Soldiers to perform with professional actors in play MILITARY photographer Rachel Ingram has done tours of duty in East Timor, the Solomon Islands, Iraq and Afghanistan. If, in the midst of a conflict, someone had told her she might one day be up on stage telling her story, she says: "I think I would have laughed. I probably would have laughed a lot. Yet telling their stories and treading the boards is what Sergeant Ingram and other servicewomen and men are doing in The Long Way Home, a ground-breaking project between the Sydney Theatre Company and the Australian Defence Force. This play, in which soldiers will perform with professional actors, focuses on the experiences of Australian troops who have been physically or psychologically wounded while serving with the ADF. Announcing the partnership yesterday, STC artistic director Andrew Upton said ADF chief David Hurley had suggested the collaboration. He had seen a play in London, The Two Worlds of Charlie F, that explored the experiences of wounded British soldiers, and thought the ADF could embark on such a military-arts venture here. Alison Creagh, who works for General Hurley, said the aims of the production were twofold: to raise awareness of what troops go through, and to help the recovery of injured soldiers. Brigadier Creagh said, through the co-production, "we've been working on how we optimise the recovery/rehabilitation aspects, not just have a play that's going to resonate with the Australian public. Among the soldiers taking part in a theatre workshop yesterday were two who had lost limbs, one who had a head injury and another who had depression. Sergeant Ingram said she became involved because "I have watched a lot of my friends suffer, both mentally and physically." "As a military photographer I've had to cover 28 funerals . . . you can't get used to the vision of an Australian-flag-covered casket; it's horrendous," she said. To be written by Daniel Keene, the production will open in Sydney and tour nationally early next year, the centenary year of the start of World War I.