<h3>Sydney Theatre Company launches with The Sunny South (1980)</h3> Sydney Theatre Company launched its very first production in 1980 with what might seem a curious choice: George Darrell’s The Sunny South, a swaggering five-act Victorian-era melodrama hailed as Australia’s first truly homegrown play. A tale of inheritance scams, bushrangers, daring rescues and triumphant homecomings, it was energetically revived by director Richard Wherrett with a cast including Lynette Curran, Peter Carroll, John Hargreaves and John Gaden. "It was a very exciting time,” Gaden later recalled. “Richard had a wonderful manifesto: we’re going to try to knock the socks off Sydney. And, in many ways, it did that.”