Bundy's Ray lights up Bay for Shakespeare

Tuesday March 17, 2009

Former Shalom College student Ray Milner is in charge of lighting up the set for this year's production of USQ Shakespeare on the Bay in Hervey Bay.

Nineteen-year-old Ray is head of electrics for the festival, which started last month in Toowoomba and has toured to Springfield. The festival has now arrived on the Fraser Coast to present three public performances of The Tempest at Hervey Bay's Seafront Oval from Thursday to Saturday.

Ray, who lived in Gin Gin before moving to Bundaberg, is a University of Southern Queensland student in his third year of a Bachelor of Theatre Arts degree.

This year he scored the top job in lighting after touring with the festival last year as a lighting board operator.

'It's a big job, but it's going really well,' Ray said.

'I have always wanted to get into theatre work.

'Initially I was a performer, but I thought it would be a lot less stress backstage – but it isn't.'

Nevertheless, Ray loves the work and is keen to get into travelling theatre when he finishes his degree at the end of the year.

Today (Wednesday) he'll have the opportunity to meet up with some Bundaberg students.

Forty students from Kepnock State High will travel to Hervey Bay today (Wednesday March 18) to attend the Shakespeare Secondary School Workshops and a special showing of The Tempest tonight.

Media Contact: Katrina Corcoran, USQ Fraser Coast Media Contact, Phone: 07 41943167