Presented by Noah Wylie’s The Blank Theater Company as the opener to their season, Windows on the World will be staged on Monday September 12 with a Hollywood celebrity cast.

“I am very proud that it is going on around the 10th anniversary - it was always a hope of mine to have something ready to commemorate 9/11 and to share these new stories with people at this time,” Ms Keen said.

“I am thrilled that an American audience is going to get to hear these stories. Some of the individuals whose stories are told in the play will actually be in the audience and I have a tremendous commitment to them so that is a bit scary. I am also excited that this may lead to play being seen by others.”

Now a CSU lecturer, based in Bathurst, Colette has her own strong connections to the US and events that day. She lived in the US from 1994 to 2004 and had flown back to the US from Australia on the morning of 9/11.

“A friend was murdered in the second plane into the towers. She was a flight attendant. It took me a while to realise that every time that footage came on TV I was watching her murder again and again,” she said.

Colette completed Windows on the World as part of her Charles Sturt University Master of Interpretative Writing. It uses the verbatim style of theatre – using exact words from real interviews with people who were there that day, many of whom escaped the crumbing World Trade Centre. As a journalist it is a style that has fascinated Ms Keen for many years.

“I have always been interested in verbatim theatre as a form of performance,” she said.

“Most verbatim theatre is created around tragedy and political statements. It is the next step beyond journalism and story-telling, where research becomes a documentary delivered to the audience as a piece of entertainment.”

The play has been developed in Bathurst, with the help of the Local Stages program at Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre. The script was first heard publically earlier this year at a rehearsed reading at the Ponton Theatre on the Bathurst CSU campus.

Ms Keen says the development of the script with Local Stages and the rehearsed reading of the play in Bathurst was an invaluable experience.

“Without it, it would have been impossible to get the piece to the stage it is currently at. It was the first opportunity I had to hear the words and it allowed me the freedom to craft the piece more.

“We had some rehearsal time over a couple of days and then the play was read in front of about 20 people at the Ponton Theatre - I sat in the back of the theatre and was terrified.

“The director and cast and especially Local Stages were fantastic and so giving. The way Kylie [Shead], from Local Stages, was able to set things up and allow me sit down afterwards with people I trusted to go through what worked and did not work was a gift!”

Ms Shead worked with Ms Keen on various drafts of the script. She says the rehearsed reading in Bathurst was a vital part of the script development.

“Hearing and seeing your work come alive on stage is very different from working on a script on paper,” Ms Shean said.

“It helps develop an understanding of how the audience will view your work. Colette is working with stories told to her by people who where there on the day, and she is telling it in their words, unless you hear the work being read by actors throughout the process it’s hard to find the balance between the reality and the theatrical.”

Headed to LA with Ms Keen is CSU theatre lecturer Kate Smith along with Adam Deusien, who directed the original rehearsed reading and will direct an Australian production of the play in Bathurst in early 2012.

And as for having her script performed by well known Hollywood TV actors, Ms Keen admits she is more than a bit nervous.

“It is pretty nerve wracking to have all these famous people participating - if anyone had told me I'd get to work with Noah Wyle I would have said they were crazy - I guess this means I am now one degree of separation from George Clooney.

“For any writer it is scary to have your work read but the people in the USA have made me feel very comfortable. The Blank Theatre is fantastic. It has such a great philosophy and the fact that they consider unsolicited scripts is amazing.”

Windows on the World will open the 21st season of The Blank Theater Company at The Stella Adler Theatre in Los Angeles on Monday September 12, 2011. The Los Angeles cast includes Noah Wyle (Falling Skies, ER), The Blank’s Artistic Producer, Academy Award nominee Virginia Madsen (Sideways), Mark Valley (Human Target, Boston Legal), Nicholas Brendon (Private Practice, Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Justina Machado (Six Feet Under, In the Heights), Mike Farrell (M*A*S*H), Catherine Hicks (7th Heaven), Megan Ward (General Hospital) and Perry Ojeda (See What I Wanna See).

The Bathurst cast of the early 2011 rehearsed reading was Fiona Green, Kathy Cameron, Al McCarten, Bill Affleck and Andy Cavenagh.