OBSERVANT “CityNews” arts readers will be well aware that 2012 marks the 80th anniversary of the Canberra Repertory Society, Canberra’s longest running amateur theatre company and one of the most venerable in the country.

The society takes a sentimental journey in a new exhibition called  “ACTivated: Canberra Repertory Society 1932-2012,” to be opened at the Canberra Museum and Gallery on Friday by former ACT arts minister Bill Wood in what is bound to be a tearful occasion.

The exhibition recognises Rep’s role as a “unique social hub” in the Canberra community as well as its formidable artistic record.

The exhibition provides pictorial evidence of the society’s activities both behind the scenes and on stage as one of a small group of active organisations that began during Canberra’s first 20 years and it covers plays and players, props and costumes, stage and lighting designers, builders and makers.

The sentimental journey will conjure up Rep’s first production at the Canberra Playhouse in 1965, the very first Old Time Music Hall in 1974 and a 1994 production featuring two Theatre Players Scholarship recipients, Lucy Taylor and Iain Sinclair, one now an internationally respected actress and the other a noted Sydney theatre director.

“ACTivated: Canberra Repertory Society 1932-2012,” at the Canberra Museum and Gallery, September 29 to January 20.

All images are provided courtesy of Canberra Repertory Society.