Top Gun! The Musical which Salty Theatre performed for the Melbourne Fringe Festival at Chapel Off Chapel, will fly in to town in September marking a new era for the company.

"What we really want to do is make regional artists have a place where they can perform professionally and get paid for work without having to travel," said Salty Theatre co-founder Sarahlouise Younger who lives in Ballarat and has previously taught at Federation University's Arts Academy.

"It's a problem I have had the entire time I have lived in Ballarat. You have to look outside of town, but we have great talent here, so it's time for Salty Theatre to spread our wings and launch so we are bringing Top Gun!, which is like a great metaphor."

The company will look to produce and tour three shows each year across their Melbourne and Ballarat sites while also working on new productions.

"We want to give artists the ability to tour across three shows and learn new work at the same time with a strong focus on getting regional creatives, regional artists on the road."

And in 2024 they will launch a Certificate IV Diploma in Musical Theatre course to provide an immersive experience for the stage stars of the future.

"Rather than go away to study then be thrown out in to the world to find a job ... more or less they will get to work in the company as they study with internships and residencies and then we will hold five places within the company each year for graduates who show promise so they can work professionally with us for a year."

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Ms Younger and Salty Theatre co-founder Ashley Taylor Tickell met while working on a musical in 2018 and quickly realised they shared the idea of starting a touring repertoire company and practical hands-on training for new artists.

Ms Younger said conversations earlier this year around access to arts, diversity, jobs and education really hit home and brought Salty back to their original plans.

"While we had survived the pandemic and come out the other side and, in some ways, we had been able to use that time to our advantage we knew becoming 'yet another theatre company' was not something we wanted," she said.

With Ms Younger based in Ballarat and passionate about talent in the regions they decided the time was right to debut regionally with a strong focus on collaboration with arts practitioners, local talented creatives and use the heritage buildings of Ballarat as unique theatre spaces.

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