Following huge success with her first book, award-winning Hope Vale artist Wanda Gibson will now see her story on the stage after the adaptation was picked up by JUTE Theatre Company. Photo: Supplied.
A Hope Vale author’s story of growing up with homemade dresses, bush tucker and traditional ways of living is being brought to a new generation through a theatre project involving local school students.
For award-winning author Wanda Gibson, the decision to turn her debut book, Three Dresses, into a stage production has been an unexpected next step for a story that began as a reflection on her childhood.
JUTE Theatre Company, based in Cairns, approached the artist-turned-writer earlier this year, and recently travelled to Hope Vale to meet with community members and discuss the adaptation with the author.
“I don’t think it’s sunk in yet,” she said.
“I didn’t know it was going to end up this far.”
The book, which draws on her childhood experiences and was written in part as a message to younger generations about appreciating what they have, won the $100,000 Victorian Prize for Literature category of the 2025 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards last year, making history as the first children’s book to claim the prize since the award’s establishment in 1985.
Building on the book’s success, Ms Gibson hoped the stage production would give audiences a greater understanding of how life was lived when she was growing up.
She said life for children in her generation was very different, with families relying on bush tucker and making their own toys and games.
“Just show them more what we went through, how we lived,” she said.
“What we didn’t have, you know; we made our own toys, we made our own games.
“Nowadays, kids, they just want to pick up a phone and sit on it all day.”
She hoped the story might encourage young people to pick up a book or engage with the production, and learn more about the experiences of previous generations.
The author has remained involved in the adaptation process, telling the JUTE Theatre team her story before reading drafts of the script and providing feedback.
“They write it all up, and then they read it back to me and ask if that’s what I wanted,” she said.
The official premiere of JUTE Theatre Company’s Three Dresses is scheduled for the Out of the Box Festival at the Glasshouse at CPAC in Brisbane in June 2027.
Before that, there will be public showings of the work in development in Hope Vale and Cairns in November during another Creative Development visit.
A local language speaker has also been involved in the project, helping translate the work into Guugu Yimithirr language.
Hope Vale campus students of Cape York Aboriginal Australian Academy have also been included in bringing the story to life, a detail particularly meaningful to Ms Gibson given the book’s original purpose.
“I’m really happy about it, that it’s going that way,” she said.
