A newsreader, a festival director, a detective, a war veteran and the head of ABC Drama walk into a bar – and they are all played by the same person. Gregory J. Wilken.
Wilken is one of the stars of Stephen Vagg’s latest stage play, The First Night (of The One Day of the Year), a farcical comedy that will world premiere at Ad Astra Theatre in Petrie Terrace on November 5.
The play is a comic reimagining of the first performance in Adelaide in 1960 of another stage work, Alan Seymour’s The One Day of the Year, a critical look at Anzac Day.
“On opening night there was a bomb threat,” Wilken explains. “Stephen has written a play about that night. It’s poignant. It’s hilarious. It really shows what happens among actors and writers and producers and directors behind the scenes. And when there is a calamity.
“I play five characters: an ABC newsreader; a very uptight festival director; a real character, Neil Hutchison, who worked for the ABC and was not a very good guy; an ASIO detective who comes in because there’s ‘communists’ and ‘homosexuals’ working in this play; and a war veteran.”
I asked Wilken how he got his start in acting.
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“I was in a few musicals at school, then my first production outside of school was at Noosa Arts, where I did Oliver! and The Man Who Understood Women,” Wilken recalls. “Then I didn’t do anything for a long time. The closest thing I did to acting was when I was a roller-skating dancing waiter at a bar in Piccadilly Circus in London.
“When I moved to Sydney, I was trying out lots of things to meet people and one of them was an acting course. Three years later, one of the people there said, ‘You need to take this seriously’. So, I did.”
After roles in multiple productions and a feature film, COVID hit and he moved back to Queensland. It was here he started getting involved with Ad Astra, the Brisbane-based theatre owned by Fiona and Dan Kennedy.
“I loved what it was, and I knew it had potential,” says Wilken.
After being cast in plays such as 2:20am and The Realistic Joneses, Wilken offered to help out a bit behind the scenes.
“Then a little bit more, then a little bit more,” he says. “Then I got asked to be an executive producer.”
Wilken has since been involved in multiple productions at Ad Astra, including his personal favourites The Normal Heart and Six Characters in Search of an Author, in which he starred alongside his toy cavoodle, Ebony (who was present during the interview). Unfortunately for Ebony, she will not be in The First Night (of The One Day of the Year).
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“I asked Stephen Vagg, ‘Did you write some of these roles about me?’” Wilken laughs. “He said, ‘No, but I wrote these roles with you in mind, because I’ve seen your work’.”
Ad Astra holds a yearly program called Astra Nova, which works with emerging and established playwrights to develop their new work. Wilken managed to get Vagg to do a table read of The First Night (of The One Day of the Year).
“The audience killed themselves laughing, all the way through,” Wilken says. “There were so many ‘in’ jokes. I said to Stephen, ‘This play needs to be seen, so let’s put it in this year’s season’.
“Also, by working with Stephen, we were able to get David Williamson to come in and do a table read of his new play, How to Survive a Happy Childhood. He was so impressed that Ad Astra are doing the world premiere of that play next year.”
When asked if it was challenging playing so many different roles in The First Night (of The One Day of the Year), Wilken was emphatic.
“You just have to live in my head for five minutes and you will know – it’s easy to play multiple characters. Also, as an actor, it is just so much fun.”
As the interview wrapped up, Wilken had some final thoughts:
“You should absolutely come and see new work by local writers of the quality of Stephen Vagg or David Williamson and, in this particular play, you will laugh your head off! It’s funny!
“Nathaniel Currie, who’s the director, and the fabulous cast I’m working with, are all really grabbing every moment and making it the best moment that it can be in the play.
“If you’re from Adelaide, you gotta come see it. If you’re in the industry, you gotta come see it. If you love The One Day of the Year, and there are a lot of people who do, you gotta come see it and support independent theatre!”
“Woof,” added Ebony.
The First Night (of The One Day of the Year) premieres at Ad Astra Theatre, 210 Petrie Tce, Brisbane, on November 5 and runs until November 21.
adastracreativity.com/productions/the-first-night
This article was written as part of The Critical Writing Program, run in partnership with Queensland Writers Centre and InReview Queensland, supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, part of the Department of Education.
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