It's a long trip from Brisbane to the NSW border town of Goodooga, and one that has inspired a new play set to premiere in the Queensland capital.
Playwright Hannah Belanszky has done the 10-hour drive numerous times to visit her family.
On one visit in 2017 she began writing a story about a young Indigenous woman who visits country for the first time to see her estranged father.
The tale became the play don’t ask what the bird look like, which will be Belanszky's main-stage Queensland Theatre debut from Saturday.
The Yuwaalaraay writer says while the play is a First Nations work in a specifically Australian setting, she hopes the story is universal.
"It's for anyone that's feeling disconnected from family or culture, or they've had separations from family, or people don't talk about things," she told AAP.
Matilda Brown (The Sapphires) plays the lead role of Joan, with Michael Tuahine (Country Song) as Mick and Shakira Clanton (Barbara and the Camp Dogs) as Pattie.
Goodooga, population 223, is 20km south of the Queensland border near Lightning Ridge, and before rehearsals began Belanszky took some of the crew on a bus trip to visit the places that inspired the play.
"That was really special and just helped the design team to add an extra level of detail to the production," she said.
There was also tea in town with one of the aunties.
Of course, it has also been a long road to the stage for don’t ask what the bird look like.
The play, a finalist in the 2018-19 Queensland Premier’s Drama Award, was commissioned by Queensland Theatre.
It went through years of development and was set to premiere in early 2022, before floods hit the theatre a month before rehearsals were due to start.
Belanszky said that, despite the delays, 2023 feels like the right time with the right group of people.
She has been able to work with Queensland Theatre artistic elder Roxanne McDonald and the company's artistic director Lee Lewis, while a reading of don’t ask what the bird look like has already been well received in New York City at the Australian Theatre Festival.
Belanszky describes that experience as beyond anything she had imagined for the play, but it meant she had to consider how a US audience might understand an inherently Australian work.
Closer to home, when don’t ask what the bird look like finally hits the stage in Brisbane, some of Belanszky's family will be driving 10 hours from Goodooga to see it.
don’t ask what the bird look like is on from Saturday until September 9 at the Bille Brown Theatre in Brisbane.
