ALBURY-Wodonga Theatre Company will stage its first production in its new home in South Albury next month.
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The musical comedy, Lipstick Dreams, will be held at the Olive Street property near Panmure Street on June 20 and 21.
It’s about four women, a hairdressing salon and a karaoke competition and has already toured several small country towns.
The Olive Street property, the former Slovenian Club, could only attract a vendor bid of $400,000 when it failed to sell at auction late last year.
The theatre company later bought it for an undisclosed sum — the second performing arts site in South Albury after the Flying Fruit Fly Circus’ training centre in Hovell Street.
The volunteer-based group has been able to secure financial help from Albury Council in its 2014-15 draft budget to concrete the former clay-based bocce court.
It will be converted to a workshop and assist in the storage of props and other equipment which was previously housed in a shed in East Albury.
Company president Joseph Thomsen said the recent purchase ended a marathon search for a permanent home.
“We have acquired the property to facilitate what we do now and into the future,” he said.
“Everything we have done has been to put us into a position where if something came up we could do something to take advantage of it.
“We have been working on that for the last six or seven years.
“It has been a very emotional time for the club with so much history there.”
The company had investigated using the West Albury Hall, but that could only be rented.
Slovenian Club members had used the Olive Street property as its base in the 1970s.