A MELANCHOLY note was struck by Canberra Repertory’s president Judi Crane on Friday, November 4 as she helped unveil the first of the company’s productions planned for its 80th birthday next year.

As a former Mrs Bennett in “Pride and Prejudice,” it fell to Crane to announce that the famous Goulburn director John Spicer had died just hours before announcing that Duncan Ley’s revival of his adaptation of the Jane Austen novel would be Rep’s first production for 2012.

On a happier note,  Ed Wightman, a former Rep Theatre Players Scholarship who won the ANU University Medal for Drama, then studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, unveiled a year of hits that will also include his own production of “The Memory of Water” by Shelagh Stephenson.

Other planned productions will be Ross McGregor’s staging of Andrew Bovell’s AWGIE award winning play “Speaking in Tongues”,  Tessa Bremner’s interpretation of “The Venetian Twins” by Nick Enright and Terry Clarke, Angela Punch-McGregor’s take on “Lost in Yonkers” by Neil Simon and Corille Fraser’s  look at “Improbable Fiction” by Alan Ayckbourn.

Subscriptions to any of eight different packages for Rep’s season to 6257 1950 or www.canberrarepertory.org.au