Two questions intrigued me as The Darkening Sky flowed out of me unbidden during the winter months of 2019, in that long-lost period before Covid 19. The first – how can we depend on our fallible, fragmentary and fading memory as we try to understand, to come to terms with moments of personal loss and trauma in our dimming past? The second – what is it that inspires ordinary people to undertake acts of undeniable heroism; and what do they have to sacrifice in doing so? These seem to me to be almost unanswerable questions but The Darkening Sky is my meditation upon each of them and how they weave together. What has emerged is a jig-saw puzzle that I hope you will join with us in piecing together. Events, people and places from my own past are present as touchstones throughout, but this is primarily an act of fiction. I still believe that it is through creative fiction that true understanding can be reached. Our small team of performers and designers has had to deal with two season cancellations due to Covid lockdowns, and lately the direct invasion of the virus into our midst. Throughout all these setbacks, this remarkable group of people has maintained commitment, held trust and produced work of the highest quality. All without pay. I am in awe and in great debt to each and every one of them. We have been given extraordinary support by the management team at Theatre Works, who just kept rescheduling our season as each cancellation loomed, by the management at The Alex Theatre who provided rehearsal space for the past two years, and by the young, vigorous and multi- talented members of the Victorian Theatre Company. To have such friends is a sure sign of the always rejuvenating force of Melbourne theatre.