Another great loss to live theatre on the Coast happened last month with the death of Denise Campbell, one of the last of the self-termed dinosaurs, of The Lind Theatre at Nambour.

Denise, along with Nell Davis, Gwen Griffin, Margaret McLay and others, were some of the long serving community theatre members who were part of what was originally known as NATS (Nambour Amateur Theatrical Society).

The group’s little theatre in Blackall Terrace burnt to the ground in 1972 and for the next 8 years they performed at the Yandina School of Arts, while a concerted drive to raise funds took place and resulted in the purpose built Lind Lane Theatre (in part of the area now occupied by the Nambour Plaza).

It should be remembered that The Lind (as it is now) owes its very being to members like Denise Campbell, who worked their fingers to the bone to raise the funds to have their own premises.

Apart from handling the box office at Lind Lane and later at The Lind, Denise formed a partner- ship with Nell Davis and they co-directed quite a number of plays. Over many years Denise also served on a large number of the theatre’s committees. She was also the first secretary of the Sunshine Coast Theatre Alliance.

In 2019 Denise became very depressed when she could no longer handle the theatre’s retirement village bookings, nor take her place just inside The Lind foyer door to sell and hand out tickets and programs. The depression stayed with her.

A very popular figure in the little theatre movement, she was present at many of the Indee productions as far back as the Eumundi days. During 2019 she was a guest at a number of Indee matinees at Yandina, plus the odd dress-rehearsal, when a performance didn’t suit her. She also did a bit of prompting for the rehearsals and helped in various other ways.

She became even further down in the dumps this year when the Sunshine Coast Daily announced that it was going digital. She rang me to say they’d overlooked people like herself, who didn’t have computers and who relied on the paper for their theatre news (The Daily had a regular weekly Friday section called Pulse, which included quite a lot of local live theatre news each week).

Among her many qualities Denise had what you might call ‘a very funny mouth’. She’d effortlessly come out with some of the funniest comments imaginable. She’ll be very sadly missed.