Director’s Note: Janine Watson, FLY GIRL

What an immense privilege to have been a part of the development of FLY GIRL for the last two years, and to direct the World Premiere of this incredible new play. This is my third collaboration with Genevieve Hegney and Catherine Moore, who I just adore, and who have made my life infinitely funnier. In FLY GIRL, they have captured the heart and spirit of Deborah Lawrie. Deb is generous, kind, humble and honest. She’s a leader, a teacher, a pioneer and an absolute game changer. I’m in awe of her. And when you see this story, you will be too.

FLY GIRL teems with life. Gen and Cath’s writing fizzes and crackles on the page. So, when the actors take to the floor and perform their words, the rehearsal room practically bursts with energy. The scope of Deb’s story is vast and sprawling, yet Gen and Cath have been precise, incisive and clear-sighted in their vision of it. The momentum of their writing sweeps us along. The funnies are extremely funny, the emotional power gut-wrenching. My job in directing the play has been to wrangle it without stifling it. To craft it without containing it. My love and thanks to the exceptional cast and creative team for aiding and abetting the madness.

I’m deeply grateful for this experience. I’m grateful for Deb’s grit. She is a force – her fight for professional equality nearly fifty years ago created a slipstream of inclusion that still pulls us along today.

(I want to thank my dad, Mike Watson, for recording all the Air Traffic Control announcements in this production of FLY GIRL. He was an Air Traffic Controller at Moorabbin Airport when Deb worked there in the late 1970s, and the opportunity to honour that synchronicity was too good to pass up.)

Janine Watson