With just two hours' notice that he would have to "go on" because one of his leading actors had been felled by the flu, there was no time for Ensemble Theatre artistic director Mark Kilmurry to be nervous.
"It was so quick," he says of last week's emergency. "I didn't have time to catch up with the process. It was only afterwards when I walked home that my legs were a bit shaky."
!['Your doors should be open': Mark Kilmurry outside the Ensemble Theatre.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170810185119im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/x/q/o/v/1/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gxqzhi.png/1502247892443.jpg)
The show was the Tim Firth comedy Neville's Island and it was Chris Taylor who was suddenly indisposed.
Kilmurry was loath to cancel the performance, particularly as the run has sold out, so he decided to play the role of Gordon while being "fed" his lines by stage manager Stephanie Lindwall via an earpiece.
"Having directed it I knew what all the blocking was," he said. "But I didn't want to go on with a book because if you go on with a book then it's not the play – it's somebody reading. And also I get wet and muddy and there's blood and all sorts."
He had played the role before – but 21 years ago.
"I knew Gordon in my muscle memory somewhere," he says. "The next day I had to do it again for the matinee and that was harder because I'd got through the bluff of it with sheer nerves. It was still fine but there were a few more stumbles."
Kilmurry was speaking before the launch of the Ensemble's 60th birthday season, which he says will be exciting for all the right reasons – but hopefully not last-minute cast changes.
There are 10 plays in the 2018 season with a mixture of classic comedy, new plays and emerging artists.
"It's a fantastic season for variety and it's also a great season for roles for women," says Kilmurry. "All those plays – maybe apart from Diplomacy [starring John Bell and John Gaden] – have some fantastic lead roles for female performers."
As in past years the season opens with a new work from David Williamson, Sorting Out Rachel, starring Chenoa Deemal and John Howard.
In May Kilmurry will direct Sharon Millerchip in Will Russell's classic Shirley Valentine.
"The great thing is that it is still very funny but the sad thing is that it's still relevant," says Kilmurry. "There are still those issues happening today."
Jordan Harrison's Marjorie Prime and Rebecca Gilman's Luna Gale will both receive their Australian premieres, while Unqualified (Genevieve Hegney and Catherine Moore) and Reg Livermore's The Widow Unplugged will be world premieres.
The Ensemble will finish its year with Alan Ayckbourn's perennial trilogy The Norman Conquests.
"I often hear the work 'farce' used about Ayckbourn but he is not farce and has never been farce," says Kilmurry. "It's true, real characters embedded in situations that become very comic but it's not door slamming, your trousers fall down, 'Ooh, vicar!' 'Here comes the boss' stuff.
"I think The Norman Conquests is a masterpiece."
Each of the three pieces stands alone but they also interrelate. The theatre is offering several "trilogy days", inviting theatre-goers to watch all three over the course of one mammoth session.
"You don't lose anything if you don't see all three but you gain a lot if you do," says Kilmurry.
The 60th anniversary has been cause for reflection on the role of The Ensemble as a leading independent theatre. For Kilmurry, accessibility remains key.
"I think the theatre should be a place you come to work and you do serious work but also have fun while you're there," he says. "And it's for everybody. There shouldn't be an elitist quality to theatre. Your doors should be open and people should be invited to come in and see what we do.
"As long as the work is good. You don't need to be precious."