Actress Annie Byron will be starring in a live stage performance of Boxing Day at The Roxy in Bingara on Saturday.
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Annie is originally from Inverell where she moved when she was six weeks old and later grew up and went to school there.
She has since gone on to a stellar career.
Annie was brought to live in Inverell as a baby when her father opened a shoe shop.
She went to school at St Mary’s Ross Hill, then Sacred Heart Primary.
For some of her high school years she was a border in Armidale, at St Ursula’s College. The remainder were spent at Inverell High.
She graduated with a scholarship that took her to the University of New South Wales, where she gained an Arts Degree, with honours in Drama. From there she went to NIDA where her classmates included Steve Bisley, Deborah Lawrence, Robert Menzies, Peter Kingston, Judy Davis and Mel Gibson.
Within a year of finishing NIDA she was the second Mrs Harry Sullivan (Lou Mitchell) in what was, at the time, the most popular and successful Australian TV series, The Sullivans.
Most recently she was working again with her one-time sister in law, Lorraine Bayly, in the touring production of Calendar Girls.
In between, there have been 32 years of stage, film, television and radio work with many of Australia’s leading writers, directors, designers and actors.
She has appeared in guest roles on most of the on-going TV series that have come and gone over the years including GP, A Country Practice, Neighbours, Flying Doctors, All Saints, Backberner, Stingers, Murder Call, Home and Away, Always Greener and Raffety’s Rules.
Other TV productions she has appeared in include Displaced Persons, Shadows of the Heart, The Potato Factory, Clowning Around, Princess Kate and Mary MacKillop.
Some of the films she has appeared in include My Mother Frank, Silver City, Muriel’s Wedding, Doin’ Time for Patsy Cline (for which she was nominated for an AFI) and Fran, which won her an AFI award.
Annie has worked for theatre companies all over Australia such as Belvoir St Theatre, The Ensemble, The Q, Perth Actors Collective, Hot House, Griffin, and Playbox.
She’s very happy that so much of her work has been in new Australian plays – Yibiyung, Parramatta Girls, Embers, Nailed, Bed, Capricornia, The Venetian Twins, Away.
However a highlight of her career would have to be the sell-out New York season of Sydney Theatre Company’s Hedda Gabler with Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving. Force Majeure’s production of The Age I’m In also took her overseas, with visits to Dublin, Montreal and Seoul.
Boxing Day is a captivating play; part mystery and part coming-of-age tale that cleverly mixes comedy and drama.