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Sister Anzac - a play that struck a chord with this generation's defence nurses – is returning for a further season in Hamilton and Auckland.

The play tells the story of the New Zealand nurses who battled the military to serve on the country's first hospital ship, The Maheno, which was stationed off Anzac Cove to treat and ferry the injured, sick and dying from Gallipoli.

Director Amanda Rees says the play was written by Geoff Allen, (partly based on the book The Other Anzacs by Peter Rees which also inspired the TV mini-series Anzac Girls) but was primarily motivated by his own grandfather talking about the nurses he was treated by.  "The only thing he talked about from World War One."

The play debuted in 2014 Devonport's Navy National Museum in 2014 in front of an audience including navy nurses and had received a warm response. Sister Anzac was invited back to the Navy Museum for a further season last year as part of the navy's World War 1 commemorations with defence nursing leader Lt Colonel Lee Turner describing it as moving and "really, really well" done.

Rees said audience members sharing their family's stories of war time nursing, at those and other performances, had inspired her to want to record stories from the era for a podcast series.

She said Sister Anzac had prompted the granddaughter of an orderly on the Maheno to turn up the navy museum with her grandfather's photo album.  And at a 'promenade' season of the play at the National Maritime Museum – where she guided the audience from scene to scene amongst the museum displays –she talked to a man whose mother had nursed his soldier father during WWI and subsequently married him. A woman who, with her husband, is restoring one of the barges that took the wounded from Anzac Cove to the hospital ship attended another performance.

To date Rees said she had recorded two podcasts – one a recording of a story from the granddaughter of the Maheno's Chief Medical Office and the other by the granddaughter of an Irish nurse who nursed during WW1 before immigrating to New Zealand where she later became a matron.  The podcasts can be found at: http://www.starktheatre.nz/podcasts

She said she was keen for nurses and others to share their stories for more podcasts.  "What I'd like is for people to come and see the show and put their names forward to record a story."

The season opens in Hamilton on August 18 with the six strong cast including actor Donogh Rees (who has already played a nurse in Shortland St) as Matron.

Sister Anzac is being performed August 18-20 in Hamilton's Meteor Theatre, followed by performances at Loft at Q Theatre, Auckland from Aug 23-August 28 and then a 'promenade season' at the Auckland Maritime Museum from August 31-Sept 10.

FREE TICKETS – Nursing Review has two free tickets to giveaway to the opening night of Sister Anzac in Auckland's Loft at Q Theatre at 7pm on August 23. Email [email protected] if you would like these tickets.  CONGRATS to reader Pip who was the lucky recipient of the tickets.