By KATH GANNAWAY
WARBURTON theatre director Claire Bamford is currently busy painting background murals between rehearsals for Catprint Theatre’s next production later this year.
In between that, she will take to a different stage as the next interviewee in Warburton’s Women of Interest series on Saturday 13 August.
In many ways, Claire is a unique woman, a photographer and landscape gardener in her twenties, and an inspirational theatre director and publisher of two books in more recent times.
In one way, as a victim of family violence, she is not unique.
As a Woman of Interest, she will touch on all these aspects of her life, and has some compelling and inspirational insights to share, including how she overcame family violence.
Claire said setting up Catprint Theatre in 2011 was a deliberate attempt to create a creative, safe, fun and harmonious group for adults to work in theatre with a production as the end goal.
Her writing was driven by her experience of family violence, and was part of the healing process.
“I spent so many years in therapy and learnt so much about the why, how and who of domestic violence, and I needed to put it all down in cohesive thoughts that would be easily adaptable to other women,” she said.
“It was a great shock to me to realise I was living in domestic violence, but once it was identified for me I found I got a lot of support.”
Claire said it took a year working with a team of counsellors and workers from government agencies to put a plan in place that enabled her and her children to escape the violence.
The first book was written largely for her daughter.
“I was scared he (her former partner) was going to kill me, and I would not live to give the worldly advice that a mother would hand down to a daughter,” she said.
“We got out, and we got out alive and for that I am eternally grateful; there are many women who haven’t,” she said adding that the tragic experience of Rosie Batty and the death of her son at the hands of his father, happened just six months later.
“I really felt for her, and felt also that there was a very narrow line between what happened to her and what happened to me … that that could have been me,” she said.
“It was horrendous at the time, but I now have such a deep understanding of what it was in me that allowed it to happen in the first place.
“I’ve come out at the end of it all, and I’m in such a better place.”
Starting Catprint Theatre is something she is tremendously proud of.
“It started small and has got bigger and better each year and I have attracted into the group remarkable people who all make a difference.
“The commitment and dedication all these people have to helping me put on a theatre show constantly amazes me,” she said.
Catprint’s next show, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, by Tom Stoppard, is on in October and for the first time with shows at Healesville, Emerald and Warburton.
While Claire’s usual speaking roles involve taking on a different persona, she said her role in Women of Interest would be a new experience.
“It’s just me being me.”
Women of Interest is at 1.30pm at the Warburton CFA meeting room. Entry by gold coin donation.
