A Town Named War Boy was written by award-winning playwright Ross Mueller, and commissioned and co-produced by the State Library of New South Wales and Australian Theatre for Young People.

It follows the personal accounts of four young Australian men who set sail for the far side of the world with high spirits and higher expectations.

Mueller wrote the script after having been granted access to a remarkable curated collection of diaries, letters and photographs of young Australian soldiers from the library.

“The thing that struck me most was the sense of humour,” Mueller said of the diaries.

Despite the soldiers’ exposure to the horrors of war, their focus on laughs and mateship shines through in their writing.

“As Australians, we like to think we’ve got a great sense of humour and a good view of who we are as a nation,” Mueller said.

“Seeing these guys maintain that sense of humour as a survival instinct in times like that was a great reminder that the Australian character really was forged in that period of history, and is something to be proud of today.”

Mueller said the title of the play warrants explanation.

“It’s referencing one of the entries in one of the diaries. We think it might have been a spelling mistake by the author because there is no town by that name,” he said.

“But that’s how it appears in the soldier’s handwriting in the diary, and it’s something that we wanted to include as a key piece of memory.”

And the nature of memory is something Mueller explores in the play.

“Memory is fascinating like that. It’s an emotional reaction to an experience that you have, but sometimes we think our memory is like a computer hard drive which we can get back into to see the events of 20 years ago in purity and clarity.

“But that’s not always the way. The play has been driven by the idea that what we think we remember is not necessarily what happened, but we’ll always remember what we felt when we were in those places.”

Mueller said Australian Theatre for Young People created theatre for contemporary audiences, and it was customary for plenty of 16-year-olds to be in its audiences.

“Director Fraser Corfield and the designers were very aware of that. They didn’t want to make something that looked like a history lesson,” Mueller said.

So the four young actors on the stage are not dressed like people from another era, he said. They are instead dressed like many of their contemporaries in the audience.

But the content matter of A Town Named War Boy meant the play was drawing older audiences, too, Mueller said.

“We’ve seen lots of grandparents in our audiences,” he said.

The play has been hailed by critics as a moving Anzac tribute, and a powerful piece of theatre.

A Town Named War Boy will be performed at The Art House, Wyong, on Thursday, April 5, at 8pm; and Friday, April 6, at 10am. Tickets cost $25 and $35. Book at thearthousewyong.com.au