“It's the first time I've ever kissed a girl” says actor Sharon Brodie, “It's certainly a brand new experience for me, but that's great, I'm loving it.”

An unbridled enthusiasm for quiche can lead to this sort of thing apparently. 

It's 1956 and the Susan B Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertrude Stein have gathered for their annual quiche breakfast. Its motto is “no men, no meat, all manners.” In 1956 women didn't go around kissing each other in public. “It wasn't safe for anyone to say they were a lesbian out loud,” says Brodie.

But they did worry about a communist attack. Her character Vern Schultz, “has been working on the building, making sure that we are prepared in case there is a nuclear attack.” 

Vern, she says, has “cooked a fabulous quiche that all the actors get to eat and the audience watch us eating that on stage.”

5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche is the final play for the 2023 season for the Lismore Theatre Company. It is an immersive play for the audience. “All the audience members are like sisters of the society,” says director Kylie Fuad. “It's not your traditional theatre experience. Everyone's in there and talking to each other, the actors improvising with the audience and then all of a sudden the show will start.”

The lights don't go down, the audience is always lit. “There's no fourth wall between where the actors are safe from the audience, we are engaging with the audience,” says Brodie. But, says Fuad, “It's not a scary interactive thing, it is just that the actors are going to be walking through the theatre talking to the audience.”

The all woman cast can improvise, she says, because “we've got five local actors who are all very experienced and are working from a very tight, witty script. The script kicks in. It is a huge ask on the cast but I've been very lucky to get five amazing local female actors to play the roles.”

Written by Andrew Hobgood and Evan Linder, it is a multi-award-winning American play, but Fuad says, “Basically we have Australianised it. Because it could be set in any regional town with this annual quiche breakfast and the committee coming together.”

As the five women are eagerly awaiting the announcement of the society's prize-winning quiche, an atomic bomb alarm goes off, and then there is an explosion. “And it is like,” says Fuad, “what if we are the last people left alive? And how do we keep getting our quiches? And there is this lovely sort of Spartacus moment where they are able to realise, are we lesbians? Or are we really just sisters and widows of this society?”

Some people, she says “might think oh that is like a lesbian play or a gay play, it is actually not. It is just a really funny play. We want men to come and see it as well because they will laugh and enjoy it. ”

Trapped in the building the characters are forced to come out from behind their constructed personalities, and the quick-fire dialogue accelerates; “the closet doors blow open as secrets, repressed desires and an insatiable hunger for quiche are released” according to the publicity material.

Says Brodie, “It is a process of revelation. “These are just women who are part of a society that loves quiche, that is what brings them all together. And as the play evolves they find different parts of themselves on that journey. It is a journey on how these women respond to crises, how they manage stress, the benefits of having sisters, and having people around you who love and support you. There is lots of nuance and subtlety in the show as well as great lines and enormous humour.”

Fuad says she has been involved with the Lismore Theatre Company for 16 years, “I've directed a lot of shows over the years and usually they are traditional theatre pieces. This is a really different theatre experience. Hands down this is the funniest script that I've ever been part of.” 

So far they haven't been able to get through rehearsals without “breaking down in laughter. We could not get through the whole play without laughing because it is just really, really witty, very well written and very, very funny.”

And yes, since you ask, there will be quiche for the audience too, at the end. 

The first performance on Thursday, November 9^th is a fundraiser for the Lismore branch of the Red Cross with seven shows to follow from the 10th to 19th of November at the Rochdale Theatre in Goonellabah.

Tickets for all shows are available now at www.lismoretheatrecompany.org.au.