Having a chin wag with Gail Dudeck

Gail Dudeck is having a love affair with a city that boosts theatre, art and a bustling seaside.

Gail with Bruce and Bev at the Frankston Arts Centre 2017.

Her sweetheart is Frankston and she has been a resident for over
37 years with stints as councillor, fashion coordinator and theatre extraordinaire.

The love affair started as a child when her family used to come from Pakenham to play on the beach. Later on she would travel the world and decide Frankston would be her new home. Frankston opened the doors to a career as fashion and promotions coordinator at Myer; she went on to become very successful as the coordinator of both Victoria and Tasmania.

While raising three children and a busy career there was always time to indulge her great love of theatre.

“In between time I used to compare fashion parades and make a nuisance of myself at Council demanding we get an Arts centre or a theatre,”

“The last piece of stage work that I did was for the George Bernard Shaw comedy Pygmalion before it became My Fair Lady, that was a long time ago,” she says.

Frankston decided to woo Gail and they started a relationship at Frankston City Council.

“I became a councillor in 1992 and we got the Arts Centre, my first love is always theatre, no town is a city without a theatre and you can’t say Frankston was a city 15 years ago,”she says.

“The heart of the city has become the Frankston Arts Centre which was originally the Frankston Cultural Centre it was designed by Daryl Jackson, “When he is talking to people overseas he will show them this amazing theater that we have. Its worth so much to the people of Frankston and must never go out of the hands of the council.”

If Gail could pass on advice to the younger generation it would be to learn some of the basics in life.

“Some of the basics are very important, learning to cook to the times tables some young people have no idea of how to write a sentence or how to spell anything,” she says

“Just enjoy days, I know when I was young I did not want to go to Grandmas but when you get there its such a delight, its all the old fashioned things the lace table cloth, jam and scones just lovely.”