A play to be staged at St Martin's Youth Theatre in South Yarra interweaves stories of women who are HIV/AIDS positive.

Featuring well-known television and theatre performers Sally Cooper, Anne Phelan, Alison Whyte and Anne Wood, In the Family challenges the stereotypes and myths regarding HIV-positive women and their families.

In the Family will be presented between August 2 and 5.

Positive Women (Victoria) in 2004 commissioned playwright Graham Pitts to write a play based on interviews with its members.

In the Family was the result.

Characters evolved from the stories of women from rural areas, Aboriginal women, women from culturally and linguistically-diverse communities and those who had been living with the virus for a long time.

The stories of partners and families who lived with HIV-positive women were also included.

In the Family was first performed as a Positive Women Victoria World AIDS Day event in December 2004 to a packed house.

This year, it is on the Victorian Curriculum Assessment Authority VCE Theatre Studies Unit 4 play list.

Positive Women began with the meeting of two isolated women, living with HIV early in the epidemic, who realised their needs differed from the predominantly gay male HIV-positive community.

Formed in 1988, Positive Women now offers support and information to newly-diagnosed women and women living with HIV/AIDS.

Its members come from all walks of life.

•          Ticket booking forms for In the Family are available from the Positive Women (Victoria) website at www.positivewomen.org.au.