![Playwright David Williamson and his wife Kristin are long-time supporters of Noosa's festival.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170705145929/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/x/1/f/f/2/image.related.afrArticleLead.620x350.gwzsj4.png/1499216040672.jpg)
Now in its 15th year, the Noosa Alive festival has become a fixture on the Australian cultural calendar. And as founder, patron and playwright extraordinaire David Williamson explains, it continues to punch above its weight.
L&L;: What's a nice playwright like you doing as the patron of a cultural festival in Noosa?
DW: My wife Kristin and I came to live in Noosa in the late '90s. We still keep a flat in Sydney and split our time between the two locales, but we have long regarded Noosa as our primary base. We realised that paradise as it may be, you can be little more than a permanent tourist unless you give back to the community.
So in 2002, with a small number of other enthusiasts, we started what was then the Noosa Long Weekend, but has since been rebranded Noosa Alive. The title was a play on words. It has always been a 10-day festival – but 10 days is what passes for a long weekend in Noosa. We all threw in a couple of thousand bucks of our own money to get it started. Although the image of Noosa is sybaritic – food, sun and surf – we realised there was a large number of people here who are passionate about the arts. People who we thought would respond to an arts festival on the calendar. Kristin and I acted in one of my plays for the first festival and I distinguished myself by walking onstage and forgetting my own lines. My two NIDA graduate sons, in the audience, dubbed me Westinghouse as I froze onstage.
![Jazz singer Fem Belling will be at Broadway on the Beach in the Rococo Beach Club Marquee.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170705145929/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/x/3/m/f/s/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1499060721190.jpg)
L&L;: Charming. You've touched on this a little already, but why is it important for Noosa to have a festival like this?
DW: We always felt Noosa was misperceived as a purely hedonistic town. But it has the largest regional film society in Australia and a music society which organises some of the best classical musicians in the country to visit on a regular basis. We felt it was a beautiful location to celebrate the power and magic of the arts. By bringing terrific talent to Noosa we could give the town an experience they'd otherwise have to travel to the big cities to experience, and at the same time we'd offer visitors from the big cities a chance to experience the best in the arts in a physically enchanting location in a concentrated time span.
L&L;: And what sets Noosa Alive apart from similar festivals?
DW: Kristin and I and the handful of other enthusiasts decided from the start it wasn't going to be a single art form festival. Not a jazz festival, a blues festival, a drama festival, a classical music festival, a film festival , a culinary or wine festival, a festival of ideas, or indeed a vintage car festival. To differentiate ourselves we would be a multi-art-form festival and have a smorgasbord of each of the art forms to give locals and visitors a wide choice. And it's worked. To my knowledge it's the biggest and most successful regional, multi-art-form festival in the country.
L&L;: How involved are you in the formulation of the program?
![Will Anderson is a star attraction of the Fire in the Sky event being held as part of Noosa Alive.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170705145929/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/x/1/f/f/0/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1498734482855.jpg)
DW: Kristin and I used to be totally involved. I was president for a year, she for two years (she made profits, I made a loss) and at the start it was a matter of twisting the arms of friends to come up. Bryan Brown, Tim Winton, Peter Carey, Tom Kenneally, John Pilger, Tim Flannery, and Brett Dean, also a founder and now one of the world's eminent modern composers, who was also living here at the time. Today the dynamic new committee headed by Johanne Wright and our terrific artistic director Ian Mackellar do all that.
L&L;: What role does the physical backdrop of Noosa play in the festival?
DW: A very big one. It was always easier to persuade artists from Melbourne or Sydney to come up in mid winter. And there's something special about experiencing the best of the arts in a beautiful environment.
L&L;: How has the local community got behind this festival?
![David Williamson meets Melony Brests (Matt Dunstan) at a previous festival.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170705145929/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/x/1/f/e/x/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1498974388402.jpg)
DW: Right from the start we decided that if we didn't involve the local community and only tried to appeal to big-city visitors. we were dead in the water. You need the involvement of the local community as ticket buyers and we need the wonderful army of unpaid volunteers to allow it to happen. We reasoned that we couldn't afford to make it a cutting-edge festival of esoteric art. Only large cities can succeed with such elitist specialisation. It needed to be a festival of wide appeal. We now have approximately 65 per cent of our audience local and 35 per cent from the major cities. It's a mix we think is more or less right and has allowed us to survive.
L&L;: This year's program is a mix of high-art and politically-oriented discourse – and everything in between. What are you looking forward to?
I think this year's festival is even more ambitious than usual. We have the Queensland Ballet and Opera Australia in town at the same time, which is a coup. Combine that with great cabaret, comedy, drama, film and, of course, the amazing food and wine for which Noosa is increasingly renowned, and it is guaranteed to be a heady mix.
See noosaalive.com.au/ for details of this year's programming.
![Vocalist Luke Kennedy will be performing at Noosa Alive this year.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170705145929/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/x/1/f/f/l/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1498974396137.jpg)