by FilmInk Staff
A new locally produced comedy web series, Gosford City Players, has launched on YouTube, documenting a fictional community theatre company as it unravels following the closing night of The Mikado.
The series opens with backlash over yellowface on stage. Within hours, the company’s treasurer disappears with the remaining funds, and Kip Henry, the director of The Mikado, asserts himself as the company’s self-appointed saviour. He announces radical new plans, overrides process, and escalates every situation through ego, optics management, and unchecked confidence, pushing the same overstretched, largely white cast and volunteers toward what he frames as the most culturally diverse production Gosford has ever seen.
The fallout is captured by Alan, the company’s videographer, who embeds himself inside emergency committee meetings, audition rooms, casting deliberations, and post-show confrontations as the group attempts to keep itself afloat.
The project is produced by Gosford City Productions in association with Space Gorilla.
The series is created by Central Coast locals Shane Emmett, Carley Edmonds, and Timothy Wilde, who between them bring more than 60 years of combined experience across film and television, spanning acting, producing, writing, and directing.
Filming took place entirely on the Central Coast of NSW, including at Red Tree Theatre and on the streets of Gosford.
Rather than presenting an idealised portrait of amateur theatre, Gosford City Players depicts leadership under pressure, institutional confusion, fragile egos, and the specific absurdity of trying to run a volunteer arts organisation while being publicly criticised.
The web series is being released episode by episode and is intended as a proof of concept for an ongoing television series planned to be shot on the Central Coast of NSW. The project has already attracted interest from several overseas distributors and broadcasters.
Episode One is now live on YouTube.
Keep up to date on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook: @thegosfordcityplayers
