The Waltz, by Goulburn playwright David Cole, was staged before a strong crowd at the 400-seat Goulburn Performing Arts Centre (GPAC). It was part of the inaugural Festival of Regional Theatre and an action-filled weekend for the city.

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Southern Highlands based actor and director Dave Letch has taken his last bow

The Waltz, a story of love and ageing, premieres in Goulburn, Crookwell and Braidwood in March

The performance was a tribute to Mr Letch, a Southern Highlands based producer and actor, who died in August. Mr Cole said he was instrumental in refining his play, which started out as Irene's Wish and with four characters.

"He was very influential in helping me shape the script," he said.

"He wanted to change it to The Waltz and have just two characters work around each other. I went back, rewrote it and put the poetry and music in."

The Waltz tells the story of Alf and Irene (Pauline Mullens and Martin Sanders), two ageing "sixties radicals" with health problems who refuse to be defined by age and society's expectations.

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Alf has had a stroke and Irene has been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

The play is set mostly on a park bench above Bondi Beach where the two strike up a friendship. Soon, they realise they were lovers in the sixties, amid 'The Push' movement. Irene swears, drinks, harks back to the 'good old days,' generally bucks convention and rails against her daughter's over-protection.

Alf is an artist, who when struggling with speech, sings his words.

The story is about the dance of life or The Waltz. As Irene says, the timer is running from the point of conception and if you're lucky, you can live 80 to 100 years. Then "the music stops, the DNA crumbles and we return to the soup of carbon." But what happens when the orchestra starts playing the wrong parts and the music becomes discordant?"

But far for being gloomy, The Waltz combines humour, music, dance and poetry in what is ultimately a celebration of life.

Mr Cole said the idea of being "old and rebellious" appealed. He acknowledged there was a bit of his late father, Keith, a former Goulburn City Mayor, in Alf.

"The audience love that too and the ones laughing the most are the older members," he said.

"We misjudge older people."

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Lieder Theatre director, Chrisjohn Hancock, directed the play in the final stages.

The Waltz represents four years' work. It was first performed in its earlier form as part of the First Seen program at Canberra's Street Theatre. Mr Cole said it was here that he realised there was a stronger 'play within a play.'

The refined version with Mr Letch premiered at the Goulburn Club in March. It toured to Crookwell, Braidwood and Bowral with the help of Create NSW funding.

Also as part of the Festival, Mr Cole pitched The Waltz to Arts on Tour's SALON on Friday. It allowed artists, producers, venue managers and others to pitch their works and projects to others in the industry. Several have shown interest in staging the play.

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Mr Cole was thrilled to have it performed at GPAC.

"It's a great thing," he said.

"I always wanted a play staged here but didn't think it would happen in the first year. Raina Savage (GPAC manager) contacted me because she wanted the Festival to focus on locals. I was proud to say that I was the first person from Goulburn to have a (self-written) play staged here."

The irony of doing so on the site where his father sat in the old Goulburn City Chambers was not lost on him.

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