Theatres are closed, but entertainment goes on.
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As one of the many venues across Australia who have recently closed their doors to the general public Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre (BMEC) is now looking at ways to bring theatre and entertainment out of the theatres and into living rooms.
BMEC is in a unique position to run a variety of projects, from Bathurst Writers' & Readers Festival to music performances. We also produce our own new work. It is these projects that BMEC is planning to bring to life online.
Bathurst Writers' & Readers' Festival, the annual program run in partnership with Books Plus, will be delivered online over three days from May 1-3. These sessions will also be recorded so if audiences cannot get to a computer at the time of the session they will be able to watch them later.
In this way it will still be possible to present some of the most popular festival sessions, including the Great Festival Read panel on Sunday, May 3 at 11am. This year the book selected is The Yield by Tara June Winch.
The Yield combines history, culture and Wiradjuri language and has been nominated for several literary awards. Her first novel, Swallow the Air won several literary awards.
After The Carnage, her second book, was published in 2016. Her third, The Yield, was published in 2019. She resides in France with her family.
The festival will also present "Books You May Have Missed" where staff from Books Plus, along with special guests, will be chatting about their favourite books from the past 12 months.
The festival is also working with some local playwrights to present short plays online over the weekend, plus some other fascinating discussions. Sessions will be presented online via the BMEC Bathurst facebook page. The full program will be announced in the next week.
Also on the facebook page over the next few weeks BMEC will be hosting some music sessions. LEAP (Local Emerging Artists Program) will bring young musicians to the online stage! These young musicians are incredibly talented - and we can't wait for you to hear and see what they can do.
BMEC's Local Stages program continues to support artists to write and make new work. At this stage we are working to adapt Kangaroo by Miranda Gott into a digital theatre performance.
In this unprecedented time BMEC is working in unprecedented ways to bring exciting new work to the Bathurst community.