Merrigong Theatre Company’s annual artists’ program, MERRIGONGX presents Amy Maree Fairall and Desmond Edwards’ Public Access, at the Wollongong Library from the 23rd to 25th October 2025.
From the award-winning minds at The Corinthian Food Store comes Public Access, a new work set in an actual library about the role of public spaces in our increasingly privatised society, fusing movement, puppetry, music, clowning and text. It’s about the places we go to be seen and heard, and who gets to decide what matters.
Nic wants a seachange. She’s fled Sydney to take up a job at the local library, but the ‘quiet life’ is proving a little more complicated than she hoped. The staff are set in their ways, the customers defy classification and management are already asking her to make cuts.
Her only ally is Pauly, the elderly library hermit who knows every page in every book by heart. But he’s rapidly losing his ability to read…Can Nic find a way to help him and save the library from itself? Does the library even need saving?
Corinthian Foodstore are one of the most exciting artist collectives in the Illawarra and this important new local work, created by a wonderful group of diverse performers and creators, is our final event of the groundbreaking 2025 MERRIGONGX program.”
Director of Public Access and The Corinthian Food Store’s Co-Artistic Director Duncan Ragg added, “It’s a unique way of telling a story – bringing people into libraries after hours – and we couldn’t be more excited to be sharing it for the first time with a Wollongong audience. There’ll be stunning performances from local actors in a unique space, and we’re excited to welcome people who might not ordinarily attend the theatre, to hear a new story told in a novel way. The script is so incisively funny, prescient and tender and we can’t wait.”
Public Access features a cast of five including Anna Phillips (Doctor Doctor, Home and Away) Desmond Edwards (Milk Crate Theatre’s Tiny Universe), Ian McColm (Merrigong Theatre Co’s Shakespeare in the Garden – A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Alexander Morgan (Merrigong Theatre Co’s Co’s Shakespeare In the Garden – A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and Linda Nicholls-Gidley (Seymour Centre’s The Inheritance).
DIRECTOR Duncan Ragg
SOUND DESIGNER Kingsley Reeve
PRODUCTION DESIGNER Charlotte Layfield
PERFORMERS Anna Phillps, Desmond Edwards, Ian McColm, Alexander Morgan, Linda Nicholls-Gidley
Public Access
When: 23 rd – 25 th October
Times: Thu 23 Oct, 7:30pm; Fri 24 Oct, 7:30pm; Sat 25 Oct, 7:30pm
Where: Wollongong Library
Tickets: For this event there is no set ticket price. Instead, simply reserve a spot, show up, then pay what you feel the performance is worth afterwards.
Performance Warnings:
Recommended for ages 16+
