Theatre’s new player

But instead of seeing that as a problem, she saw opportunity.

The former Bendigo resident has just started her own theatre company, Tripwire Theatre Inc, to help create opportunities for emerging scriptwriters such as herself.

Tripwire has already started enjoying success, such as with its recent production The Let-Down Reflex, which was performed in Ballarat, Bendigo, Anglesea and Kyneton.

The organisation is also in the midst of producing Travels With my Black Dog, which is a play about a man travelling in a caravan with his black dog, played by a woman, and a bad case of depression.

Ms Riedl said she has met plenty of people in Ballarat keen to work in a wider range of theatre opportunities.

“I’ve met people who aren’t just doing this for the fun of it – something really drives them,” she said.

“If you want to do that (work in theatre), you tend to have to go to Melbourne or Sydney of Adelaide. But a lot of us don’t want to do that – we want to live in country Victoria.”

Ms Riedl is now working on a production telling the tragic story of Daylesford’s lost children.

Being a mother of young children, she felt for the parents of the three boys who died of exposure after wandering from their home in search of goats, back in 1867.

The story also triggered another part of her – the part that writes theatre scripts – and she sat down and wrote a compelling play.

The 150th anniversary of the shocking event will be June 30 next year.

Ms Riedl plans to hold the opening night of the performance of her play at Daylesford Town Hall that same night.

She has been working with Daylesford residents to find out more about the lost children, including the caretaker of the Lost Children’s Monument.

“The piece I’ve written is the human story and the underlying currents of the human relationships surrounding the event,” she said.

To find out more about Tripwire and how to be part of upcoming productions, visit www.tripwire.org.au