk to Melinda on 5682 2022,   FAX 5682 2898,   or  fostfost@bigpond.com

The other is the WILSON’S PROMONTORY MOTEL which is in the main street (Station Road), about a 2 minute walk to the hall.
Their rates are:  $80 single or $88 double. A light breakfast costs $7 – cooked $14.
They have a variety of bed combinations in their different rooms.
Call Samantha on 5682 2055. FAX 5682 1064,    or wilsprommotel@dcsi.net.au

PROM CENTRAL CARAVAN PARK is in Nelson Street [about a 5-minute walk to the hall]
There are options in the cabins: 4 have 2 doubles and 1 single, 4 have 1 double and 4 singles, and 1 has 2 doubles and 1 single @ $125 per couple. Extra people over and above the ‘double’ price are charged an extra $20 pp.
These are self-catering cabins and the advice is to bring bedding. Linen can be supplied at an extra fee of $12 pp.
Telephone Gwen or Alan on 5682 2440. FAX 5682 1535, or email promcentral@promcentralcaravanpark.com.au
Webpage:  www.promcentralcaravanpark.com.au
Mention that you’re in town for the One Act Plays

The WARRAWEE HOLIDAY UNITS are a 3 or 4 minute walk to the hall, [100m from the Pub].
Each unit has 2 bedrooms, one with a double bed, the other with 2 singles. They are self-contained with a kitchen. No food provided.  $90, $20 pp extra, for each unit.
‘Phone Mohya or John on 5682 2171 or  jmdavies@wideband.net.au

….also the PROM COAST YHA, which has been established in the renovated cottage right next door to WARRAWEE. It operates as a 10-bed backpackers hostel with shared bathroom and kitchen facilities.  $60 per double, $25 for a bunk bed.
‘Phone Mohya or John on 5682 2171 or  jmdavies@wideband.net.au

Then there are  other cottages and accommodation. The nearest to the hall [about 5 minutes walk] is ROSE COTTAGE at 21 Victory Avenue [northern extension of Main Street].  Here there is one en-suite cabin for 1 or 2 people. No food is provided, but there are food preparation and cooking facilities. There’s a laden lemon tree for your fish ‘n chips.
$60 for 2 people, $40 for one. ‘Phone Margaret on 5682 2628.

LITCHFIELD LODGE would be the only B &B that could claim to be right in town – it’s about a 2 minute drive, or a 5-minute walk to the hall thru’ the school grounds. Here there are 3 bedrooms with en-suites and courtyards. Two of the bedrooms have queen-size beds, the other a double. There are also a couple of folding beds that are available for extras.  $120 per room includes b’fast. The whole house [of 3 rooms] is yours for $300 per night
‘Phone Meg on 5682 1760, or litchfield@dcsi.net.au

For complete details of local accommodation go to  www.promaccom.com.au