TWO of Australian theatre's most successful actors provide the comic relief in Gold Coast Little Theatre's Waiting in the Wings.

Kate Peters and Sheila Bradley play women ageing disgracefully in a charity home for retired actresses.

Bradley enjoyed a successful musical theatre career in the UK before moving to Australia to work alongside Rob Guest, Simon Gallaher and Gordon Chater.

"She really is, or has been, over her career one of the most successful and long-lasting musical theatre stars in the country," says PLAY magazine columnist Peters.

Bradley's character is in the early stages of dementia and Peters plays an 'old Irish ratbag'.

"They're fairly unattractive roles but Sheila and I are both doing the comic relief roles," says Peters.

Waiting in the Wings was one of the last plays penned by English playwright Noel Coward.

"He always had a great love of actresses; I think he wrote it with that in mind," says Peters.

"Although it wasn't as successful straight away as his other plays, he always had a soft spot for it. He said two of the scenes were the best he'd ever written."

Director Joan Stalker-Brown, 75, says she can relate to Waiting in the Wings and has always wanted to stage the play.

"This is a play which is beautifully written and deals with ageing in a funny, feisty way," she says.

"They fight and they laugh and they cry and it's just a play that I've always wanted to do.

"I'm an old fart myself."

Stalker-Brown says ageing is a subject everyone can relate to and according to Coward's play, is something everyone should embrace.

"The underlying message is that ageing, although it's quite sad in its onset, as long as it's lived with humour and courage no one should worry about it," she says.

"We're born, we grow old and we die. That's inevitable but the way we do it shapes our personalities."

Waiting In The Wings opens at Gold Coast Little Theatre on Saturday and plays Thursdays to Saturdays at 7.30pm until October 3, with 2pm matinees on September 19 and 27.