	{"id":112169,"date":"2025-05-05T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-04T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/?p=112169"},"modified":"2025-05-01T11:11:46","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T01:11:46","slug":"play-honourslucas-girls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/living\/play-honourslucas-girls\/","title":{"rendered":"Play honours Lucas Girls"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>THE story of the Lucas Girls banding together through adversity will be told in a play at the Ballaarat Mechanics&#8217; Institute next week.<\/p>\n<p>Cate Whittaker&#8217;s The Amazing Lucas Girls is coming straight from its season at The Sydney Theatre Company, Wharf 2 and is based on the true events of the Ballarat Lucas Factory girls.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Amazing Lucas Girls is a beautiful story of women courageously and caringly banding together in adversity,&#8221; Whittaker said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Audiences in Sydney have raved about it, knowing nothing of the story and have been moved and inspired by its selfless commitment to healing and saving a community.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The play centres around Tilly Thompson, who organised the planting of a tree in recognition of each serviceman and woman, and her younger sister Clara who led the fight against conscription.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When the British war is hungry for more men and a conscription referendum is called, the Lucas Girls under Clara&#8217;s courageous leadership march with Vida Goldstein&#8217;s peace army. Facing jail and vicious personal attacks, they defeat conscription twice to save thousands of men&#8217;s lives,&#8221; Whittaker said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But it&#8217;s Clara&#8217;s older sister Tilly&#8217;s compassion for her distraught, disintegrating town that directs the factory girls into raising thousands of pounds to buy saplings and then to plant a tree to recognise the bravery of every man and woman serving.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Whittaker said she was inspired to write the play to highlight women&#8217;s important role in history.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Too often sadly our history is focused on great political events not the catastrophic social consequences they cause,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Yet it is women who most suffer in these social disasters and most shine in their courage to overcome them.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Women need to know their worth by finding their important place in these stories.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Amazing Lucas Girls will be on Friday 9 May and Saturday 10 May. To purchase a ticket, visit the <a href=\"https:\/\/ballaratmi.org.au\/\">BMI<\/a> website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>THE story of the Lucas Girls banding together through adversity will be told in a play at the Ballaarat Mechanics&#8217; Institute next week. Cate Whittaker&#8217;s The Amazing Lucas Girls is coming straight from its season at The Sydney Theatre Company, Wharf 2 and is based on the true events of the Ballarat Lucas Factory girls. [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/living\/play-honourslucas-girls\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":112171,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-112169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-living"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Play honours Lucas Girls - Ballarat Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"See The Amazing Lucas Girls at Ballaarat Mechanics\u2019 Institute on 9\u201310 May, celebrating the inspiring true story of Ballarat&#039;s factory women in wartime.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/living\/play-honourslucas-girls\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Play honours Lucas Girls - 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