Welcome to WAFF Collective: A New Chapter Begins!

Bonjour, 

I have quite a lot to share with you.

Some of you may remember that last year, I announced that I would be stepping back from directing Perth French Theatre.

It was not an easy decision. After ten years of building, rehearsing, gathering, producing, teaching, carrying and dreaming, and after a personally difficult year that included surgery and recovery, I needed to pause. To breathe.

I thought I was preparing to step away.

Instead, little by little, I began to see more clearly what had been growing all along.

Perth French Theatre was never the whole story.

The story began with Bonjour Perth Festival and the birth of Perth French Theatre. It continued through French Holiday Programs, performances, Bal champêtre and Bal masqué, poetry appearing in the streets of Subiaco, children creating in French, and all the encounters that happened along the way.

These projects were always connected. They simply did not yet have a shared home or a name that could hold them all.

Today, they do.

Welcome to WAFF Collective.

WAFF Collective is our new public name. It brings together Perth French Theatre, French Holiday Program and Our Living Room.

The activities/experiences you know are still here. This new identity gives them room to live together and makes space for what comes next.

A cultural home shaped by art, languages and belonging.

Our new website is now live. Come inside.

Logo Our Living Room

And the newest door opens onto Our Living Room.

Our Living Room brings readings, storytelling, visual arts and gatherings into shared spaces across Perth.

It appears in borrowed rooms, galleries, halls and unexpected places. A play is read aloud here. A story is carried into a room there. A table fills with cards, conversation and just enough competition to make people care about the score.

The format changes. The idea does not: create a reason to come in, and enough space for something unexpected to happen.

The first gatherings are now taking shape.

On 16 October Out Loud begins with On ne badine pas avec l'amour by Alfred de Musset, read in its original French by the Perth French Theatre ensemble.

On 30 October, cards will be on the table for a Belote Night.

In November, Our Living Room will welcome the Mess Hall exhibition and the first edition of Stories we carry.

Could you open a door?

As Our Living Room takes shape, we’re looking for more places to gather.

The website now has a Partnerships page, but I want to say a little more plainly what we are looking for.

For Out Loud, it could be a café that usually closes around 3pm and might enjoy becoming a small theatre of voices for one evening. A few readers, a small audience, something to drink and a play coming alive after closing time.

For Stories we carry, it could be a private home. A welcoming living room, a few chairs and enough intimacy for personal stories to be told from one person to another.

We are also looking for halls, studios, galleries, community rooms and other unexpected spaces for games, workshops, rehearsals, exhibitions and gatherings.

Perhaps you own or manage such a place.

Perhaps you know someone who does.

Perhaps your organisation has a room that becomes quiet in the evening, or a space that could take on another life for a few hours.

A partnership might begin with one event. It might develop over a season, or become something longer. What matters is finding an arrangement that makes sense for the project, the place and the people involved.

If this brings a space or a person to mind, please get in touch. I would genuinely love to hear from you.

PFT GROUP

Perth French Theatre

Perth French Theatre will return to the stage with a new production in March/April 2027.

This next chapter has already begun with our new theatre group, trained by Helia.

They are motivated, generous and beautifully impatient to step onto the stage. There is something very moving, for me, in seeing this group arrive with its own energy, voices and desire to play, risk, listen and belong to a collective adventure.

I may be standing in a slightly different place, but the heart of the company is still beating: people coming together through theatre, French, presence, courage, humour and the joy of creating something larger than themselves.

PFT is also opening a new door this year. Helia now offers individual acting coaching for auditions and self-tapes, as well as sessions for anyone curious to experience the work of an actor, even without an audition in sight.

French Holiday Program July 2026

French Holiday Programs

French Holiday Program continues to move forward, child by child, story by story.

Many of the children have been coming back for years. I have watched them arrive shyly, speak a little more each time, dare more, laugh more, create more and become wonderfully themselves in French.

They return taller, louder, softer, braver.

Little by little, French becomes not only something they learn, but something they live.

Our next week, Des chats, des pommes et des salades, takes place from 5 to 9 October. French expressions will become the starting point for theatre, stories, movement, play and the children's own wonderfully unexpected ideas.

And in December, a new program begins: Art in French. Three days, one art movement and an entire world to explore, beginning with Surrealism.

Un petit mot en français, parce que c'est par là que tout a commencé.

Depuis toutes ces années, j'observe le français circuler de mille façons : dans une réplique de théâtre, dans un éclat de rire d'enfant, dans une hésitation avant d'oser parler, dans une chanson qu'on se remet à chanter, dans un poème partagé.

Les langues ne vivent pas seulement dans les livres ou les salles de classe. Elles vivent dans les voix, les gestes, les souvenirs et les rencontres. Elles vivent quand quelqu'un se sent assez accueilli pour essayer, se tromper, jouer ou raconter quelque chose de vrai.

C'est peut-être cela, au fond, que nous essayons de faire avec WAFF Collective : créer des espaces où la langue devient présence. Des lieux où l'on peut venir avec ce que l'on sait, ce que l'on ne sait pas encore, ce que l'on cherche et ce que l'on porte.

Des lieux où l'on ne vient pas seulement assister à quelque chose, mais prendre part, même doucement, à une histoire commune.

I also want to thank the new committee of our association. Thank you for your time, your ideas and your willingness to carry this adventure with me. It means a great deal.

And beyond the committee, there are all those who make these projects possible in their own way.

We have a word for them: Les Complices.

I love this word. 

Many of you have already been complices for years without ever being called that.

You came to a performance. You trusted us with your children. You volunteered, shared an event or encouraged us when things felt difficult. 

You brought a friend, a story, an idea, a skill, a chair, a cake or a little courage.

None of this is built by one person alone.

The new website offers different ways to take part: becoming a Complice, opening a door through a partnership, contributing time or skills, or supporting a future project with a donation.

For now, I invite you to wander through the website, rediscover some familiar stories and see what is beginning to take shape.

And if this letter brings something to mind, a memory, a question, an idea, a room, or simply a wish to say hello, please get in touch I would genuinely love to hear from you.

Thank you for being part of this journey. Merci d'être là, depuis le début ou depuis peu. Merci de faire partie de cette histoire.

Warmly,

Stella