Description

Sandy was the only Australian War Horse to return home from World War I. This is his poignant and fragmented war story. Through Sandy we experience the lives of three men who fought in the war. Major General Sir William Throsby Bridges is mortally wounded at Gallipoli, and Sandy is his charger. A veterinary officer is caught with Sandy behind the lines on the Western Front in a gas shell barrage. A 'permanently unfit'; soldier becomes a groom and brings Sandy home. Each is affected by their symbiotic relationship with the horse. This unique, poetic piece of theatre captures the brutality of war and the heroism of the soldiers and horses who served. Sandy is the horse full of wattle who drank the waters of the Murray in bucketloads, and who danced with bogong moths. He is our connection to all those left behind.

Biography

R. Johns

R. JOHNS has a First-Class Honours Drama degree (Manchester University). Her work has been presented at Women International Playwrights curated conferences in Cape Town, Stockholm, Athens and Mumbai. Her plays have been produced in Australia, New Zealand, and Germany. Her political thriller Black Box 149 was part of DFAT’s Australia now Germany program. It was the first time the Staatstheater Nürnberg has produced a play by an Australian playwright. As Told by the Boys Who Fed Me Apples (VCE Drama playlist), supported by an Anzac Centenary Arts and Culture Fund grant, was nominated for an AWGIE Award for Community and Youth theatre. Johns has been shortlisted for the Griffin Playwriting Award and the BBC International Radio Playwriting Competition. At the Centre of Light had an extract published in Family, Scenes from a Diverse World (USA). The sell-out play Stray was on the VCE Drama playlist and produced for radio. Tchekov at the House of Special Purpose was inspired by the writer’s trip to the Winter Palace, St Petersburg. Carrying Shoes into the Unknown (VCE Theatre Studies playlist) set in Iran, published Currency Press, has an excerpt in Contemporary Monologues for Young Men and Women: Volume II (Oberon Books, UK).