In this issue 6
Dancing With Our Stars ........................................................................... 6 Todd McKenney and Nancye Hayes team up to tour in Bosom Buddies The Wizards Of Dogs ............................................................................. 12 Training Toto and other four-legged theatrical stars The Playwright Born To Shock ................................................................ 15 Our interview with Louis Nowra, playwright of Cosi and Radiance More Than Sun And Surf........................................................................ 18 How The Arts are competing in the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games
12 22
Big Ideas From Little Company ............................................................... 21 Sydney’s Sport For Jove, punching above its weight The Smitten Scientist .............................................................................. 28 A teaser from the new local monologue book, Paper Cuts Community Theatre ............................................................................... 32 Shrek on local stages, Canberra Area Theatre Awards and more
32
2018 School Performing Arts Resource Kit .............................................. 37 Making theatre for, and with, young people
Regular Features Stage Briefs
34 42 63 82 2 Stage Whispers March - April 2018
4
Broadway Buzz
24
London Calling
25
Stage To Page
26
Stage On Disc
30
Choosing A Show
35
Stage Briefs
36
On Stage - What’s On
52
Reviews
61
Musical Spice
84
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Editorial
Dorothy (Samantha Dodemaide) and Toto (Trouble) from The Wizard of Oz check out Stage Whispers.
Dear theatre-goers and theatre-doers, I felt my past life as a high school drama teacher reverberating very strongly as I compiled this edition of Stage Whispers. While we cater to our audience of regular theatregoers, this edition goes out to a many Performing Arts educators, because of our special School Performing Arts Resource Kit (SPARK) feature. An expanded online version of SPARK will be available at www.stagewhispers.com.au/spark from March 15. Having taught classroom drama for 25 years, directing performances by my students and organising numerous trips to the theatre, I’ve found myself proofreading several articles this edition which I know will prove useful to those of you continuing to introduce younger generations to those same joys. They say never work with children or animals, but our South Australian correspondent Lesley Reed has been keen for some time to share a very personal story of how her father mentored leading animal trainer Luke Hura, responsible for the performances of Toto that are delighting audiences around Australia in The Wizard of Oz. I hope you enjoy reading this story, with its roots in a World War II P.O.W. camp, as much as I did. Don’t forget to stay up to date with the latest news and reviews at www.stagewhispers.com.au - last year we had more than 1.5 million visits to the website. For a quick rundown of the most recent postings, follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Yours in Theatre,
Neil Litchfield Editor
CONNECT
Cover image: Nancye Hayes and Todd McKenney are set to tour Australia together in Bosom Buddies. In our cover story on page 6, Nancye and Todd chat to Coral Drouyn about the new show. Photo: Supplied. www.stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 3
Stage Briefs
The Production Company has announced its 20th Birthday Season, featuring Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! (May), The Boy From Oz (Aug) and the Australian premiere of A Gentleman’s Guide To Love & Murder (Oct), all at Arts Centre Melbourne. Rohan Browne plays the role of Peter Allen in The Boy From Oz, alongside Caroline O’Connor as Judy Garland and Matthew Manahan as Greg Connell. Oklahoma! stars Simon Gleeson as Curly and Anna O’Byrne as Laurey, with Robyn Nevin, Elise McCann, Bobby Fox, Ben Mingay and Richard Piper. A Gentleman’s Guide To Love & Murder is a new musical comedy about Monty, a penniless clerk who discovers he is ninth in line to be Lord D’Ysquith, the Earl of Highhurst. But the D’Ysquith family dismiss his claim then curiously the eight family members in line to be Earl start dying from unnatural causes! Mitchell Butel stars as all eight members of the D’Ysquith family , with Chris Ryan as Monty, Amy Lehpamer as Sibella, Genevieve Kingsford as Phoebe and Nancye Hayes as the mysterious Miss Shingle. Read more on our website at http://bit.ly/2CDbtNo
4 Stage Whispers March - April 2018
ďƒŹ StageArt will present the Victorian professional premiere of bare the Musical at Chapel off Chapel from March 20 - April 15. The contemporary pop opera, set at a Catholic boarding school, tells the story of students rehearsing for their production of Romeo and Juliet, while struggling with their own ideas around religion, sexuality and identity. Read more on our website at http://bit.ly/2ENhtJb
Online extras! Watch the cast of bare The Musical sing Confessions. Scan the QR code or visit https://youtu.be/FjjSf2f01WA
www.stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 5
Cover Story
Dancing With Our Coral Drouyn talks to two of Australian Musical Theatre’s greatest stars, Nancye Hayes and Todd McKenney, about their new show together. The year was 1967, and while Nancye Hayes was firmly putting her “watch this space” stamp on the title of Australia’s First Lady of Musical Theatre in Sweet Charity, a two year old Todd McKenney was swapping his nappies for his first pair of tap shoes. Neither could have had any inkling that their paths would cross more than twenty years later, when they shared the stage in 42nd Street, or that thirty years later they would cement their friendship with a new two hander called (appropriately) Bosom Buddies. Yet despite the generational gap, they have more in common than just being great performers. Both were brought up by single parents; Todd’s parents split
when he was nine, and Nancye lost her father in a tragic accident when she was eleven years old. Their mothers had the most influence on their lives, and because of that, dancing became a number one priority. In Nancye’s case, dancing was physiotherapy after an operation to remove a growth from her hip. “I had to wear one of those awful calliper things on my leg for what seemed like eternity,” she recalls. “The doctor said I would need physio so as not to have a limp in the weakened leg. It was either dancing or swimming. Lucky for me Mum chose dancing.” Nancye started lessons when she was nine. Her mother, Lola, worked as a barmaid at the old Manly
Pacific Hotel to pay for them. Manly in the 1950s was a popular beachside getaway for Sydneysiders, but it was hardly Ibiza, or even the Gold Coast. “It’s hard to even remember what Australia was like back then; a simpler life, also more difficult in some ways. It was quite shocking for anyone to think of a career in the theatre, so I had a nice safe office job once I left school. Even if you felt you had to try (and for me dancing was all consuming) there really was not a lot of future in it. Australians were confined to the chorus in Aussie productions and you were stuck being a ‘gypsy’ until you were too old to dance,” Nancye reminisces. “Meanwhile, overseas artists got most of the lead roles in the big musicals. They didn’t have to be great (and many weren’t) as long as they were imported. I hear the same complaints about “stars” today, but honestly, you had to be there back in the day, when (Continued on page 8)
6 Stage Whispers March - April 2018
Stars
Online extras! Watch as Nancye and Todd discuss the show. Scan the QR code or visit https://youtu.be/s5CSJVyHSPo www.stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 7
Cover Story Nancye explains. “She believed in Australian talent audition lines were so long and she would push for local they went around the block performers and bang on and your chances were 1 in doors till they gave in. I still 1000 of getting a job, to have a treasured letter that understand how hit and miss she wrote to the American it was.” producers of Sweet Charity It was only a year before in which she puts herself on Sweet Charity in 1966 that the line to convince them I Jill Perryman had played was the best person for the Fanny Brice in Funny Girl role. Without Pounder there the role that made that probably would be no Barbra Streisand a star. musical theatre here; Producers had “taken a certainly no truly local chance” on the amazing productions. She paved the Perryman, who won rave way. Today there are reviews, but they weren’t Performing Arts inclined to do it academies and again with Sweet you come out Charity. with a diploma that qualifies “I owe everything to Betty you to teach, Pounder (the even if you legendary Aussie never make it choreographer),” on to a stage. I don’t have the
Nancye Hayes as Parthy in Show Boat.
(Continued from page 6)
8 Stage Whispers March - April 2018
qualifications to teach. Ironic, isn’t it?” For Todd, there was never a time when he didn’t dance, once he learned to walk. “My mother, Peta Norton, had a dancing school in Perth where I grew up,” Todd tells me. “I’m not sure if I actually wanted to learn or if it was a case of mum figuring I might as well because it wouldn’t cost anything. I do remember that I didn’t get any special treatment. In fact my lessons were always at the end of the day - sometimes as late as 10 o’clock at night, when Mum was through with the paying classes. But I guess it was part of my genes and I never had to be pushed, not after the first time I ever stepped on a stage.”
Nancye and Todd are very different personalities, though both share the almost extinct ethos of “the show must go on, no matter what.” They’re “old school pros” in the tradition that has always made theatre great, but what do they see in each other?
Nancye on Todd “Well he is very brave on stage, quite fearless sometimes, whereas I am most comfortable hiding behind “The Book”. He’s willing to push boundaries, and nothing fazes him, except people not giving 100% - we’re alike in that way. He’s a BIG personality, totally at ease with being himself and not afraid to make jokes at his own expense, or to ad lib his way through a production gaffe. And of course he is super talented, and a great dancer, with probably more strings to his bow than anyone in the country. He is very funny, and he has an acerbic,
sometimes wicked, wit. I’m not getting any younger, let’s be honest, but he makes me feel very safe when I’m on stage with him. And he makes it fun.”
Todd on Nancye
“Let’s face it - the word “Star” gets thrown around a lot, but Nancye is a legend and there aren’t too many performers who can genuinely claim that title. Plus, there is no ‘side’ to her. She doesn’t throw her credits, or the fifty years of experience, in your face. She’s totally professional, and she ALWAYS listens. Off stage she is down to earth and considerate to everyone and
you might think she’s a pushover. But then she steps on-stage and it’s like all the spots (spotlights) came on at once. She’s dazzling. It’s actually hard to take your eyes off her, even when you’re next to her. She has presence; real authority
matter if it’s a matinee for Senior Citizens, they are entitled to the best performance you can give. Nancye wouldn’t know how to do anything else. She’s a National Treasure.” While each admired the other’s talents for nearly two
Playhouse - broke all records and is still the most successful production Sydney’s Ensemble Theatre has ever mounted. “I think the audience might have been more for Todd than me,” Nancye explains. “They knew him
backed up by talent. You can’t fake that, you either have it or you don’t. And we share the belief that if you’re lucky enough to be paid for being up there on a stage, you give 110% at every performance. It doesn’t
decades, it wasn’t until they worked together on Richard Alfieri’s two hander play Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks in 2006 that they realised how much they had in common. The show - at the Sydney Opera House
from the film Strictly Ballroom and from The Boy from Oz, and of course they saw him on the TV as the mean judge in Dancing with the Stars.” (Continued on page 10)
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(Continued from page 9)
“Well, it wasn’t the usual music theatre audience, I’ll grant you that,” Todd recalls, “but they were all members of Nancye’s fan club by the time we finished. And when we reprised the show ten years later we had a short Q&A at the end of every performance, and the idea of Bosom Buddies was born.” Both Todd and Nancye realised that they took their theatre life for granted, including a myriad of interesting and often hilarious anecdotes that had actually happened to them over the years, but there was an audience that really wanted to hear about life after the curtain comes down. They were asked about different shows and their personal lives and realised that what they had shared with each other was perfect material to share with an audience. I know Nancye as a very private person, so I asked if she felt daunted by the prospect.
“Yes of course,” she said. “But that’s the very reason for doing it. It’s about time, isn’t it? I’m realistic enough to know there won’t be many more chances. I’m not up to doing a long run show with eight performances a week for a year any more, but I still love performing and, more importantly, stepping outside my comfort zone. And we have music by Michael Tyack, who is a oneman orchestra, so clever, and Jason Langley directing and he’s so very special.” “And Nancye doesn’t drive,” Todd explains, “and I love driving, so it will be the two of us in the car driving from theatre to theatre. We’ll rehearse the anecdotes but just play it by ear when it comes to the audience part.” And what if they get asked the unexpected something intense and personal? “There are no restrictions,” Todd says. “We want to be as open as possible, and that means I will probably be too outrageous at times. But
10 Stage Whispers March - April 2018
Todd McKenney as Teen Angel in Grease. Photo: Jeff Busby.
Nancye, who is the same age as my mum, will no doubt give me a clip round the ear and pull me back into line. I have drawn a very firm line in the sand and I’ve promised I
won’t step over it.” Maybe not, but there’s no guarantee he won’t dance over it with Nancye beside him. That’s what Bosom Buddies do.
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The Wizards
Of D gs
In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy’s resilience is tested when a tornado strands her far away with her faithful dog Toto at her side. In an unlikely but true story, SA Correspondent Lesley Reed relates how her own father’s experience of being stranded far from home during World War II helped pioneer dog training in Australia, with a special connection to the current national tour.
Luke Hura. Photo: Brian Geach.
12 Stage Whispers March - April 2018
It’s difficult to imagine what it would be like to find oneself suddenly alone and separated from family in a strange place that’s completely unlike anything you’ve experienced before. It’s what resilient young girl Dorothy must confront in the story of The Wizard of Oz. Mystery and unexpected events pervade every bend in the road as Dorothy experiences both danger and
magical times. All the while, her little terrier Toto remains at her side, sustaining her with his loyalty. In the current touring Andrew Lloyd Webber Palladium production of The Wizard of Oz, the role of Toto the terrier is shared by two dogs, outgoing male Trouble and quieter female Flick. Each is trained by Luke Hura, Australia’s most prolific trainer of dogs and other animals for film, television and stage. Testament to Luke’s experience, reviews to date enthuse about the unexpectedly extensive talents Toto displays.
“When I first began training dogs I would spend up to twelve months training, teaching them anything up to one hundred commands, and then create the magic on the set,” Luke said. “Over the years I changed this to training and creating the character at the same time, but this can be much slower. “Training dogs for any project is difficult and complex but I don’t look at any job as impossible. I learn what the dog has to do, process it, then feel my way through the training. I connect with the animal using mind and energy. I feel what the dog is feeling, which may be confusion, fear, confidence or even over confidence. I become their personal coach, mentor, their battery of positive energy, all the while building an enormous trust. When we finally get there, we can work together and energize each other. Neither one of us will let the other down.” Luke added that working on The Wizard of Oz had been an education for him. “I have never travelled the entire Australian tour of a musical before,” he said. “Training time for Toto wasn’t very long, as he didn’t have to learn many commands, but the rehearsal time was. Samantha Dodemaide (Dorothy) travelled to Melbourne to spend time with both Totos before we started the rehearsals. She built a beautiful relationship with the dogs and I can say that this has made my job so much easier. The results speak for themselves. The huge applause Toto gets as he runs out for his curtain call is testimony to being given the freedom and opportunity by the creative team at Wizard to create the magic I know I can. It’s an absolute gift.” Themes of courage, initiative and believing in oneself are at the core of The Wizard of Oz and there are several similar real-life threads in the story behind Luke’s entry into the entertainment industry. The tale behind the trainer of ‘Toto’ began over seventy years ago with my late father Mason Clark, who, like Dorothy, was stranded in a faraway place. Captured by the German army during the World War II Siege of
Mason Clark with Dawn, a tracker dog he trained for the Australian Commonwealth Police.
Tobruk, then incarcerated in a prison camp in northern Italy, there was no likely end to his predicament. He, along with the many imprisoned with him, needed resilience and courage to bear the harsh conditions. While in the camp, and despite torturous times, my father spent time observing the guards using German Shepherd dogs in their daily duties. It sparked in him an interest in dog training that would bear fruit later. Unlike Dorothy, my father didn’t have a pair of ruby shoes to magically transport him home. He and others had tried once to escape, having built a tunnel under the camp to the outside. At that time they were quickly recaptured. Some time later, Dad was outside the camp in a work party when he and five or six others took their opportunity to run. Helped by a brave sixteen-year-old Italian boy as guide
and wearing only a pair of prison shorts, my father trekked his own eventful Yellow Brick Road over the Alps dividing Italy and Switzerland. He was repatriated to Australia near war’s end. Back in Australia, Dad set up the first Australian tracking dog unit for the Commonwealth Police, which became widely known for its skilled animals. In the mid 1970’s and retired, he joined a dog tracking club and there he met a young Luke Hura, who, while having an awarded background in dog trials and obedience, was now interested in tracker dogs. “Mason and I became very good friends,” Luke said. “He helped me enormously with advice and guidance when I started running my dog training and boarding centre in the Adelaide (Continued on page 14) www.stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 13
(Continued from page 13)
hills. He also knew I wanted to get into the film and TV industry with dog training. To me, Mason was a legend. He was an extraordinary mentor.” In the early 1980’s my father visited an Adelaide casting agency to enquire about advising on animal training for the entertainment industry. While there, Dad mentioned he had a friend who trained dogs and who wanted to work in the industry. “That very same week, Mason received a call from the agency asking if his friend had a little terrier,” Luke said. “Although he knew I didn’t have any terriers, he replied that I did. He called me and told me to quickly find one for a TV commercial. I searched the local newspaper and found a breeder of Australian Terriers. I bought one called Higgins. “I ended up doing quite a number of TV commercials for a Building Society. This was the start of my journey into this incredible industry, but it was the only time I have used an Aussie Terrier until now, for The Wizard of Oz,” Luke said. Since that very first TV ad in 1981 Luke has trained dogs and various animals for over three thousand commercials and hundreds of TV series, telemovies, miniseries and feature films, as well as a number of musicals. Bouncer, the Labrador in Neighbours during the late 1980’s and early 1990s was one of Luke’s successes. He also trained all the lead
14 Stage Whispers March - April 2018
Online extras! Dorothy sings “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” to Toto in The Wizard Of Oz. https://youtu.be/-JeZkuyHNeY?t=4s
Samantha Dodemaide as Dorothy with Toto in The Wizard Of Oz. Photo: Jeff Busby.
dogs in two of the most successful and top-grossing dog movies ever made in Australia, Red Dog and Oddball. “I always remember Mason telling me that if you want a great dog, there are three ingredients,” he said. “First of all you have to have a good dog, secondly you have to know what you are doing, and finally you have to have the time to train them.” Simple really, or so it may seem, but I’m sure my father would have spoken about discipline too. Despite the conditions, he kept up the discipline of being physically fit in the prison camp, as he had done at home before the war, in order to stay well. This continued in his post-war dog training. Luke uses the same discipline, founded on inducing trust and focus in the animal, plus a process of conditioning. “Although my training is food based,” he said, “it is just as important to have a positive and clear mind. As part of their survival skill, dogs learn how to read us like a book. Every action and every word and thought creates a different body language in us, and this is what the dog learns from and reacts to. Body language and voice tones are vital. “Training the two Totos was a process of teaching them some very basic commands like recall, sit, down, and stay, on different objects and also just carrying them around a lot,” Luke said. “In other words, conditioning them. When we finally arrived at the full dress and costume rehearsals, and
the stage - set with special effects, very loud sound effects, props and full orchestra - you finally got to understand the magnitude of this incredible show and just what the dogs had to learn before we’d perform our Premiere. Every show, to me, is like a new exercise; I never assume that the dogs just know it, no matter how many times they do the show.” Luke believes every dog is capable of learning something, but this depends on the trainer and the desire the dog has to work with them. “I can definitely say not every dog would be suitable for this kind of work,” he said. While not every dog can become a star, Trouble, Luke’s main Toto, is an exceptional dog. “He is a very quick learner and a very steady dog that will stand and observe rather than run away from loud noises,” Luke said. “What he does on this show, with absolute enthusiasm every day, is something very few dogs could ever do.” The successful actors in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sumptuous London Palladium production of The Wizard of Oz have honed their skills over many years. The tiniest ‘actors’ of all amongst the celebrated company of Anthony Warlow, Lucy Durack, Jemma Rix, Samantha Dodemaide and others can hold their heads high within the cast. Australia’s Totos have their own creative history to tell; a long and shaggy tale that began far away from Oz.
The Playwright Born To
immigrant or fringe-dweller, were to become big themes for Nowra. Since childhood, he’s despised all racism and all group think. An uncle, Bob Herbert, a playwright himself (No Names, No Pack Drill), took young Louis to the overseas musicals he was directing for J.C. Williamsons. Their beauty, the songs and vivid costumes conjured another world for Louis - his plays later plundered the same costume box for that escape into theatrical excess. Not that there was much of that in the early days of the influential if Martin Portus profiles the remarkable Louis Nowra, the prolific writer spartan La Mama, then Melbourne’s hub of new Aussie writing. For Nowra, behind the Australian classic Cosi and much more. this world was much too blokey and A writing career seemed unlikely for Aliens, a play directly about his dogmatically leftist. He, on the other young Louis Nowra. Raised in a childhood; if, he says, a little more hand, was living with a part Aboriginal Housing Commission paddock suburb upbeat and romanticised. Louis played drag queen, taking hallucinogenic north of Melbourne without any himself as the Narrator. The play was a drugs and trying to copy the style of sewerage, ignored by his truck driving hit and is still widely studied in schools. Britain’s outrageous writer of farce, Joe Dad, belittled by his unhappy Mum, So too was his next play about staging Orton. little Louis couldn’t really read until he Mozart’s opera Cosi fan Tutti in a But La Mama staged his first plays. was 17. mental asylum. One Nowra remembers as “the worst He was scalped in a brutal boyhood Premiered also in 1992, at Sydney’s Australian play ever written - and that’s accident which for four years left him Belvoir theatre, Cosi draws on his real saying something - so I realised I had to unable to properly talk, think or write, experience as a young man when he learn to write.” dismissed by his teachers as an Barry Otto and Ben Mendelsohn in Cosi. imbecile. Photo: Currency House. Nor did it help that on what was to be the date of his birthday, a few years before he was born, Louis’ mother shot dead her own father. He always wondered why she was especially moody on his special day; when he turned 21 in 1970, she told him. And by then both his grannies were mad, and institutionalised in an asylum which, conveniently, was just next door. But the electrics of Louis’ brain had miraculously reset; and he’d completed reading his first book - Lolita. He finally understood how sentences were made. “Every day, I think how did I get here?” he says. “How did I get to be writing books and plays and going to was employed to direct a musical with It was the mid 1970’s and success, Hollywood, how? I am lazy but I have mental patients. Testament to the without any formal training, somehow this other persona that does all the healing power of theatre, Cosi is now came quickly. His work was admired in work. And I’ve never reconciled my Sydney, where Nowra admired its more Nowra’s most produced play and the upbringing with this persona who has subsequent film was highly acclaimed. theatrical, higher production standards. done so much.” Heading a film cast with Australian “People at the Australian Nowra went on to plumb his bizarre favourites, Ben Mendelsohn played the Performing Group (in Melbourne) childhood for many of the themes, role of Nowra the director. thought Sydney was poofta-ville with characters and theatrical excesses of his theatre run by a gay mafia. I thought, Madness and amnesia, both plays. In 1992, the Melbourne Theatre personal and national, and the (Continued on page 16) Company premiered Summer of the outsider, whether sexual, racial,
Shock
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(Continued from page 15)
well, if that’s a gay mafia then they can run it for as long as they want. I worked there with the best directors Jim Sharman, Rex Cramphorn, Neil Armfield and later David Berthold.” These early plays were vivid, fantastical and, interestingly, set internationally. Inner Voices is about an imprisoned 18th Century Russian prince who can’t speak; Visions is about a corrupt and despotic couple ruling 19th Century Paraguay - Nowra loves stories about bad taste presidential couples; and The Precious Woman is set amongst the warlords of China in the 1920’s. “I was impressed by Elizabethan theatre which could be set anywhere,” he says, “and so confused by Australia and the Ocker, and how to write about it, especially not being a social realist. “So much of Australian theatre is confirming the audience’s view of the world whereas my thing is the opposite - I want to be shocked or shattered. It has to be larger than a living room.” And so when Nowra did finally write plays about Australia - notably during a long residency with Jim Sharman’s famed Lighthouse ensemble in Adelaide - they were usually set outdoors, often around an affluent pastoral family and with powerful historical resonances. “But I was still trying to find a way for Australians to talk without it being aphorisms, put-downs or attempted wit.”
Playbox’s 1985 production of The Golden Age. Photo: Currency House.
16 Stage Whispers March - April 2018
Curiously, Nowra invented his own native idiom for the forgotten settlers in The Golden Age, lost for generations in the Tasmanian wilderness. Nowra had been giving a talk at Monash University and in the teacher’s room someone told him the story of this lost tribe. “He was halfway through and I’d already worked out the opening scenes in my head.” The tribe speak a rich Aussie wordmash of Cockney and Irish slang littered with poetic obscenities. After their discovery, they try to preserve their language and culture but, one by one, by then institutionalised in Hobart, they all die off. Meanwhile, the play’s themes of racial superiority and lost community and values take the action sweeping across the killing fields of World War I. Nowra was, by then, probably unique as an Anglo-Australian writer who introduced indigenous characters and storylines into his plays and novels. Indeed, it’s tempting to see The Golden Age in 1985 as part metaphor for the Aboriginal experience. “No, I was more interested in what happens when you are cut off from another world, and how you create your own. But that Aboriginal thing was obviously in the background.” This remarkable play was popular but the critics savaged it. And Nowra was so bruised, he spent years instead writing telemovies - like Displaced Persons - about immigrants locked up in Sydney’s old North Head Quarantine
Rhoda Roberts, Rachael Maza and Lydia Miller in Belvoir’s 1993 production of Radiance. Photo: Currency House.
Station, and Lizard King, about a French boy lost in the desert. Capricornia, a landmark touring Bicentennial production, directly tackled Aboriginal storytelling with indigenous actors in lead roles (including Nowra’s then partner, the late Justine Saunders). Based loosely on Xavier Herbert’s novel of life in the Northern Territory, it was the sort pf rolling landscape epic which suited Nowra. And he brought a warmth and empathy to his characters, defying critical mumbles that Nowra’s work can be cold and remote. Since then, Nowra swears he’s never read a critic - not because they were critical of Capricornia but, rather, they didn’t spot the faults that Nowra knew to be there. “The great thing about it was that I found my father’s voice (as an Irish storyteller). I found an ease about the Australian vernacular for the first time.” This new empathy continued with the autobiographical Summer of the Aliens and Cosi, despite his painful childhood. Later, he wrote a more accurate rendition of his young life in the much applauded The Twelfth of Never, the first of his two memoirs. “I think you become aware of people, their strength and weaknesses, as you get older. And with plays moving to smaller casts (for economic reasons), I become more interested in their psychology. “And I began to find I was warmer to human beings. From the age of seven, I’d always disliked them: adults were monsters … violent and cruel to
has been performed widely from India to Czechoslovakia. “Radiance was like overhearing my aunties talking about local gossip. Unlike men’s talk, women’s talk was really personal and melodramatic.” The film in 1998 was set in one of Nowra’s favourite settings, in the North Queensland tropical rainforests amongst the cane fields. Radiance was the first commercial film directed by an Aboriginal (Rachel Perkins); it garnered six AFI nominations and won Deborah Mailman - with, says Nowra, a “smile that would light up a room” - the AFI Best Actress Award. Louis Nowra went on to explore other indigenous stories in his work, and cross-racial relationships are a Louis Nowra spoke to Martin Portus for a State Library of NSW constant in his plays and in original oral history project on leaders in Sydney’s performing arts; the full screenplays like Map of the Human Heart and Heaven’s Burning. six hour interview will be available soon on the Library’s website. A ground-breaking writer for Martin is also hosting a Writers Festival forum with Nowra and Australian theatre in the 1970’s, he fellow playwright Stephen Sewell at the State Library on May 2 remained prolific and popular on stages 2018. For details, visit www.sl.nsw.gov.au/whats-on throughout the 1990’s and into the new decade. There is, arguably, no other one another. And so with Aliens and of rehearsal they made sure that the Cosi, I began to see a warmth that in a word, Aboriginal, was never mentioned Australian writer who has transformed himself into such an adaptable jobbing in the script.” play like Radiance really shone Yet a significant theme of Radiance writer - of plays, screenplays, radio through.” plays, TV documentaries and films, Radiance in 1993 began life when is the dispossession of the late memoirs, short stories, novels, indigenous actors Lydia Miller and Aboriginal mother, with her house biographies, essays, neighbourhood Rhoda Roberts started chasing Nowra about to be claimed by a creditor and to write them a play. The story of three she, long rejected by those of her own histories and profiles, criticism and journalism. contrasting half-sisters, re-united at the country on the island across the And all from a once withdrawn home of their deceased mother, was mudflat. At the end, the sisters burn teenager who, for so many years, born. down the house. couldn’t speak or write a sentence. “When we sat down at the first day Aboriginal story or not, Radiance Damon Herriman and Sara Zwangobani in STC’s 1993 production of Summer Of The Aliens. Photo: Currency House.
David Field and Ben Mendelsohn in Belvoir’s 1992 production of Cosi. Photo: Currency House.
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As the Commonwealth Games approach, Coral Drouyn discovers the lid is off on a spectacular season of Arts on Queensland’s Gold Coast.
Online extras! Get a glimpse at what will be staged on the Gold Coast by scanning or visiting https://youtu.be/iabNMa8VEUY 18 Stage Whispers March - April 2018
We all remember the Gold Coast. Whether it’s from childhood memories of the beaches, sun, and surf, or schoolies week, or the theme parks; or having your picture taken with rainbow lorikeets perched on your arms and head. What we don’t remember it for is The Arts; those honours belong to our state capital cities, but all that is about to change. With the Commonwealth Games set to open in mid-April, with estimates of more than half a million international visitors, the Gold Coast is re-inventing itself and officially adding The Arts to its attractions. The Arts Centre has even changed its name to HOTA, an acronym for Home Of The Arts, and its refurbishment now includes a sensational outdoor amphitheatre which will officially open on March 15 with a free concert from Tim Minchin - the tickets were gone in 30 minutes. The new amphitheatre will also feature concerts from the QSO, Neil Finn and a Global Orchestra event with 100 musicians playing Holst’s The Planets under the stars in a Concert For The Planet, which will be live-streamed globally. Revered New York experimental doyen Laurie Anderson will be Artist in Residence this year, with a wide range of offerings including a Concert for Dogs (you can’t say The Arts isn’t all inclusive). There are cultural events, major productions and a huge range of facilities. There are two theatres, an amphitheatre, three Arthouse cinemas, the showroom, a late night cabaret venue, studios and workshops - just last week Bangarra Dance Company gave a free contemporary dance workshop for intermediate level Outdoor amphitheatre at HOTA.
The Spirit of Churaki.
dancers, as well as theatre performances. And this is all in one amazing location on the side of the river, where you can stroll in the moonlight or have drinks in the bar. I can’t think of another Arts Centre that offers more. But while all of that is impressive, a city needs a unique Arts Festival to really lay claim to being a cultural hub. Fortunately the Gold Coast has one of them too. Bleach* Festival is the brainchild of the peripatetic and indefatigable Louise Bezzina. It’s the only Arts Festival I can find which is dependent on its location. Without the Sun and the surf, the parklands and the estuaries, there would be no Bleach* Festival. A new full scale rock opera, The Spirit of Churaki (commissioned for the festival) tells the story of the first indigenous life saver. With music by Violent Femmes founder Brian Ritchie, and starring Leah Flanagan, a great indigenous singer, it will be staged on the beach and in the surf.
The sensational dance company The Farm will present Tide, where two men are trapped on an island in an estuary through a series of low and high tides for 48 hours (yes, that is two days). Audiences drop in and out when they feel like it and can swim/wade to the island and interact in the performance. That’s not something you are ever going to see at a Melbourne Arts Festival, and believe me, The Farm is a multi-award winning company, headed by the unique talents of Gavin Webber. The Farm offers another show, The Ninth Wave, an apocalyptic champagne party on the Surfers Paradise Beach for “fools” to celebrate the end of the world. Both of these productions are free. In fact, over 80% of the offerings in the Festival are free, and that’s also part of Louise’s vision. “We wanted the Festival to truly be for everyone, not just people who can afford tickets to state theatres. It is unique, and we try to commission works that grow organically within the surroundings.” Since its relatively humble beginnings in 2012, Bleach has grown at an amazing rate. This year there are over 140 performances with 10 world premieres and 20 commissioned productions. “I remember thinking, when I came to the coast, what am I going to do with myself?” Louise says. “I thought it would be a good idea to develop something cultural so I targeted the councils at the Northern and Southern (Continued on page 20) www.stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 19
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ends of the coast and managed to get a cash donation of $40,000 - hardly enough for an Arts Festival. But I was able to use the council support to get local sponsorship and we ended up with a budget of $250,000. That meant we actually had leeway to be daring. And it worked.” In 2016 Louise was awarded Business Woman of the Year for Arts and Culture for the Gold Coast Women in Business Awards. In 2014, Bleach* Festival, under Louise’s direction, coproduced and presented Opera on the Beach, in partnership with Opera Australia. In her role as Artistic Director for Bleach* Festival, Louise is part of the Creative Lead team for the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games Arts and Cultural Program. And those are just credits. In reality Louise, mother of two very young children, is a powerhouse of energy who had been an administrator and co-ordinator on major Arts events in the city, but whose husband was transferred to the Gold Coast. “It was difficult,” she admits. “The infrastructure simply wasn’t here for concurrent multiple productions, artists, technical facilities. Then I realised that the infrastructure was all around us - use the beaches, use the local artists, cover the whole of the coast all the way from Paradise Point down to Coolangatta so that everyone was close to something.”
Yothu Yindi.
Tide.
With festivities kicking off on March 29 all the way through to April 15, the Gold Coast is indisputably the place to be for entertainment - oh, and I heard there’s some sports on too. Get all the details at www.gc2018.com/festival2018 It’s a formula which sees each production linked organically to its location - like an audience participatory kayak paddle and performance on Currumbin Estuary. Along with Bleach* and HOTA, there is also the Gold Coast’s own
Festival18, which opens with a free concert from Yothu Yindi and Treaty Project and presents incredible installations and shows from around the globe, including giant Karaoke for all, on the beach, with hundreds of microphones.
JOIN THE CONVERSATION! Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/stage_whispers Like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/stagewhispers 20 Stage Whispers March - April 2018
Sydney-based independent theatre company Sport for Jove is punching way above its weight staging inventive and contemporary productions of both the classics and now new Australian plays for both the education and general theatre market. Martin Portus reports. Sport For Jove’s Macbeth. Photo: Marnya Rothe.
Sport For Jove’s Cyrano de Bergerac. Photo: Philip Erbacher.
Sport for Jove has come a long way since director Damien Ryan crossed the road from his house in Baulkham Hills, western Sydney and staged A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the local park. The company has since enjoyed a decade of
applause for the energetic vision they’ve brought to Shakespeare and other classics, their physicality, relish for language, their irreverence. And all produced on the smell of an oily rag - but never looking like it.
Ryan though, since the start, was also dreaming of doing contemporary and new Australian writing, and for this 2018 season, this tenth anniversary year, Sport for Jove makes a major leap. It premieres Caleb Lewis’ epic family drama, The River at the End of the Road, in Albury in March, inspired by the Murray River; and then a new play by Alana Valentine, Ear to the Edge of Time, in Sydney in October, about astronomy and the nature of collaborative discovery in science. Also in Sydney, at the Seymour Centre’s Reginald Theatre where the company has long been resident, it’s staging the Orson Welles adaptation of Herman Melville’s novel, Moby Dick. Welles premiered it in London in 1955, on just a bare stage with minimal, improvised props and the actors in street clothes. It
began with the assembled players expecting to do King Lear, until a big, cigarmunching manager walks in brandishing his version of Moby Dick. This 2018 retelling will be directed by Adam Cook. Damien Ryan enthuses about the visceral, poetic nature of Welles’ language and the continuity for his family of actors getting their mouths around this just as they’ve done with Shakespeare. “How else,” he says, “do you get a whale into the Reginald Theatre without conjuring it with a thigh and bare bones approach, with actors who spill the ocean out of their mouths onto that stage. This Moby Dick is very much in the dreamscape of our company. “There is a balance about our work and Shakespeare the lifeblood of our company (Continued on page 22)
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and certainly in terms of our education and summer seasons - and finding a way to promote new writing and new directors.” But the artistic director is still cautious. While Sport for Jove’s work with classics has built its reputation and its audiences in Leura in the Blue Mountains and venues across wider Sydney, this support doesn’t always translate to its contemporary work. An acclaimed, confronting production last year of Howard’s Barker’s political epic across the 20th Century, No End to Blame, lost “a bunch of money” at the box office. And without regular government support, the company has only what comes from audiences, as well as the SBW Foundation and an anonymous benefactor. To commission Caleb Lewis’s new work about the Murray River, Sport for Jove joined forces with Albury’s Hothouse Theatre. “I’ve spent a lot of time in western Sydney and my family came from Broken Hill,” says Ryan. “Our dream was always to develop relationships with regional companies and tour widely. They often have more success generating funding for new work and particularly one for and about a community, an immersive work drawn from the country.” Ryan describes Lewis’ new play as a vast adventure about life, death and river journeys out to the wide ocean, a very theatrical and poetic experience with music and movement. And although here contemporary, in many ways that’s a familiar signature for the company. “For us, we’re unquestionably a theatre of language, of myth, of big ideas, journeys and transformation and a poetic level of language. And physical and ensemble based work is what we’re doing - not putting on two or three-handers in domestic situations. A big part of our theatricality is creating a sense of place, a world which makes sense to an audience and is immersive and transformative.” Also this year, at Riverside Theatres, Parramatta, Ryan will direct three Shakespeares in edited 90 minute versions - The Tempest, Macbeth and a 22 Stage Whispers March - April 2018
Of Sport For Jove’s No End s. liam Wil e Kat Photo:
Blame.
Sport For Jove’s Cyrano de Bergerac. Photo: Philip Erbacher.
new production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Ryan has already directed The Dream “six or seven times before, but not as much as I’ve done Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet” - so where does he find new inspiration? “I tend to have too many ideas… but, yes, I’m not ready to go to the mainstage market with a new Dream. Somebody would probably shoot me.” His education versions of Shakespeare sport a similar irreverence as Ryan’s main productions but are shorter and more consistent with classroom approaches to the plays. The company also opened 2018 with new productions of Measure for Measure and Goldoni’s The Servant of
Two Masters. This is classic fare for Sport for Jove and, says Ryan, keeps his actors in “match fitness” for the demands of good theatre-making beyond chasing their usual earners of commercials and telly. Damien Ryan is also an actor but is keeping himself off the stage for 2018 at least. That’s a loss for those who remember the revival last year of his life -affirming production of Cyrano de Bergerac, and Ryan also outstanding in the lead as the scholar soldier with the unmentionably long nose. Whether as an actor, director or leading a celebrated theatre company for ten years, Ryan has impact whatever he does.
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B
prisoners die after a hunger strike. The two events are linked after the discovery of the body of Quinn’s brother who disappeared 10 years earlier, and the arrival on the farm of a leading republican power figure. Butterworth’s play has been called “rich, serious and deeply involving”. As he did when the play originally opened at the Royal Court Theatre in May 2017, Sam Mendes directs. By Peter Pinne Ain’t Too Proud - The Life and Times of the Temptations is booked to play a “pre-Broadway engagement” at the The new Broadway bound musical Tootsie has found its Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater, Washington, from leading man. Santino Fontana, Tony nominated for his role 19 June until 22 July. The limited season is meant to be a of Topher in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, but stepping-stone to a Broadway run. The jukebox musical better known as Greg Serrano in TVs Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, follows the astronomical rise to fame of the Motown has been cast as Michael Dorsey (Tootsie), one of the singing group, from humble beginnings in Detroit to screen’s most famous cross-dressing roles. Based on the multiple chart-topping hits. The musical premiered at the 1982 hit movie which starred Dustin Hoffman, the musical Berkeley Repertory Theatre, California, last Autumn where it will play Broadway in 2019 following a Chicago tryout in received rave reviews and became the theatre’s highestautumn this year. The story follows a difficult out-of-work grossing production. Des McAnuff is set to direct with actor who auditions for a soap-opera dressed as a woman Sergio Trujillo handling choreography. Both had previously and finds he becomes a much better person as a woman worked together on the phenomenally successful Frankie than he was as a man. David Yazbek, who wrote the songs Valli and the Four Seasons musical Jersey Boys, which for this season’s best reviewed new musical, The Band’s played 13 years on Broadway from 2005 - 2017. Visit, will write the score, with a book by Robert Horn Classic Stage Company’s world-premiere season of (Thirteen) and direction by Scott Ellis (She Loves Me). It Terrence McNally’s new play Fire and Ice has been extended plays Chicago’s Cadillac Theater from 11 September until to 2 March. Directed by John Doyle, the play explores the 14 October. rich history of the Ballet Russes, Sergei Diaghilev’s itinerant Tony winner Ben Platt (Dear Evan Hansen) is to star in Russian ballet company and the tempestuous relationship producer Ryan Murphy’s (Glee) new Netflix music-driven between Diaghilev and the dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, who television series The Politician. Platt plays a wealthy Santa revolutionized dance forever. The cast includes James Cusati Barbara resident with political aspirations. The series, which -Moyer (Nijinsky), Douglas Hodge (Diaghilev), John Glover has already been given a two-series order, will feature (Dima), Jay Armstrong Johnson (Massine), Marsha Mason musical numbers in several episodes. Also in talks to co-star (Dunya) and Marin Mazzie (Misia). are Oscar winners Gwyneth Paltrow and Barbra Streisand. The Prom, a new musical-comedy that weaves highJez Butterworth’s new play The Ferryman, currently school lesbians and self-involved thespians into a playing the Gielgud Theatre, London, where it ends its run heartwarming confection, will open 15 November 2018 at on 19 May, will transfer to Broadway’s Bernard B. Jacobs an unspecified Shubert Theater. The musical, which was Theatre in October. Set in 1981, on a 50-acre farm in staged at the Alliance Theater, Atlanta last year, was called County Armagh, Northern Ireland, Quinn Carney, a “a crowd-pleasing spectacle with a well-intentioned reformed IRA activist is celebrating the annual harvest with message” by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and “loopy, his extended family. In the Maze prison, 10 republican loving and joyous” by Variety. The plot, about a group of publicity-hungry Broadway actors who decide to intervene Laura Donnelly and Paddy Considine in The Ferryman. when a small-town Indiana high-school cancels its prom Photo: Johan Persson. rather than let two girls attend as a couple, was conceived by Jack Viertel (Encores!). Bob Martin (The Drowsy Chaperone) and Chad Beguelin (Aladdin) have written the book, with music by Matthew Sklar (The Wedding Singer), lyrics by Beguelin, and direction by Casey Nicholaw (The Book of Mormon). John Legend and Sara Bareilles head the cast of NBC’s Easter telecast of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert. Legend will play the title role while Bareilles will be Mary Magdalene. Rock icon Alice Cooper has signed on as King Herod. Webber and Tim Rice are amongst the producers, who also include Marc Platt, Craig Zadan and Neil Merron, who produced The Sound of Online extras! Music Live! Hairspray Live!, Peter Pan Live! and The Wiz The original cast of The Ferryman discuss Live! The legendary rock-opera will be staged before a live what the show is all about audience at the Marcy Avenue Armory, Williamsburg, https://youtu.be/AuwBQ8hgoF0 Brooklyn.
roadway uzz
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London Calling By Peter Pinne Caroline O’Connor, who most recently starred as Lily in Anastasia on Broadway, is to head a revival cast of Kander and Ebb’s gritty musical The Rink, which plays Southwark Playhouse from 25 May until 23 June, 2018. O’Connor has an affinity with the show, having understudied the role of Angel during the original London run in 1988 at the Cambridge Theatre. This time she’s playing the mother Anna, who’s about to sell the roller-skating rink she owns to developers, until her estranged daughter Angel shows up and tries to stop her. The musical was first seen on Broadway in 1984 and starred Chita Rivera (Anna) and Liza Minnelli (Angel). The 1988 London premiere featured Josephine Blake (Anna) and Diane Langton (Angel). Adam Lenson directs, with choreography by Fabian Aloise, and musical direction by Joe Bunker. Quiz.
Online extras! Check out a trailer for Quiz by scanning the QR code or visiting https://youtu.be/5lfSEEkHMYE Playwright James Graham’s latest play Quiz also received its world premiere at Chichester and is also transferring to London where it will play the Noël Coward Theatre from 31 March until 16 June 2018. The play explores Britain’s love affair with the TV game show format and in particular focuses on the infamous ‘coughing Major’ Charles Ingram, who cheated his way to the top prize on the ITV quiz show Who Wants To Be a Millionaire. Gavin Spokes and Keir Charles reprise their roles as Ingram and Chris Tarrant respectively from the Chichester production, as do Greg Haiste, Mark Meadow, Henry Pettigrew, and Sarah Woodward. The production marks the third Graham play to be staged in the West End during the past 12 months, following his current hit Ink, which stars Bertie Carvel, and Labour of Love, which features Martin Freeman and Tamsin Greig. Ian McKellen will play King Lear when the 2017 Chichester Festival production of Shakespeare’s tragedy transfers to the
Duke of York’s Theatre opening 11 July 2018. Critically acclaimed for his performance at Chichester, “superbly detailed…a permanent close-up of a soul in torment,” the Jonathan Munby production brings one of Britain’s most famous acting legends back to the West End. Most wellknown for his performances with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, as well as his movies roles in Lord of the Rings and the X-Men series, his most recent London outing was in 2016 in Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land, playing opposite Patrick Stewart. McKellen is no stranger to King Lear, having first performed the role in 1974. He toured the world in a 2007 Trevor Nunn directed RSC production. Before the Chichester production started he stated this King Lear was his “last big Shakespeare part”. Currently in previews at the Playhouse Theatre is the revival of Gore Vidal’s The Best Man starring Martin Shaw. The play, about several presidential candidates seeking endorsement at any cost, features Shaw as former Secretary of State, William Russell, with Jeff Fahey as the ambitious newcomer Joseph Cantwell. The cast also includes Maureen Lipman, Jack Shepherd, Glynis Barber and Honeysuckle Weeks. Shaw starred in the production which played the Richmond Theatre as part of a UK tour in October 2017. The play originally played on Broadway in 1960 and starred Melvyn Douglas (Russell) and Frank Lovejoy (Cantwell). A film, with a screenplay by Vidal, was made in 1964 with Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson. Following a successful run at the Vaults last year, the new British musical Miss Nightingale is to play the Hippodrome Casino, Leicester Square, from 21 March until 6 May 2018. Written by Matthew Bugg, the musical is set in an underground cabaret club in wartime London. Aspiring singer Maggie Brown and her songwriting partner George Nowodny take to the stage to perform at the venue owned by an RAF war hero. They find themselves with a hit West End musical, but secrets and scandal threaten the enterprise. It stars Lauren Chinery (Miss Nightingale), Matthew Floyd Jones (George), Oliver Mawdsley (Frank), Adam Langstaff (Tom), Tobias Oliver (Clifford) and the show’s writer Bugg (Harry). Menier Chocolate Factory is reviving Manuel Puig’s play Kiss of the Spider Woman, 8 March to 5 May 2018. The story, about two criminals, Molina and Valentin, who bond in an Argentinian prison, has been adapted for this production by Jose Rivera and Allan Baker. It features Samuel Barnett (The History Boys/Dealer’s Choice, The Beaux Stratagem) as Molina, with Declan Bennett (Jesus Christ Superstar/Once/American Idiot) as Valentin. Laurie Sansom directs. Patti LuPone joins Rosalie Craig and Great British Bake-Off presenter Mel Giedroyc in the cast of the gender switch production of Sondheim’s Company when it opens at the Gielgud Theatre, 26 September, and plays until 22 December 2018. LuPone plays Joanne, a role she played in the 2011 Broadway production. Craig plays the central character of Bobbi. It’s the first time the role has been played by a woman. Giedroyc is Sarah, wife of Harry (“The Little Things You Do Together”), and comes to the part with impressive stage credits; Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, Luce and The Rocky Horror Show. www.stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 25
Stage on Page By Peter Pinne
Close To The Flame - The Life of Stuart Challender by Richard Davis (Wakefield Press $45.00). The publisher’s sub-title for this biography of Stuart Challender is “An extraordinary musical life cut too short”, which is an apt description of Challender, who was on the cusp of a major international career when he was struck down with AIDS. Challender was one of the greatest conductors Australia has ever produced. Born in Hobart 19 February 1947, to a father (David) who was an AFL football champion and a mother (June) who played piano in her spare time, his love of music came from his grandmother Thelma Driscoll. On reaching puberty, Challender discovered he was sexually attracted to other boys and the guilt of those feelings pervaded his life until he died. He attended an all boys school which yearly performed a Gilbert and Sullivan opera. On one of these occasions Challender played Peep-Bo in The Mikado. It’s ironic that in later years he professed to loath G&S and most English music except Elgar, who he revered. In 1964, at 17, Challender studied piano under Ronald Farren Price at the Melbourne Conservatorium (to concert platform standard), and he was also proficient at clarinet, but conducting had been his passion since being taken by his father to see a production of Beethoven’s Pastoral conducted by Tibor Paul with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra when he was young. In Melbourne Challender set up the Melbourne Youth Chamber Orchestra and started to compose. Unfortunately no manuscripts survive of his original work. He also worked in a variety of roles with the then amateur Victorian Opera Company, where his first production was Britten’s Albert Herring. His first professional conducting engagement was after he decamped to Europe in 1970 for Lucerne Opera, Switzerland, where he conducted Cole 26 Stage Whispers March - April 2018
In the Bi-centennial year he led the orchestra in a successful 12-city tour of the United States, which culminated in a concert at the UN. In 1983 Challender was diagnosed as being HIV positive which developed into fullblown AIDS in 1987. His employers, the Australian Opera and the ABC, at first tried to keep it under wraps but eventually Challender decided to go public about his condition, at the time one of the first public figures in Australia to do so. Richard Davis does an excellent job of capturing the emotional toll on not only Challender but also those around him. The latter part of the book is extremely moving. Challender died at 44. Apart from his legacy of achievements with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra he is remembered for his championing of Australian composition and composers; Nigel Butterley, Richard Meale and especially Carl Vine, amongst others. It was fitting therefore that a sevenminute solo cello piece by Peter Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate. He was Sculthorpe titled Threnody: In appointed assistant conductor at the Memorium Stuart Challender was Staatstheater, Nuremberg, and he also played at his funeral. The book comes worked for Zurich and Basel Opera with a chronology of his life and where he conducted an acclaimed career, a discography, B&W photos production of Mozart’s Die Zauberflote and an index. (The Magic Flute). He also conducted performances of Otello, La Traviata, The Life and Times of Mickey Madama Butterfly, Carmen and Eugene Rooney by Richard A. Lertzman and Onegin. It was during this time he had William J. Birnes (Gallery Books a heterosexual affair and lived with the U.S.$30.00) vivacious dramatic soprano Marilyn When Mickey Rooney died aged 93 Zschau, who became a lifelong friend. in 2014 Vanity Fair called him “the Challender spent 12 years in Europe original Hollywood train wreck”; an before returning to Australia, working actor who during his peak years, from for the Australian Opera before the late 1930s to the early 1940s, was becoming principal conductor of the the top box-office attraction in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra from United States, an actor who kept MGM 1987 to 1991. A production of afloat, and an actor Laurence Olivier Resurrection, Mahler’s second said “was the greatest actor America symphony, at the Sydney Town Hall ever produced.” Rooney, who married eight times, with an augmented Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Town Hall’s massive made millions and lost millions at the pipe-organ, the Sydney Philharmonia racetrack or the poker table. One of his Choir, and soprano Valerie Hanlon and favourite lines was “I lost two dollars at mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Campbell, Santa Anita and spent three million trying to get it back.” The other was, was a landmark concert in the history of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. “Always get married in the morning. If Fred Blanks in the Sydney Morning it doesn’t work out you haven’t wasted Herald claimed it was “the best thing the whole day.” that Stuart Challender has done since Rooney was born in a trunk. His his career began here.” father Joe Yule came from Glasgow, Scotland, while his mother Nellie Carter
Eugene O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness! A Family Affair’s vision of small-town Americana was an unprecedented success which resulted in the company making 13 more in the series. In three of them Rooney starred opposite Judy Garland and together they became a successful song-and-dance team, making several musicals including Rodgers and Hart’s Babes in Arms. He also hit it big with a straight role in Boys Town alongside Spencer Tracy, rumoured to be MGM boss Louis Mayer’s favourite film. During the forties Rooney saw active service entertaining troops in Europe but on his discharge, as a 5ft 2in adult actor, his career went into decline. During the sixties he returned to the stage and toured as Pseudolous in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and as the title was a chorus girl. They both worked in character in George M. burlesque, and it was there Rooney Dinner theatre paid the bills during had his first taste of the spotlight when the seventies until he had phenomenal he started performing on stage at one success on Broadway starring opposite and a half years of age singing “Pal of his former MGM colleague Ann Miller my Cradle Days”. in Sugar Babies. The show was a salute Audiences loved him and it wasn’t to burlesque and Rooney was in his long before Nell (sans husband Joe) element. The critics and audiences was getting Rooney auditions in adored him. He played 1,208 Hollywood’s burgeoning film business. performances on Broadway (never From 1927 until 1936 he made 78 missing one) and then toured with it short comedy movies about pint-sized for five years, which included eight Mickey McGuire. This led to him months in London. He was paid becoming a contract player at MGM. $17,000 per-week and over the entire In 1937 Rooney was selected to run earned $40 million dollars, but it appear as Andy Hardy in the B movie A all disappeared on gambling debts, Family Affair, with a story idea which alimony, family support, and taxes. sprang from the movie success of
His first marriage was to 19-year old Ava Gardner. It lasted one year. Next came Betty Jane Rase, who bore him two sons, Mickey Jnr and Tim. Wife number four provided him with a son, Jimmy, and daughter, Jonelle, while marriage number five, with Barbara Ann Thomason, produced Michael Joseph Rooney. He had his longest relationship (34 years) with his eighth wife Jan Chamberlin. Rooney was a loving husband but he got bored easily with marriage and always returned to his former ways, carousing and partying and bedding a different starlet each night. He was also an absentee father and never really knew his off-spring. The murder/suicide of his fifth wife Barbara Ann and her secret lover took its emotional toll on Rooney and it took him a long time to recover from it. In his nineties Rooney was outspoken about elder abuse, claiming he was a victim of it and appeared before a special U.S. Senate committee that was considering legislation to curb it. This book is tabloid journalism at its worst, scraping the bottom of the sleaze barrel time and time again. If there’s a sordid or lascivious anecdote that Birnes and Lertzman have uncovered then it’s in here. The editors must have been on holiday because it’s also full of spelling errors, mistakes and stories that are repeated. Rooney deserves better. It comes with a filmography, credits, B&W photos and index.
Stage Whispers Books Visit our on-line book shop for back issues and stage craft books www.stagewhispers.com.au/books www.stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 27
The Smitten Scientist Paper Cuts - a new collection of thirty-six contemporary, characterdriven monologues for actors aged eighteen to eighty - has recently been published by Blemish Books. This monologue provides a taste of Kirsty Budding’s comedy and quirky insight into love, relationships and other idiosyncrasies of modern life. Playwright’s suggestion: choose a woman in the audience and address the monologue to her. I have to tell you! I’ve run all this way to tell you that I’m so in love with you. I can’t stop thinking about you. It’s awful. I can’t get any research done. The lab’s a mess. Nothing’s growing in the petri dishes. I was fine before I met you and now I’m just… incomplete. So, marry me? No. Too soon. We should probably go on a date first. My research indicated that several dates are customary prior to discussing a long-term relationship. I don’t mean to assume that you would say yes; in fact, I’m aware my odds are roughly equivalent to the odds of discovering alien life within the next ten years, but I’ve planned for every eventuality. I may be misreading your nonverbal cues, but you seem confused. I’m sorry; I swear I did everything I could to avoid this moment. I tried giving up coffee and walking a different way to work and throwing myself into my research but god… your face. The way you wipe steam off
your forehead when you’re frothing milk. The way you shake chocolate onto my mocha. The way you say, “Mocha for John” even though my name’s Ron. And your smile; you smile with your eyes even when you’re not smiling. Every night I lie in bed staring up at the ceiling and I see your smile. Sometimes you wave down at me, like this (waves). And I keep imagining the scene of us getting together; we make out right over there next to the napkin dispenser. I shouldn’t have told you that. It’s not just physical. You’re perfect in my eyes, both biologically and in the sense that you have a beautiful soul. The soul isn’t real, biologically; I just mean that you’re a good person. I’m trying to be romantic because, according to the internet, women like that. Helen - I hope your name badge is accurate - Helen, when I first saw you, I finally appreciated the wonders of science. Evolution took place just so that one day, someone as beautiful as you could exist. The laws of physics; gravity itself seems to have been
Paper Cuts: Comedic and satirical monologues for audition or performance by Kirsty Budding, is published by Blemish Books, Canberra. Order online at www.blemishbooks.com.au About the Playwright Kirsty Budding works in Canberra as a theatre producer and teacher. A graduate of the Australian National University, Kirsty has won several local playwriting awards and was a semi-finalist in the 2017 ScreenCraft Short Screenplay Contest, Los Angeles. Kirsty has previously had work published in The Voices Project anthology by Currency Press. For updates on her work, head to www.kirstybudding.com.au 28 Stage Whispers March - April 2018
Kirsty Budding. Photo: Greg Gould.
John Lombard performs The Smitten Scientist.
designed with the sole aim that you might one day fall into my arms. And penicillin wasn’t discovered by accident: Alexander Fleming wanted to make sure I wouldn’t lose you to a bacterial infection. But over the past few weeks, I’ve also felt the limits of science. Because I can’t rationalise this. I can’t quantify or measure it. And I’ll never be able to talk about my feelings for you in cold, objective language. I’m biased and it feels amazing, and I’ll gladly produce skewed results for the rest of my life if it means I can spend it with you. The controlled variable, the thing that will never change, is my love for you. But without you, I’m just a hypothesis. I’m trying to be romantic. Is it working? I assume so as you seem to have been rendered speechless, (noticing the audience) along with all your patrons. I don’t really know what to say now… dating etiquette baffles me and the advice I got on Reddit was very confusing, but here goes: Helen, would you like to have a coffee with me?
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Stage On Disc By Peter Pinne
Muriel’s Wedding (Kate Miller-Heidke/Keir Nuttall) (Sony 19075817072). Muriel’s Wedding is undoubtedly the best new Australian musical with an original score that we’ve had in recent years. Kate MillerHeidke and Keir Nuttall’s songs have pop-hooks that echo Beyonce, Taylor Swift and Katy Perry, and what’s more they’re irresistibly catchy, with lyrics that have irony, wit and fun. Like the original movie, the score features the ABBA songs “Waterloo” and “SOS” (used brilliantly in a particularly poignant moment by Muriel’s mother Betty), and portions of “Fernando” and “Dancing Queen”, which are deftly incorporated into other songs. Maggie McKenna (Muriel) scores time and time again with “The Bouquet”, “Why Can’t That Be Me” and the emotional eulogy “My Mother”, but it’s her duets with Madeleine Jones (Rhonda), “Girls Like Us” and “Amazing”, that give the show heart. The rap-inspired “Can’t Hang” is the perfect number for the Porpoise Spit quartet of bitches led by Christie Whelan Brown (Tania), Gary Sweet as the ocker, racist and insensitive Bill get his spotlight moment with “Progress”, while “Mr and Mrs Shkuratov”, when Muriel and her gay Russian swimmer are married, is laughout-loud funny. There’s lots of songs led by the ensemble (reminiscent of Matilda) but the vocal arrangements are excellent (no credit as to who wrote them), and the album ends with a re-mix of the show’s infectious anthem to “Sydney”. The Greatest Showman (Benj Pasel/Justin Paul) (Atlantic). Co-composers / lyricists Benj Pasek and Justin Paul capped off an amazing year in 2017 after winning an Oscar for La La Land, a Tony for Dear Evan Hansen, and a live TV production of A Christmas Story, with a score of dynamic original songs for the movie musical The Greatest Showman starring Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron. Whilst the movie about American huckster and flim-flam man P.T. Barnum may be all smoke and mirrors with little substance, the songs are instantly earworm friendly. “The Greatest Show” is a great Glee-style opener with Jackman leading the company, “Come Alive” Rating
Only for the enthusiast Borderline Worth buying Must have Kill for it 30 Stage Whispers March - April 2018
and The Other Side” plunder the hip-hop bucket, while “A Million Dreams” soars memorably. Jenny Lind, in real life an opera singer, in this version is given a power ballad “Never Enough”, stunningly sung by Loren Allred, the Efron and Zendaya duet “Rewrite the Stars” is standout, as is Michelle Williams’ tenderly effective ¾-time “Tightrope” (Walking the tightrope with you), but it’s the ode to acceptance, “This Is Me”, searingly performed by bearded-lady Keala Settle and the Ensemble that’s deservedly got the Oscar nomination. Becoming Bill (Bradley McCaw) (No Label/No Number). Bradley McCaw’s excellent piano charts are the best thing about this 7track highlights CD from the unproduced Becoming Bill, a new musical about relationships. The music style (reminiscent of Jason Robert Brown) appeals, while some good lyric ideas elevate the material. “No Feelings Today” has a partner wanting a night off from discussions about ‘feelings’, while “View from the Couch” (life is passing you by) is a perceptive comment on a couch-potato. A clutch of high-profile performers lend their vocal talents; Peter Cousens, Natalie O’Donnell, Tom Oliver and Kathryn McIntyre, who’s particularly impressive on “Let’s Not Have This Fight” and “Mother and Her Son.” Half A Sixpence - The Original Demo Recordings (David Heneker) (Stage Door Stage 9052). Twelve months before Half a Sixpence opened at the Cambridge Theatre, London, in 1963, a demo recording was made of the score which featured Tommy Steele, Rita Williams and Roy Sone (Steele’s understudy in the original production). This collection of songs, some which never made it past rehearsal, is of interest in the early development of the West End hit. The ebullient Steele sounds even more youthful than he does on the original London cast recording, eating up “Money to Burn”, “She’s Too Far Above Me” and “If the Rain’s Got To Fall”, while Rita Williams brings sincerity to “Long Ago”, one of the forgotten ballad gems from British musical theatre of the 60s. Bonus tracks include an Embassy EP with orchestra of five of the show’s hits including the raucous “Flash, Bang, Wallop!” sung by Paul Rich. Coco (Kristen Anderson-Lopez/Robert Lopez/Germaine Franco/Adrian Molina) (Disney). Latin rhythms abound in Pixar’s new animated feature built around Mexico’s Dia de
Muertos (The Day of the Dead), but the outstanding song and Oscar nominee, by the writers of “Let it Go” (Frozen), is “Remember Me” (Ernesto de la Cruz). There are four different versions of it on the disc, but the pop-version by Miguel and Natalia Lafourcade is the best.
tunes include “Run To You” (The Bodyguard), “I Believe I Can Fly” (Space Jam) and Peter Allen’s “Once Before I Go” (The Boy From Oz), but he also breathes new life (with the help of a choir) into Leonard Cohen’s oft recorded “Hallelujah”, and is more than comfortable with Bruno Mars’ “Just the Way You Are”, Christina Aguilera’s “Say Something”, Alan Jackson’s “Remember When” and Adele’s “Hello”. Best track is Keith Urban’s “Blue Ain’t Your Color”. Highly recommended
William Tabbert Younger Than Springtime Sheridan (EastWest (Stage Door 2410). This 0190295741426). The West latest CD in Stage Door’s End’s favourite Funny Girl Collector’s Series features Sheridan Smith’s new album the voice of South Pacific’s mixes show tunes with pop; original Lt. Cable, baritone “City of Stars” (La La Land), William Tabbert. Following “For Forever” (Dear Evan his success in South Pacific Hansen) and “I’m Telling you he went on to play the I’m Not Going” (Dreamgirls), young romantic lead in Fanny, and the album features the title song from that “Addicted to Love”, “Hurt” and “Crazy”. She adds a nice show and “Younger than Springtime”, plus songs from North Country accent to Noël Coward’s “Mad About the Gigi, Camelot, The Most Happy Fella, Allegro, Annie Get Boy” (Words and Music), gets down and dirty on Jerry Your Gun and Paint your Wagon. The CD also includes a Lieber and Mike Stoller’s “I Smell a Rat”, but the best track selection of Jerome Kern standards, plus bonus tracks of a is a mind-blowing “My Man” (Funny Girl) with its medley from Up in Central Park sung with Patrice Munsell. powerhouse finish. It’s a charming slice of Broadway nostalgia. Barbra Streisand - The Music…The Mem’ries…The Magic (Columbia 190758035124). This new Streisand album is taken from a concert, recorded live, which featured songs from her six decade career. Some of these she hasn’t sung for years, like “Being at War With Each Other”, and Funny Lady’s “Isn’t This Better” and “How Lucky Can You Get”, whilst others have been consistently on her playlist, “Papa Can You Hear Me”, “Evergreen” and “People”. The voice still soars, the pitch is still perfect, and she can still deliver the money notes. Jamie Foxx guests and repeats his recent Encore duet “Climb Ev’ry Mountain”, which is even more thrilling live. Johnny Mathis Sings The Great New American Songbook (Columbia 889854424923). Johnny Mathis, who’s been around a decade longer than Streisand, proves his voice is as strong as ever on this new CD of standards from the nineties and later. Show www.stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 31
Shrek The Musical had a $25 million budget on Broadway. Now community theatres are staging it in Australia. The creatives from Packemin Productions in Sydney, who staged the musical in February, describe how they dressed the stage. “I saw the Broadway production in 2009 and while I loved the show, I felt it was over-produced by DreamWorks,” says Co-Director Craig Stewart. “They obviously wanted a large expensive spectacle, but, for me, that got in the way of the storytelling. Bold lines and bold colours would define the fairy-tale world of our Shrek. “An example of this character driven design is in The Dragon. In the Broadway production it was a large animatronic head that lip synced poorly to mostly unseen voices, and was rolled around the stage without any presence of its own. “We decided early on that we would have the actress singing the
role. Her attitude and attributes sell the Dragon in a way a puppet alone cannot and also allows us to ground the character for the audience. Brilliant dancers puppeteered the separate pieces of The Dragon, injecting vibrancy into the character.” Co-Director Jessica Fallico says, “Our costume and make-up departments went above and beyond to put this show onto the stage. We have thirtythree fairy tale creatures alone in our ensemble, all with unique and beautifully crafted costumes and makeup that define these characters at a glance. “Our ‘Shrek’ makeup had four trials until it settled into a beautiful likeness
to the animated Shrek we all know and love for the stage. The make-up takes over an hour and consists of a cowl, four latex moulds for Jay’s forehead, cheeks and nose, and of course lots of green face paint. Set Designer Josh McIntosh says, “I wanted to give the whole set an illustrated cartoon feel, influenced by pop-up books, rather than replicate realistic castles and forests. “The face of Lord Farquaad was digitally printed onto banners. The big mug of his face on fabric represented his narcissism, to decorate the town with images of himself.” Stage Whispers’ David Spicer thinks the most inventive scene in this production was a set piece where Shrek, Fiona and Donkey are travelling. “I was inspired by Hanna Barbera’s Flintstones cartoon, where you see the same landscape scrolling in the background. In this scene they travel
Packemin Productions Shrek The Musical. All photos: Grant Leslie.
32 Stage Whispers March - April 2018
Packemin Productions Shrek The Musical. Photo: Grant Leslie.
through forests and deserts. Rather than have some massive set piece I thought it would be fun to have this scrolling in the background. “I drew the landscape, coloured it on photo shop then had this printed onto a 20 metre curtain that rotated.” An extra touch was LED lights at the base of the set piece. “When they get to a bridge, or talk about love, the light punches through when they get to that moment.” However the effect that got the best response from the audience was as old as the hills. To miniaturise Lord Farquaad, he walked around on his knees and had mock legs pinned to the top of his pins. “It’s an old vaudeville trick.”
Packemin Productions’ set of Shrek the Musical is available for hire. For more info visit www.packemin.com.au
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The 2017 CAT Awards (Canberra Area Theatre) produced more than their fair share of magic moments. David Spicer reports. Tim Styles accepting his CAT award for Best Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical.
34 Stage Whispers March - April 2018
The audience at the Canberra Theatre Centre fell silent when Tim Styles accepted his CAT award for Best Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical. We were waiting for a regulation acceptance speech at the amateur theatre and school awards night for companies in the ACT and regional NSW, but something special came.
“Last year when I lost my family, I attempted to take my own life,” he told the audience. “After I was released from hospital the only family I had was my theatre group.” Styles played Uncle Fester in the Queanbeyan Palerang Regional Council’s production of The Addams Family. He said he immediately started feeling better when he attended a rehearsal. Kirsten Busby and Vio let. Another moment which was breathtaking was an aria sung by Kirsten Busby. She was on stage with guide dog Violet. Her white Labrador was immaculately behaved as she sang a soaring aria reminiscent of Andrea Bocelli. Kirsten picked up Best Variety Performance by an Individual or Ensemble and is now leaving home to study music at the Newcastle Conservatorium of Music. My favourite category at these awards is the magic
moment in theatre. Just reading through the nominations can bring a smile. This year they included: Glitter shower over the audience during ‘Razzle Dazzle’ in Chicago (So Popera); The Wink from Rapunzel’s Prince in Into The Woods (New and Used Productions); The way the broom flew in to Elphaba from offstage in Wicked (Albury Wadonga Theatre Company). But the winner was the Kinross Wolario Prepatory School in Orange for the Reveal of the Dead Spirits in Slaves. The Canberra Repertory Theatre Company was one of the big winners with seven CAT Awards. Five were for its production of Arthur Miller’s A View From A Bridge, described by Stage Whispers as a “powerful drama enhanced by visionary set design and creative lighting”. Wollongong company So Popera picked up nine awards including eight for its production of Chicago that sold out at the Illawarra Performing Arts Centre. The Gold Cat Award, for achievement across a range of different categories, went to Sam Lloyd for outstanding achievement in the areas of set design, costume design, direction and performance for the Bay Theatre Players. The CAT awards even finished relatively early. Despite a smorgasbord of entertainment including musicals, Shakespeare, drama and dance plus dozens of awards and speeches, it was over by ten thirty. Next year we can return and maybe catch a tram to the awards night!
Shows For Girls www.maverickmusicals.com Maverick Musicals has these tips for teachers choosing a school musical. Consider the talent (or otherwise) you have to work with. Don’t pick a musical solely because you like it. Make sure it can be done, well, by students. Closely examine perusal material from publishers. Choose material that will give girls something worthwhile to do as generally five or six girls will audition for every boy. Strong female musicals from Maverick Musicals include: Just Desserts: An all-girl musical set in a supermarket. The Pirate Queen: Set in Ireland and based on some of the exploits of Grace
Choosing A Show
O’Malley, the original Pirate Queen Snap!: A contemporary musical story about starryeyed, ambitious young photographer, Ricki Bailey.
media that we live in, we meet a group of teens who are struggling to find the balance between documenting their lives and living them.
Tips From Dominie Drama dominie.com.au/drama
Blue Stockings Cast: 8-10m, 8-14m +2 A moving, comical and eye-opening story of four young women fighting for education and selfdetermination against the larger backdrop of women’s suffrage (1896).
Me and My Selfie Cast: Flexible cast of 640. Time: 45 minutes. Through a series of scenes and monologues to explore the world of social
Just Desserts.
Snap!
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Stage Briefs
Bankstown Theatre Company presents the stage musical adaptation of the movie Dogfight from March 16 - 25 at Bankstown Arts Centre. Read more on our website at http://bit.ly/2F1aziU
36 Stage Whispers March - April 2018
Lachlan O’Brien (Lumiere) and Nathan Farrow (Cogsworth) in Miranda Musical Society’s production of Beauty and the Beast from March 21 to 25 at Sutherland Entertainment Centre. Photo: Lukeography. Read more on our website at http://bit.ly/2F3jGj0
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SPARK 2018
Making Children’s Theatre Work
Online extras! See what Polyglot Theatre’s Separation Street is all about. Scan or visit https://youtu.be/z93R5u7fZRM permission to attend or rather, not allow the child any choice in the matter. During the work, even if the child enjoys the experience, the protective instinct of the adult often interprets for them: ‘You don’t like this, do you? Are you frightened? Do you Why do adults bring children to a King because they all know the film. Or want to stay?’ The child’s perceived performance? For many it’s to share the adult will bring the child because lack of judgement or experience makes their own love of theatre, the desire to they love a particular book and will go the role of the adult crucial. One bad share their experience with their own to see it on stage. experience for the adult can lead to a children. For some it’s because it’s part The adult offers the only way the continued disengagement for the child. of the child’s learning, part of their child can get to the performance and What is it that makes a children’s education. For others it’s because the their attendance comes with work for theatre? The arguments about content is familiar and they believe their responsibility. These parents and carers this definition are had at every festival child will relate to the performance; the may be reluctant to engage with works in every country, in every rehearsal big arena spectacular because the child that could be difficult, disturbing or room around the world. There is a is obsessed with Frozen; The Lion frightening. They may even refuse school of thought that says children’s
Sue Giles, the Artistic Director of Polyglot Theatre since 2000, argues that the dominant model for children’s theatre in Australia is not working. In a new Platform Paper published by Currency House, she calls for adults to listen to children and abandon outdated barriers to their exploration and risk-taking.
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theatre must have a particular aesthetic: colour and movement, slapstick, happy endings, simple story lines, engaging characters, costumes and songs. Blockbuster touring works like Disney on Ice, but also home grown works like Wiggles in Concert or High5, fulfil this brief and are considered purely entertainment for children and families. Distraction is central to this form of entertainment and it’s for this reason that ‘entertainment’ is seen as distinct from Art. But entertainment is not a bad word. Respect for the audience as a discerning, sensitive, courageous and intelligent one, demands a high degree of rigour and thought in the construction of a work and you can certainly do this in entertaining ways. The highly entertaining Australian company The Listies have conquered children’s comedy through deep
respect for their audience, with a focus on the subversion of the adult desire for control with hilarious results. Entertainment is valuable in partnership with the development of strong concepts, interesting form, deep issues, exciting exploration and experimentation; and belongs, rightly, to the youngest of us. Denmark’s Teatercentrum proudly announces: ‘No topics are taboo: from harassment, paedophilia, death and destruction to every-day-life, friendship, absurdities and pure comedies.’ Do we feel in Australia that we are barred from such confidence in content? In Denmark the culture of theatre-going is so well developed that the expectations have shifted accordingly. Their companies and artists attack ugly issues with flair and the population has (Continued on page 40) Sue Giles at ArtPlay during Polyglot Theatre’s Cerita Anak (Child’s Story). Photo: Justin Batchelow.
Polyglot Theatre’s Separation Street. Photo: Greta Costello.
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SPARK 2018
tough stuff played in ways that disturbed but held its audience with confidence in children to be able to compelling staging and the united receive strong works of theatre. hope that the girl in the story would In Cameroon I saw a play that prevail. portrayed child slavery - a real, living A discussion with theatre makers at problem in that country. The artists one international forum centred on the asked the child audience if they would ‘happy ending’. This is a highly shout, and if they would shout in real contentious issue across the world: life, in their own streets, if they saw this some German artists saw no reason for happening? The child audience happy endings, some Brazilian artists shouted, ‘YES’ and wanted to storm protested the opposite: that their outside immediately. The artists asked children led such troubled lives, why this, knowing that those with no power should they deal with sadness on the to stop the brutality of those stronger stage? than themselves, could still use their In many countries in Asia artists voices to attract attention. In South prefer cheerful, upbeat performance Africa a show for children played out that protects the child and offers the rape of a young girl on stage and beauty and the aesthetics around later the abuse of her baby. Really design and style, reflected in marketing (Continued from page 39)
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Sue Giles. Photo: Theresa Harrison.
and merchandise. In Australia we definitely favour the happy ending. We’re not afraid to explore some trouble along the way but we like things to end well. Hope is one of the qualities consistent in theatre for young audiences. Even that devastating play in South Africa, with all the pain and grief that never went away, ended with faith in the resilience of human capacity to be happy. Much of the content for children in Australia currently centres round interpersonal relationships: ideas of friendship, bullying, confidence in self, difference and acceptance. The connection made between education and the arts over the years has had the added effect of pigeonholing the work created for children as having primarily an educative purpose. One interesting direction many artists are exploring is the child’s authorship in works created for, with and by children themselves. There is more focus on collaboration, and in working with what they offer as a unique audience; but also as participants in the conceptual development, the testing of new work and in co-design. At Polyglot both children and adults participate as elements in the design and narrative. We also create experiences that physically involve people in theatre works and in public space interactions. Works like Tangle, a public art spectacle created from kilometres of coloured elastic, only exist
This is an extract from the Platform Paper Young People And The Arts: An Agenda For Change. It is now available for sale at www.currencyhouse.org.au because of the involvement of children and it is the task involved that cements the relationship participants have with the work. They make it, they play in it and they create drama from it. Works have been developed with more than one outcome, with ways of engaging that expand on the understanding of a performance. The experimentation that places children at the centre of the work is where the most powerful and unusual explorations are occurring in the sector. Working with children in collaborative process demands the acknowledgement of a new culture; respect and attention for the opportunities it gives us. It gives us new languages of performance and audience engagement. It also leads us into moments of chaos where anything might happen. We must give over control and this is dangerous stuff for artists. It is dangerous stuff for any adult. In Maybe Together’s Future Postal Service, kids become the posties in a public space, writing postcards to the adult world and then delivering them to strangers. The disruption this creates is on multiple levels: the adult is wrenched from their normal behaviour into a transaction that they must accept or not. They become aware of a game going on; they engage in a contract of sorts. The adult also becomes fearful for the child - should they be approaching strangers? Participation is an accepted form in adult theatre; however, children’s participation takes a completely different tack. The experience of finding yourself involved, the new language that is discovered in this process, and witnessing the result of the creative energy that is unleashed, allow us adults to shift our perspectives of children in profound ways and to shift their perspectives of themselves. Our Corka Bubs is a work created by choreographer Gina Rings based on Sally Chance’s dance project This (Baby) Life. In this work the participants are infants. The show is performed in the
expectation that the child becomes part of the movement before them, through their curiosity and desire to touch, get up close. By matching the child’s moves the performer expands in the moment the physical relationship between them. At the 2017 Melbourne Fringe I found myself in a large room full of children and adults watching The Children’s Party (as in political party); a project drawn together by Fringe. This show was democracy in action as portrayed and pulled apart by children followed up with policy, discussion and dissention performed but authentically happening right in front of us in the manner of an ABC Q&A. Children in the audience were drawn into this debate effortlessly by the child protagonists and urged on by the voices and the action of the interacting audience, made clearly audible and heard loudly by adults in the room. It was a moving and eyeopening event that firmly placed kids as social actors and instigators and demonstrated independent thought in action. During the six month development, The Children’s Party recorded a video in support of same-sex marriage, which was aired on Q & A and answered by Bill Shorten. This catapulted them into the adult world, where their ideas were
grilled online by anonymous trolls. On the Q & A Facebook page, the TCP clip had 70,000 views and 1600 comments. The comments ranged from supportive (‘Equality seems much harder for adults to stomach than children. I hope these kids feel very proud of themselves and their hard work at putting together a statement of support.’) to full of anger (‘Disgraceful abuse of children to be groomed and used this way by ABC. Innocence of childhood hijacked for your salacious needs.’). Most negative commenters related to children’s inability to have an informed say; to a loss of childhood; that the artists, Labor politicians or ABC were ‘brainwashing’, ‘indoctrinating’, ‘sexualising’ or ‘radicalising’ the children; or that the legal system is of ‘net benefit’ to those it excludes. The Children’s Party challenges democratic representation, and asks, ‘Who can stand up and have a say? The dominant cultural assumption is that young people are ‘innocent’, they require adult authority, they need us. To sit in a theatre and watch young people self-organising, radiating control and vulnerability, revealing their darker impulses, the spaces buried in between, we are captivated, confronted, disorientated. The theatre contract is altered, our perception shifted, as young people ask us to sit still and watch as they pull back the veil, and guide us into spaces into which only they can lead us. Polyglot Theatre’s How High The Sky at The Arts Centre, Melbourne (2012). Photo: Pia Johnson.
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SPARK 2018
Shows For Schools A taste of some of the best excursions available for High School and Primary School students in 2018. For a full list including incursions - visit www.stagewhispers.com.au/spark after March 15.
Opera Australia Madame Butterfly Touring Victoria, NSW, ACT and Tasmania from July to September. Hear Opera Australia’s wonderful singers and chamber orchestra in Puccini’s popular opera. Directed by John Bell with beautiful sets and costumes. Performed in English. http://bit.ly/2EZpslM CDP Productions The 78-Storey Treehouse A play by Richard Tulloch Adapted from the book by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton Touring NSW, ACT, Victoria, Qeensland, SA, WA and NT . The team behind The 13-, 26- and 52Storey Treehouses Live on Stage return with the newest, biggest, brightest blockbuster in the series! www.cdp.com.au Melbourne Theatre Company The MTC offers $28 student tickets to its mainstage season. For details visit. www.mtc.com.au/education 42 Stage Whispers March - April 2018
Sydney Theatre Company School Day performances of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui Hamlet: Prince of Skidmark The Long Forgotten Dream. For details http://bit.ly/2F3B4En Sport for Jove (NSW) Macbeth A thrilling 100-minute Macbeth is back after playing to thousands of NSW students in 2015 and 2016. Other school productions include The Tempest, Moby Dick and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. http://bit.ly/2EPuEJS Red Stitch Actors Theatre (Vic) Lovesong From youthful exuberance to the complexities of age, follow Margaret and William throughout the years of their relationship towards the solitude that follows. Lovesong features a live cello accompaniment. www.redstitch.net
Griffin Theatre Company (NSW) The Almighty Sometimes (Jul - Sep) Anna has been medicated for a range of mood and behavioural disorders for as long as she can remember. Now she wants to know what life would be like without pills and prescriptions. The Feather in the Web (Oct - Nov) Kimberly is a character like no other. She’s powerful, wicked, in control but she has no voice. So she sets out to find it, leaving a trail of car crashes and crying people in her wake. http://bit.ly/2EO1iLN State Theatre of South Australia Recommended productions offer student pricing and include post show discussions with cast and creatives. Terrestrial Liddy, a teenage alien obsessive, and her mum arrive in a remote South Australian town seeking escape. That Eye The Sky Adaptation of Tim Winton novel. Ort Flack is 12 years old and trying to make sense of life in a small country town in Western Australia. Sense and Sensibility Adaptation of Jane Austen novel.
Brothers Wreck Follows a young man who has to make sense of his cousin’s suicide. Melbourne French Theatre Le père Noël est une ordure [Santa Claus is a #&@!!] In French with English surtitles. A black comedy, juggling high farce and grotesque black humour. The farce is filled with an assortment of eccentrics including a lonely Serbian with deadly chocolates, a cross-dressing chronic depressive and a suicidal gun-toting Santa Claus. Black Swan Theatre (WA) Discount tickets and student performances to Summer of The Seventeenth Doll, Assassins, and Skylab. http://bit.ly/2ENlOvV School Performances School groups can also book for the following exclusive school performances: Summer of The Seventeenth Doll Friday May 11. Assassins - Wednesday June 27. Skylab - Thursday August 23.
www.stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 43
cloths are often used for various purposes such as filtering, reflecting or blocking light, adding depth, concealing and revealing scene changes, not to mention painted backdrops, projection surfaces and fancy front velvet drapes. Theatre Star carry a large range of specialised fabrics in widths up to 12 Despite the decline of local manufacturing and heavy reliance on metres wide. They also provide an imported goods, one small corner of the theatre supply industry important resource to local designers continues to provide quality locally manufactured products. who are looking to source exotic or Theatre Star P/L are a specialist stage curtains and backdrops and the ‘special use’ fabrics. manufacturer of stage drapery. Their sourcing of specialised fabrics for that The staff at Theatre Star have Melbourne based factory has been purpose. many decades of experience between specially fitted out for this purpose “We don’t sell theatre lighting, them and have worked on countless with a large clean floorspace, huge audio or other related equipment. major productions and have dressed cutting tables and a motorised bar for This allows us to focus solely on our many theatres. test hanging drapes. These drapes are sewn product.” “The staff and I have a real regularly shipped out to theatres all The importance of stage cloths in passion for this type of work and I around Australia. a production is often underestimated. believe that this is evident in the Owner and Manager Rod Paton Layer after layer of various specialty quality of our finished product.” has many years of experience in manufacturing theatrical curtains. “People not involved in the industry are surprised to hear that there is enough demand to support a business of this nature,” says Rod, “but when you consider that we manufacture for theatre productions, events, films, television studios, schools, universities, churches, festivals etc., it becomes more apparent.” The Theatre Star business is totally dedicated to the manufacture of
SPARK 2018
Theatre Star
44 Stage Whispers March - April 2018
www.stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 45
SPARK 2018
Photo: Luca Cornacchini.
a waste of time if you don’t get the job anyway. I know. But trust me. People notice when you do your homework. You are an adult. No one is going so many sabotaging their chances for to scold you for not doing the work. success with poor preparation. However, successful performers Yes, it takes time. I know you’re not prioritise their time so they can do paid for your valuable preparation more than the bare minimum level of time. I know you had to work late and preparation required. They are armed you had a cold and you’re tired and it’s with as much knowledge as possible so easier to just watch Netflix. I know they can make informed choices. When you’re scared all your hard work will be you’re down to the business end of the final casting process, this could even be the factor that tips it in your favour.
Voice teacher and musical theatre performer Jennifer Peers says poor preparation often ruins the chances of success in the audition room. She says the more homework you can do the better. “I love auditioning!” said no-one (ever.) Let’s face it, it’s stressful to walk into an audition room facing judgement, comparison and frequent rejection. As a voice teacher, I spend countless hours helping performers prepare for auditions and yet I still see
Research It’s vital to do as much research as you can in order to understand the style and palette of music that the show lives in. Please welcome the internet. Watch the show. If that’s impossible, find clips on YouTube. Listen to the cast recording. Read the script, take a look at the score and watch the movie if applicable (www.scribd.com is a fantastic resource for scripts and scores). Make a Spotify station or Apple Music channel for similar song suggestions. 46 Stage Whispers March - April 2018
Google search production photos for wardrobe inspiration. You’re trying to suggest the same world that the show lives in, but don’t go as far as dressing up in costume!
Preparation Make sure your photocopy is good quality and without any edges of the music cut off. Present your music clearly in a glare -free display folder or neatly taped Choosing Material together. Is it in the show? Never sing Try to minimise and optimise the material from the show you are page turns for the accompanist. auditioning for unless specifically Make sure all cuts are clearly asked. Your aim is to sing marked and easy to follow. something “in the style of”. Check the key and the Imagine it could have been the long arrangement. Often what is marked lost cut song from the show. You as the “original key” on Musicnotes could start isn’t. Double-check. by looking at other songs by the same composer, songs in the same era or style and songs with the same essence of the Make sure you’ve heard the written character you’re auditioning for. accompaniment on the piano. Is it overdone? You don’t need to Backing tracks are brilliant to be super obscure either, but steer practise to, but if you’re used to away from the obvious, eg. Les Mis, hearing a whole band and the Wicked. piano arrangement sounds Is it age and look appropriate? different, you could easily be Is the accompaniment playable? thrown. Beware in particular of Sondheim, Adam Guettel and Jason Robert Communicating With The Accompanist Brown for fiendish Say hi. They’re a human being and accompaniments. have been playing all day. Don’t Does it show range? That doesn’t take them for granted. just mean screlting high notes; that Tell them what you’re singing and means it shows a variety of colours give them the road map of the and dynamics. They want to hear music, eg. “once straight through, your whole voice. then to the coda.” Point out Is it an appropriate length? In anything that needs special Australia, the standard is generally attention or might be a surprise, eg. 32 bars, or sometimes 16 bars (on a sudden key change. Broadway, 16 bars is standard or Set the tempo. Sing them a section occasionally 8 - count your and communicate the feel with blessings Aussies!) You don’t need your voice and your body. For rock/ to be exact with the bars. A better pop sing them the hook first (the guideline is 32 bars means under catchy bit). 90 seconds and 16 bars is around If you start and the tempo isn’t 45-60 seconds. Time it. quite right, sing at the speed you Is there a clear story in your cut? Do want. A good accompanist will you have an emotional connection follow you if you lead clearly. If it’s to the text and does it have a good agonising, you can always stop, scope for acting through song? reset the tempo and start again rather than suffer a slow (or rapid) death.
Final Thoughts Remember, the panel are on your side! They want you to be great and hope the next person who walks in the door is going to be exactly right. Then their job is done. The key word here is right. Ultimately they will cast the right person, not necessarily the best person. Sometimes you can do an incredible audition and still not get the job. That sucks. If it’s any consolation, we’ve all been there. This business requires an incredible amount of resilience and grit. But you can leave
with your head held high knowing that you prepared like a boss. Plus you will get serious brownie points for knowing your stuff. Think of it as an investment in your reputation. There are so many things that are out of your control in the audition room. But you are in control of your research and preparation. Now, get to it! After your audition, treat yourself to something nice as a reward for your hard work. Chookas!
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Drama Teacher Wins New York Adventure Victorian Drama teacher Rebecca Perry won an all expenses trip to the United States last year courtesy of Music Theatre International Australasia, that included a visit to Broadway and a Junior Theatre Festival in Atlanta. Rebecca is the Director and owner of Broadway Academy, a musical theatre school she has been running for 14 years on the Mornington Peninsula. The school has over 200 students who attend weekly, extra-curricular classes and another 140 attending week-long holiday workshops every year. Ms Perry qualified for the prize because she has staged a record 40 Broadway Junior productions from MTI. Free Broadway show tickets and New York sightseeing experiences were also included in Rebecca’s prize. She was then flown to Atlanta to join 6,500 other teachers and students at the Junior Theatre Festival for two days of performances, workshops and presentations from keynote speakers that included Stephen Schwartz (Wicked and Children of Eden), Paul Williams and Broadway star, Megan Hilty (Wicked and 9 to 5- the Musical). 48 Stage Whispers March - April 2018
“I’m so inspired and grateful for this once in a lifetime experience. These people gave so generously of their time to show me how our wonderful Broadway JR shows are written and produced. I truly learned from the masters themselves,” she said. Music Theatre International Australasia has partnered with youth musical theatre tour company Travel Gang to develop the Australian Broadway Jr Ambassadorship as a philanthropic program that acknowledges and rewards outstanding teachers. Rebecca has dedicated her life to the development of her students at Broadway Academy and her passion and dedication as a teacher was something that Music Theatre International Australasia and Travel Gang both wanted to acknowledge. The award included meeting Broadway writers, composers and directors at Music Theatre International (US) and iTheatrics. She also
Registrations for JTCOz 2018 are now open at www.oztheatrics.com/applications and MTI are very excited to be presenting another similar award this year. participated in workshops on vocal technique, stage combat and performance development before visiting a New York elementary school with a thriving performing arts program, spending the day collaborating with staff and students on a musical theatre performance of Madagascar Jr. “Rebecca was certainly a worthy recipient and we are really pleased she was inspired by this experience. We look forward to her continued outstanding contribution to musical theatre education in Australia, “ says Stuart Hendricks, from MTI Australasia.
Jennifer McKenzie from Stage School Australia draws on her experience in major TV, film and global sporting events to help costume large cast youth productions. Following Stage School’s most recent production of Wicked, she shared her costuming tips. Where do you begin when you build a wardrobe for a cast of characters that is cohesive with the overall feel of the production? I start with tone and direction outlined in the director’s notes. With Wicked, Robert (Coates, Director) approached me with details of the set. It had been designed with a ‘steam-punk’ tone, so we needed our costumes to complement that. Next I’ll break down the script, scene by scene, to determine what’s needed. Additionally, I will always consider casting when designing, to look at both the actor and the character to create something suitable for both, in terms of personality and movement requirements of the performer. How does designing for musical theatre differ from designing for fashion? Functionality! I’ll always talk to the production’s choreographer to get an understanding of what the performers will be doing. Characters that require prosthetics will have limitations to their choreography. It’s a conversation between the creative teams to make sure our performers look great but are also comfortable and their costumes are functional. Having worked on so many productions, how much room do you have for your personal style to influence the designs? Personal style doesn’t come into my designs. You’re designing for a character’s style and visual representation of their personality. Sometimes you’ll work on something that you just don’t like stylistically; it’s about ensuring that the costumes always serve the character. When it comes to the ensemble costumes, how do you make each individual costume appear nuanced and unique, despite the constraints of style and colour? Having constraints of colour and style actually helps costuming an ensemble
SPARK 2018 The ensemble case of Wicked. Photo: Kit Haselden.
Costuming A School Musical group. Variation is often as simple as mixing up textiles, patterns and accessories. What are your favourite pieces from the Wicked set? Glinda’s gown! Probably the best time I’ve had designing a costume, ever! You’re juggling elements that everyone knows and expects while tailoring it to the personality of the production. For example, it still had to feel like a princess dress; I wanted it to be magical but the character required the dress to have a bit more sass than your standard princess dress. I designed spiky off-the-shoulder straps and
reduced the impact of traditional elements like layered tiers. For schools and theatre companies what sets The Costume Dept of Stage School Australia apart from other costume hire companies? Our costumes are made for young people and with children in mind. They’re easy to work with and hold up to a lot of wear and tear. We provide entire ensembles for a multitude of characters in a range of sizes. In recent years too, opening up entire sets, and even technical equipment at really quite cheap rates; it’s a one-stop-shop for everything production related. www.stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 49
SPARK 2018
From A Coffee Table To Broadway
Joel Houwen in performance.
Brent Street graduate Joel Houwen is dancing with Opera Australia and just won a scholarship to study in New York. He reflects on his journey. When were you first bitten by the performing arts bug? When I was little I used to get up and dance on our coffee table in front of the TV. I’d always wanted to be an actor as a kid, and participated in classes with a local theatre group, and then the same year watched my sister’s first dance concert and asked my (parents for lessons). I began (at nine) with Jazz, however over the years picked up Ballet, Tap, Acro, Hip Hop, Contemporary and Lyrical which I did every week right up until moving to Sydney from Western Australia to attend Brent Street. Why did you choose to train at Brent Street? I did a lot of research on the staff and the past students, watched videos online from some of their performances, and read the course outline information at the age of 14. I knew that it was exactly where I
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wanted to go and worked on reaching it over the next three years. Tell us about your journey from the Diploma of Performing Arts to the Diploma of Musical Theatre? The PA course was a year of hard work and a lot of fun! Being able to study and train in what you love alongside great friends who all want the same thing is awesome. However, looking back on it I didn’t necessarily know what my purpose in the industry was, which is why I’m forever grateful to have been pushed into the direction of Musical Theatre. Doing a second year focusing on exactly what I wanted to do was amazing. I was surrounded by people who each had different strengths and weaknesses and pushed me to work on mine. How have your teachers at Brent Street encouraged you as a performer? They push you to work hard and encourage you to be the best
performer you can be. But what I truly love is that they care about you; they won’t tell you something is right or good if they know you can do better and they won’t let you give any less than 100%. Brent Street has opened many doors for you in the professional performing arts industry, can you tell us a bit about this? I was accepted into the Brent Street’s agency Focus Talent Management through which I’ve danced at corporate events, featured in a music video, starred in a TIC TAC TV commercial, and I am currently in the rehearsal process for Opera Australia’s production of The Nose. Working for such a great company, dancing weird, wacky and wonderful choreography with my now great friends has been so amazing. I consider myself very lucky to have scored this job straight out of full time. What advice would you give to someone who is looking to pursue a career in the performing arts and how
do you think Brent Street can help them? Believe in yourself! And I mean really believe in yourself, don’t be afraid to dream big. Love criticism, take it all in, listen to it, take all the “No’s” and the rejection and love it. Turn it into the fuel that keeps you going, use it as motivation to be better. DO YOUR RESEARCH! Know what’s happening in the industry now, but more importantly, know about who came before you, and before them etc. Congratulations on winning the Brent Street X Broadway Dance Centre NYC Scholarship (Australia’s exclusive partnership with BDC). What does the scholarship entail? I was lucky enough to win the Broadway Dance Centre Scholarship,
the biggest performing arts scholarship in the Southern Hemisphere. My brain goes crazy when I talk about it; I still can’t believe it’s happening, but I will be flying to, and living in New York for four
had incredible long-lasting careers, while others are still working now, heavily contributes to that. As well as the amazing past students that are out in the world doing incredible things.
months this July to attend Broadway Dance Centre, with all costs covered. It really is the experience of a lifetime. Brent Street has been a part of your growth as a performer. What, according to you, gives it the great reputation it has? The fact that you’re learning from all these amazing teachers and choreographers, some whom have
What advice would you give to someone who is auditioning for Brent Street 2019? Go for it. You’ll be nervous but that’s great; let those nerves ignite your love for it while you perform. Show the teachers how much you love what you’re doing and give it your absolute all.
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On Stage A.C.T. Oh, What A Lovely War by Joan Littlewood and Theatre Workshop. Canberra Repertory Society. Until Mar 10. Theatre 3. (02) 6257 1950 (10am-4pm Mon-Fri). Jesus Christ Superstar by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. Canberra Philharmonic Society. Mar 8 - 24. Erindale Theatre, McBryde Crescent, Wanniassa ACT. philo.org.au/tickets Proof by David Auburn. Mar 14 - 17. The Q - Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre. (02) 6285 6290. Canberra Comedy Festival. Mar 19 - 25. canberracomedyfestival.com.au Black is the New White by Nakkiah Lui. Sydney Theatre Company. Mar 28 - 31. The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre. (02) 6275 2700. 42nd Street. Book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble. Lyrics by Al Dubin and music by Harry Warren. Free Rain Theatre Company. Mar 26 - Apr 15. The Q - Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre. (02) 6285 6290. Dr Frankenstein by Selma Dimitrijevic. Canberra Rep. Apr 5 - 21. Theatre 3. (02) 6257 1950.
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A.C.T. & New South Wales
Anthony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare. Bell Shakespeare. Apr 12 - 21. The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre. (02) 6275 2700. New South Wales Mamma Mia! By Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus and Catherine Johnson. Michael Coppel, Louise Withers and Linda Berwick. Until Apr 22. Capitol Theatre, Sydney. www.mammamiathemusical.com.au The Book of Mormon. Book, Music and Lyrics by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone. Continuing. Lyric Theatre, Sydney. BookOfMormonMusical.com.au Fucking Men by Joe DiPietro. New Theatre / Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. Until Mar 10. New Theatre, Newtown. newtheatre.org.au Metamorphoses by Mary Zimmerman. Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras. Until Mar 10. Old Fitz Theatre, Woolloomooloo. www.redlineproductions.com.au The View Upstairs by Max Vernon. Invisible Wall Productions & Sugary Rum Productions in association with Hayes Theatre Co. Until Mar 11. Hayes Theatre Co. (02) 8065 7337 A Bad Year for Tomatoes by John Patrick. Guild Theatre,
Walz Street Rockdale. Until Mar 10. (02) 9521 6358. Travelling North by David Williamson. Genesian Theatre, 420 Kent St. Sydney. Until Mar 24. 1300 237 217. Carmen by Georges Bizet. Opera Australia. Until Mar 23. Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House. (02) 9318 8200. Top Girls by Caryl Churchill. Sydney Theatre Company. Until Mar 24. Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House. (02) 9250 1777. The Blonde, The Brunette & the Vengeful Redhead by Robert Hewett. Pymble Players. Until Mar 10. Pymble Players Theatre, Cnr Mona Vale Rd and Bromley Ave, Pymble. (02) 9144 1523 (11am-7pm Mon-Fri). Single Asian Female by Michelle Law. La Boite production. Until Mar 25. Belvoir Street Theatre. (02) 9699 3444. Lethal Indifference by Anna Barnes. Sydney Theatre Company. World Premiere. Until
Mar 10. Wharf 1 Theatre. (02) 9250 1777. Kill Climate Deniers by David Finnigan. Griffin Theatre Company. Until Apr 7. SBW Stables Theatre. (02) 9361 3817. Black is the New White by Nakkiah Lui. Sydney Theatre Company. Until Mar 10. Roslyn Packer Theatre. (02) 9250 1999. La Traviata by Verdi. Opera Australia. Mar 1 - 27. Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House. (02) 9318 8200. Fiddler on the Roof. Book by Joseph Stein. Music by Jerry Bock. Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick. Rockdale Musical Society. Mar 2 - 11. Rockdale Town Hall. 0423 566 393. Quartet by Ronald Harwood. Sutherland Theatre Company. Mar 2 - 11. Sutherland Memorial School of Arts. thesutherlandtheatrecompany.com.au A Murder is Announced by Leslie Darbon, adapted from the
Just $50 a month to reach thousands of theatre goers. Contact Stage Whispers for details.
On Stage novel by Agatha Christie. Newcastle Theatre Company. Mar 2 - 17. NTC Theatre, Lambton. (02) 4952 4958. We Will Rock You by Queen and Ben Elton. Gosford Musical Society. Mar 2 - 17. Laycock Street Community Theatre. (02) 4323 3233. Step Up Festival. Including: Rotterdam in development with Rebecca Blake and DNA by Denis Kelly. Last One Standing Theatre, Mar 5 - Apr 1. KXT Kings Cross Theatre. www.kingsxtheatre.com Merrily We Roll Along by Stephen Sondgeim and George Furth. Little Triangle. Mar 7 24. The Depot Theatre, Marrickville. thedepottheatre.com Calamity Jane. Adapted by Ronald Hanmer & Phil Park from the stage play by Charles K. Freeman, after the Warner Bros. film written by James O’Hanlon. Lyrics by Paul Francis Webster. Music by Sammy Fain.
Merrigong Theatre Company, One Eyed Man Productions, Neglected Musicals and Hayes Theatre Co. Mar 7 - 11. Illawarra Performing Arts Centre. (02) 4224 5999. The Shifting Heart by Richard Beynon. White Box Theatre. Mar 8 - 24. Reginald Theatre, Seymour Centre. (02) 9351 7940. We Will Rock You by Queen and Ben Elton. Nowra Players Mar 9 - 24. Players Theatre, Bomaderry. 1300 662 808. Favourite Shorts. Armidale Drama and Musical Society. Mar 9 - 24. The Armidale Playhouse. www.adms.org.au Jekyll & Hyde by Leslie Bricusse and Frank Wildhorn Arcadians Theatre Group. Mar 9 - 24. The Arcadians’ Miner’s Lamp Theatre. (02) 4284 8348. Be More Chill. Music and lyrics by Joe Iconis and a book by Joe Tracz, based on the novel by Ned Vizzini. Manly Musical
New South Wales Society. Mar 14 - 18. Manly Black Box Theatre, 138 Abbott Rd, North Curl Curl. www.manlymusicalsociety.com Back to Back - Everything You Ever Wanted & How I Saved The Western Black Rhino by Rachel Roberts and Nathan Harrison. Q Theatre. Mar 15 - 24. Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre. (02) 4723 7600. In The Heights. Music and Lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Book by Quiara Alegría Hudes. Conceived by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Blue Saint Productions in association with Hayes Theatre Co. Mar 16 - Apr 15. Hayes Theatre Co., Potts Point. (02) 8065 7337. Dogfight. Music & Lyrics by Benj Pasek & Justin Paul. Book by Peter Duchan. Bankstown Theatre Company. Bankstown Arts Centre. Mar 16 - 25. 0481 869 858. Don Quichotte by Massenet. Opera Australia. Mar 16 - 28.
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Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House. (02) 9318 8200. The Odd Couple (female version) by Neil Simon. Wyong Drama Group. Mar 16 - 24. The Art House Wyong. (02) 4335 1485. Kiss Me Like You Mean It by Chris Chibnall (A celebration of love and life). Maitland Repertory Theatre. Mar 16 to 24. (02) 4931 2800. Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense by The Goodale Brothers. Hunters Hill Theatre. Mar 16 - 25. Hunters Hill Town Hall. (02) 9879 7765. Proof by David Auburn. Mar 20 - 25. Glen Street Theatre, Belrose. (02) 9975 1455. Silent Disco by Matthew Philpott. New Theatre. Mar 20 Apr 14. www.newtheatre.org.au TAHA by Amer Hlehel. Translated by Amir Nizar Zubai. Shoalhaven Entertainment Centre and Merrigong Theatre
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On Stage Company by arrangement with Arts Projects Australia. Mar 20, Shoalhaven Entertainment Centre, 1300 788 503; Mar 21 24, Illawarra Performing Arts Centre. (02) 4224 5999. Newcastle Fringe Festival 2018. 27 shows at six Newcastle venues, with 77 performances over five days. Mar 21 - 25. www.newcastlefringe.com.au Home Invasion by Christopher Bryant. Old 505 Theatre. Mar 21 - Apr 7. www.old505theatre.com Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. Music by Alan Menken Lyrics by Howard Ashman & Tim Rice, Book by Linda Woolverton. Miranda Musical Society. Mar 21 - 25. Sutherland Entertainment Centre. www.mirandamusicalsociety.com.au The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht, translated by Tom Wright Sydney Theatre Company. Mar 21 - Apr 28. Roslyn Packer Theatre. (02) 9250 1777.
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New South Wales
A Pacifist’s Guide to the War on Cancer by Bryony Kimmings and Brian Lobel. Complicité Associates and Bryony Kimmings. Mar 22 - 29. York Theatre, Seymour Centre. (02) 9351 7940. La Bohème by Puccini. Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour. Opera Australia. Mar 23 - Apr 22. Lady Macquaries Point. (02) 9318 8200. Diplomacy by Cyril Gély. Ensemble Theatre. Mar 23 - Apr 28. (02) 9929 0644. Disney Camp Rock The Musical. Shire Music Theatre. Mar 23 31. Sutherland Memorial School of Arts. www.shiremusictheatre.org.au Going Down by Michele Lee. World Premiere. Sydney Theatre Company / Malthouse Theatre. Mar 23 - May 5. Wharf 2 Theatre. (02) 9250 1777. Blanc de Blanc. Cabaret and acrobatic talent from around the world. Strut & Fret, in the
Fortuna Spiegeltent, Civic Park, Newcastle. Mar 27 - Apr 15. (02) 4929 1977. The Children by Lucy Kirkwood. Australian Premiere. Sydney Theatre Company / Melbourne Theatre Company. Mar 29 - May 19. Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House. (02) 9250 1777. Calendar Girls by Tim Firth. CHATS Productions Inc. Mar 30 - Apr 8. Jetty Memorial Theatre, Coffs Harbour. (02) 6648 4930. Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas. Valley Artists. Mar 30 Apr 7. Laguna Hall, Laguna. (02) 4998 3230. Sami in Paradise. Based on The Suicide by Nikolai Erdman. Belvoir. Apr 1 - 25. Upstairs Theatre, Belvoir Street Theatre. (02) 9699 3444. A Girl is a Half Formed Thing by Annie Ryan. Brevity Theatre. Apr 2 - 22. KXT - Kings Cross Theatre. www.kingsxtheatre.com
Alison’s House by Susan Glaspell. The Depot Theatre, Marrickville. Apr 4 - 21. thedepottheatre.com The Flick by Annie Baker. Outhouse Theatre Co. Apr 5 21. Reginald Theatre, Seymour Centre. (02) 9351 7940. Mr Bailey’s Minder by Debra Oswald. The Theatre on Chester, corner of Chester and Oxford Sts, Epping. Apr 6 - 22. www.theatreonchester.com.au Harvey by Mary Chase. Castle Hill Players. Apr 6 - 24. Pavilion Theatre, Doran Drive, Castle Hill. (02) 9634 2929. Jimmy Barnes - Working Class Man: An Evening of Stories & Songs developed by Jimmy Barnes. Frontier Touring, Triple M & MAX. Apr 6 and Jun 6. Civic Theatre, Newcastle. (02) 4929 1977. Perfect Wedding by Robin Hawdon. Theatre on Brunker. Apr 6 - 28. St. Stephen’s Hall,
Just $50 a month to reach thousands of theatre goers. Contact Stage Whispers for details.
On Stage Adamstown (Newcastle). (02) 4956 1263. Alternative Prime Minister. Developed and performed by Mark Swivel. Near Dead White Male Productions. Apr 6. Royal Exchange, Newcastle. (02) 4929 4969. Secrets and Lies: An Evening with Michael Robotham. The novelist talks about events in his time as a journalist that helped him put together his crime thrillers. Newcastle Writers Festival. Apr 7. Cessnock Performing Arts Centre. (02) 4993 4266. Sherlock Holmes and the Speckled Band by Arthur Conan Doyle, adapted by Max Gee. Genesian Theatre Company Inc. Apr 7 - May 12. 420 Kent St, Sydney. www.genesiantheatre.com.au Rendezvous at Orlofsky’s Cabaret. Rockdale Opera Company. Apr 7 at 2pm and 7.30pm. Rockdale Town Hall,
Rockdale. www.rockdaleopera.com.au Shakespeare by the River - As You Like It. The Acting Factory Inc. Apr 7 - 22. www.actingfactory.com Rapid Reads. Apocalypse Theatre Company. Old 505 Theatre. Apr 9 - 22. www.old505theatre.com The Time Machine by Frank Gauntlett, based on the novella by H. G. Wells. Apr 11 - May 2. NIDA Playhouse Theatre. ticketek.com.au/thetimemachine Limbo. Strut & Fret. Apr 12 May 6. The Spiegeltent Wollongong. (02) 4224 5999. Annie. Music by Charles Strouse. Lyrics by Martin Charnin. Book by Thomas Meehan. Holroyd Musical & Dramatic Society. Apr 13 - 21. The Red Gum Centre, Wentworthville. www.hmds.org.au Taikoz Live! Taikoz and IDPEnsemble. Apr 13 - 15. Glen
New South Wales Street Theatre, Belrose. (02) 9975 1455. 1984 by William A. Miles, Wilton E. Hall Jr, Robert Owens & George Orwell. Roo Theatre Company. Apr 13 - 28. Roo Theatre, Shellharbour. (02) 4297 2891. The Little Mermaid. Music by Alan Menken. Lyrics by Howard Ashman & Glenn Slater. Book by Doug Wright. Birdie Productions. Apr 13 - 22. Bryan Brown Theatre, Bankstown. www.birdieproductions.com.au The Nutcracker. The classic ballet, with music by Tchaikovsky. Moscow Ballet La Classique. Apr 13 only. Civic Theatre, Newcastle. (02) 4929 1977. Disney’s Aladdin Jr. Adaptation for young performers of the Alan Menkin and Howard Ashman musical. Hunter Drama. Apr 13 - 21. Civic Playhouse, Newcastle. (02) 4929 1977. Disney’s Alice in Wonderland Jr. Adapted from Lewis Carroll’s novel, with music and lyrics by Sammy Fain and Bob Hilliard, Oliver Wallace and Cycoban, Allie Wrubel and Ray Gilbert, Mack David, Al Hoffman and Jerry Livington. Young People’s Theatre. Apr 16 - May 19. Young People’s Theatre, Hamilton (Newcastle). (02) 4961 4895. Bosom Buddies - Nancye Hayes & Todd McKenney. The musical theatre stars look through story, song and dance at the highs and lows of their renowned careers. Christine Dunstan Productions. Apr 6 & 7, Orange Civic Theatre, (02) 6393 8112; Apr 8, Dubbo Regional Theatre and Convention Centre, (02) 6801 4378; Apr 11, Cessnock Performing Arts Centre, (02) 4993 4266; Apr 14, Laycock Street Theatre, (02) 4323 3233; Apr 17 & 18, Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre, (02) 4723 7600; May 28 & 29; Capitol Theatre, Tamworth, (02) 6766 2028; Jun 1, Shoalhaven Entertainment Centre, Nowra, 1300 788 503; Jun 3, Riverside
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Theatre, Parramatta, (02) 8839 3399. Songs from Stage and Screen. The 7 Sopranos show how songs from 1950s musicals helped to change the nature of musical theatre. Cre8ion. Apr 17. Cessnock Performing Arts Centre. (02) 4993 4266. Barrel of Monkeys. Strut & Fret. Apr 17 - 28. The Spiegeltent Wollongong. (02) 4224 5999. The One. Tantrum Youth Arts, in association with University of Newcastle Community Strings. Apr 18 - 22. King Edward Park, Newcastle. (02) 4929 7279. We Will Rock You by Queen and Ben Elton. Hornsby Musical Society. Apr 19 - 22. Hornsby RSL. (02) 9477 7777. Private Lives by Noël Coward. Elanora Players Inc. Apr 20 - 28. Elanora Community Centre, 49A Kalang Rd, Elanora Heights. (02) 9979 9694. Little Women. Book by Allen Knee. Music by Jason Howland. Lyrics by Mindi Dickstein. North Shore Theatre Company (formerly Chatswood Musical Society). Apr 20 - 28. Independent Theatre, North Sydney. www.chatswoodmusicalsociety.org Rock of Ages. Book by Chris D’Arienzo, Arrangements & Orchestrations by Ethan Pop. Campbelltown Theatre Group. Apr 20 - May 5. 0426 285 287. Still Point Turning: The Catherine McGregor Story. By Priscilla Jackman. Based on interviews with Catherine McGregor. World Premiere. Sydney Theatre Company. Apr 21 - May 26. Wharf 1 Theatre. (02) 9250 1777. Youth & Destination by James Raggatt. Apr 23 - May 13. KXT Kings Cross Theatre. www.kingsxtheatre.com The Lieutenant of Inishmore by Martin McDonagh. New Theatre. Apr 24 - May 26. www.newtheatre.org.au Sylph by Jodi Rose. Harlos / The Depot Theatre, Marrickville. Apr 25 - 28. thedepottheatre.com Stage Whispers 55
On Stage Ugly Mugs by Peta Brady. GNaW Theatre. Civic Playhouse, Newcastle. Apr 26 - 28. (02) 4929 1977. Sylvia by A.R. Gurney. Woy Woy Little Theatre. Apr 27 - May 13. Peninsula Theatre, Woy Woy. (02) 4344 4737. Roald Dahl’s George’s Marvellous Medicine. shake & stir theatre co. Apr 27 - 28. Illawarra Performing Arts Centre, IMB Theatre. (02) 4224 5999. Summer of the Seventeenth Doll by Ray Lawler. Newcastle Theatre Company. Apr 28 - May 12. NTC Theatre, Lambton. (02) 4952 4958. Josephine Wants to Dance. Based on the book by Jackie French and Bruce Whatley. May 2 - 5. Glen Street Theatre, Belrose. (02) 9975 1455. Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz. Music and Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, Book by Holzman based on the novel by Gregory Macguire. Carillon Theatrical Society. May 3 - 12 fb.me/CarillonTheatricalSociety Black Coffee by Agatha Christie. An adaption of the Hercule Poirot Story (Dinner & Show). Cowra Music & Dramatic Society. May 4 & 5. Billimari Community Hall. fb.me/cowramds
56 Stage Whispers
New South Wales & Queensland
Queensland Aladdin by Alan Menken, Howard Ashman, Tim Rice and Chad Beguelin. Disney. Continuing. Lyric Theatre, QPAC. 136 246. Oliver! By Lionel Bart. Spotlight Theatre Co, Benowa, Gold Coast. Until Mar 13. (07) 5539 4255. That 80s Time Travel Movie by Christopher W. Barnes and Ryan Mercy. Brisbane Arts. Until Mar 27. (07) 3369 2344. Boeing Boeing by Marc Camolletti, Beverly Cross and Francis Evans. Cairns Little Theatre. Until Mar 10. Rondo Theatre, Cairns. 1300 855 835. Sorry Wrong Number/Sunset Boulevard - Radio Plays Nash Theatre, New Farm. Until Mar 17. (07) 3379 4775. Brisbane Comedy Festival. Brisbane Powerhouse. Until Mar 25. (07) 3358 8600. Hamlet - An Adaptation by William Shakespeare and Jane Elliott. Growl Theatre. Until Mar 10. boxoffice@growltheatre.org.au Shrek The Musical. Book and Lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire. Music by Jeanine Tesori. Arts Theatre, Brisbane. Until Mar 31. (07) 3358 2344. The 39 Steps by Patrick Barlow. Queensland Theatre. Until Mar
24. Cremorne Theatre, QPAC. 136 246 Steel Magnolias by Robert Harling. Villanova Players. Until Mar 11. F.T. Barrell Auditorium, Yeronga. (07) 3395 5168. The Twelve Dancing Princesses by Natalie Trengrove and Jim Fury. Brisbane Arts. Until Mar 17. (07) 3358 2344. Brisbane Comedy Festival. Brisbane Powerhouse. Until Mar 25. (07) 3358 8600. Barmaids by Katherine Thomson. Gold Coast Little Theatre, Southport. Until Mar 10. (07) 5532 3224. Don’t Dress For Dinner by Marc Camoletti. Mousetrap Theatre, Redcliffe. Until Mar 11. (07) 3888 3493. Curtains by Rupert Holmes, John Kander and Fred Ebb. Beenleigh Theatre Group. Mar 2 - 24. (07) 3807 3922. Come Back to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean by Ed Graczyk. Tweed Theatre Co. Mar 2 - 28. 1800 674 414. True Minds by Joanna Murray Smith. Centenary Theatre Group. Mar 3 - 16. 0435 591 720. Wait Until Dark by Frederick Knott. Ipswich Little Theatre. Mar 7 - 24. (07) 3812 2389. The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Music and lyrics by
William Finn and book by Rachel Sheinkin. Conceived by Rebecca Feldman. Javeenbah Theatre Co. Mar 9 - 24. (07) 5596 0300. Converge (Ballet). Expressions Dance Theatre. Qld Conservatorium Theatre. Mar 10 - 17. (07) 3257 4222. Essgee’s Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert & Sullivan. Empire Theatre, Toowoomba. Mar 14 18. 1300 655 299. Chain Reaction by Stephen R. Davies. Coolum Players. Mar 16 - 25. (07) 5446 2500. La Bayadère. Music by Ludwig Minkus. Choreographer: Greg Horsman, after Marius Petipa. Qld Ballet. Playhouse. QPAC. Mar 16 - 29. 136 246. Carrie. Music: Michael Gore. Lyrics: Dean Pitchford. Book: Lawrence D. Cohen based on the novel by Stephen King. Prima. Redcliffe Cultural Centre. Mar 16 - Apr 1. (07) 3213 0400. God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza. Sunnybank Theatre Group. Apr 6 - 21. (07) 3345 3964. Hairspray Jr. Music: Marc Shaiman. Lyrics: Scott Wittman, Marc Shaiman. Book: Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan. Redcliffe Musical Theatre. Redcliffe Cultural Centre. Apr 6 8. (07) 3213 0400.
Just $50 a month to reach thousands of theatre goers. Contact Stage Whispers for details.
On Stage The Crucible by Arthur Miller. Brisbane Arts. Apr 7 - May 19. (07) 3369 2344. X Files - The Musical by Lindsay Kerns, Aaron Holmes, Phillip Malcolm, Ben Laye-Skinner, Allen Gilbert and Phil Hamilton. Brisbane Arts. Apr 15 - Jun 4. (07) 3369 2344. Funny Girl. Music by Jule Styne. Lyrics by Bob Merrill. Book by Isobel Lennart. Noosa Arts Theatre. Apr 18 - May 29. (07) 5449 9343. Downtown! The Mod Musical. By Phillip George and David Lowenstein. Redcliffe Musical Theatre. Redcliffe Cultural Centre. Apr 20 - 29. (07) 3213 0400. Man Of La Mancha by Dale Wasserman, Joe Darion and Mitch Leigh. Gold Coast Little Theatre. Apr 21 - May 19. (07) 5532 3224. Secret Bridesmaids’ Business by Elizabeth Coleman. Cairns Little
Queensland & Victoria Theatre. Apr 27 - May 5. 1300 855 835. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Dale Wasserman and Ken Kesey. Mousetrap Theatre, Redcliffe. Apr 27 - May 13. (07) 3888 3493. Big Fish by Andrew Lippa and John August. Phoenix Ensemble, Beenleigh. Apr 27 - May 19. (07) 3103 1546. Baskerville by Ken Ludwig. Spotlight Theatre Co, Gold Coast. Apr 27 - May 13. (07) 5539 4255. Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare. Qld Theatre. Playhouse, QPAC. Apr 28 - May 19. 136 246. Steel Magnolias by Robert Harling. Toowoomba Repertory Theatre. Apr 28 - May 12. (07) 4632 8058. The Village by Cievash Arean, Arwin Arwin, Silva Asal, Joyce Taylor, Lili Sanchez and Ngoc Phan. La Boite. Roundhouse
Theatre. Apr 30 - May 5. (07) 3007 8600. Victoria Priscilla Queen of the Desert by Stephan Elliott and Allan Scott. Michael Cassel Group and Nullarbor Productions in association with MGM on Stage. Continuing. Regent Theatre, Melbourne. priscillathemusical.com.au The Children by Lucy Kirkwood. Melbourne Theatre Company. Until Mar 10. Southbank Theatre, The Sumner. (03) 8688 0800. Hand to God by Robert Askins. Aleksander Vass and Vass Productions. Until Mar 18. Alex Theatre, St Kilda. 132 849. A Little Night Music by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler. Watch This. Whitehorse Centre, Mar 8-10. www.whitehorsecentre.com.au The Show Goes On. Created by Bernadette Robinson and
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Richard Carroll. Duet Productions. Arts Centre Melbourne, Fairfax Theatre. Until Mar 11. 1300 182 183. Sylvia by A. R. Gurney. Lilydale Athenaeum Theatre Company Inc. Mar 1 - 17. (03) 9735 1777. Wait Until Dark by Frederick Knott. Strathmore Theatrical Arts Society (STAG). Mar 1 - 11. Strathmore Community Hall. (03) 9382 6284. Jesus Christ Superstar by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Ballarat Lyric Theatre. Mar 1 11. Wendouree Centre for Performing Arts. www.ballaratlyrictheatre.com.au Chicago. Music by John Kander. Lyrics by Fred Ebb. Book by Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse. Beaumaris Theatre Inc. Mar 2 - 17. www.beaumaristheatre.com.au Glitta Supernova: Bodymap. Mar 6 - 11. The Butterfly Club. (03) 9663 8107.
Stage Whispers 57
On Stage
Victoria
Samuel Welsh and Teale Howie in The 78-Storey Treehouse, playing at Arts Centre Melbourne from April 4 to 22, and touring. Photo: Heidrun Lohr. artscentremelbourne.com.au or 1300 182 183. A Pacifist’s Guide To The War On Cancer by Bryony Kimmings and Brian Lobel. Malthouse, Complicité Associates and Bryony Kimmings. Mar 7 - 18. Merlyn Theatre. (03) 9685 5111. It’s Not Easy Being Green by Katie Visser. Mar 7 - 11. The Butterfly Club. (03) 9663 8107. My Friend Ana. Mar 7 - 11. The Butterfly Club. (03) 9663 8107. Bombshells by Joanna MurraySmith. wit incorporated. Mar 8 24. Bluestone Church Arts Space, Footscray. www.witinc.com.au Windows by Ayse Bayramoglu, translated by Bilge Gulturk Loro. Mar 8 - 18. La Mama Theatre. (03) 9347 6142. Falling from Grace by Hannie Rayson. Gemco Players Community Theatre. Mar 9 - 24. The Gem Community Arts Centre. www.gemcoplayers.org The Offshore Island by Marghanita Laski. The Mount
58 Stage Whispers
Players. Mar 9 - 25. www.themountplayers.com Enlighten. Born in a Taxi. Mar 9 - 12. Arts Centre Melbourne Forecourt. FREE. All ages. 1300 182 183. Venus in Fur by David Ives. Lightning Jar Theatre. Mar 9 24. Fortyfivedownstairs. (03) 9662 9966. Colder by Lachlan Philpott. Red Stitch. Mar 13 - Apr 8. Red Stitch Actors Theatre, St Kilda East. (03) 9533 8083. Unknown Neighbours by Ranters Theatre. Mar 13 - 18. Theatre Works, St Kilda. (03) 9534 3388. Calamity Jane. Adapted by Ronald Hanmer & Phil Park from the stage play by Charles K. Freeman, after the Warner Bros. film written by James O’Hanlon. Lyrics by Paul Francis Webster. Music by Sammy Fain. One Eyed Man Productions, Neglected Musicals and Hayes Theatre Co. Mar 14 - 25. Arts Centre
Melbourne, Fairfax Studio. 1300 182 183. My First Time. Mar 14 - 18. The Butterfly Club. (03) 9663 8107. Destroy, She Said. Text by Marguerite Duras, adapted by Laurence Strangio. Mar 14 25. La Mama Courthouse. (03) 9347 6142. The Lover. Text by Marguerite Duras, adapted by Laurence Strangio. Mar 15 - 25. La Mama Courthouse. (03) 9347 6142. Dr Carnesky’s Incredible Bleeding Woman. Mar 15 - 18. The Butterfly Club. (03) 9663 8107. The Magic Pudding - The Opera. Victorian Opera. Mar 15 - 17. Arts Centre Melbourne, Playhouse. 1300 182 183. Old Actors Never Die…They Simply Lose the Plot! By Lynn Brittney. Essendon Theatre Company. Mar 15 - 24. essendontheatrecompany.com.au It’s A Dad’s Thing by The Dad’s Theatre Group. Sherbrooke Theatre Company Inc. Mar 16 -
24. Doncaster Playhouse. 1300 650 209. Songbird: The Songs of Eva Cassidy. Starring Silvie Paladino. A Winding Roads Production. Mar 16. Clocktower Centre, Moonee Ponds. (03) 9243 9191. California Suite by Neil Simon. Leongatha Lyric Theatre. Mar 16 - 24. www.lyrictheatre.net.au 42nd Street. Music by Harry Warren. Lyrics by Al Dubin. Book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble. CenterStage Geelong. Mar 16 - 24. Geelong Performing Arts Centre. www.centerstage.com.au Four One Act Plays - Smitten by Mark Matthews and Anna Stillaman; Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread by David Ives; A Little Box of Oblivion by Stephen Bean and Albert by Richard Harris. Warrandyte Theatre Company. Mar 16 - 24. warrandytehallarts.asn.au/theatre Shrek The Musical. Book and Lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire,
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On Stage Music by Jeanine Tesori. Based on the DreamWorks Animation Motion Picture and the Book by William Steig. SLAMS Music Theatre Company. Mar 16 - 24. Abigail’s Party by Mike Leigh. Melbourne Theatre Company. Mar 17 - Apr 20. Southbank Theatre, The Sumner. (03) 8688 0800. bare by John Hartmere and Damian Intrabartolo. StageArt. Mar 20 - Apr 15. Chapel off Chapel. (03) 8290 7000. Katie Cullinan: Catastrophist. Mar 20 - 25. The Butterfly Club. (03) 9663 8107. To Lonely with Love. Created by Jennifer Monk, Perri Cummings and Lisa Dallinger from real letters. Mar 21 - 25. La Mama Theatre. (03) 9347 6142. Lennon - Through a Glass Onion. Music of Lennon and McCartney, performed by John Waters and Stewart D’Arrietta. Mar 23 - 25. Arts Centre Melbourne Playhouse Theatre. 1300 182 183. Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Mar 28 - Apr 22. Various Venues. www.comedyfestival.com.au/2018 Fleabag by Phoebe WallerBridge. A DryWrite and Soho Theatre presentation in association with Malthouse Theatre. Mar 28 - Apr 22. Beckett Theatre, Malthouse. (03) 9685 5111. Fierce by Jane Thompson. Mar 28 - Apr 8. Theatre Works. Theatre Works, St Kilda. (03) 9534 3388. Garfield: The Musical with Cattitude by Michael Bobbitt and Jim David, with music and lyrics by John L. Cornelius, II. Apr 3 - 15. Chapel off Chapel. (03) 8290 7000. The 78-Storey Treehouse. A play by Richard Tulloch, adapted from the book by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton. CDP Kids Production. Apr 4 - 22. Arts Centre Melbourne, Playhouse. 1300 182 183.
Constellations by Nick Payne. The 1812 Theatre. Apr 5 - 28. (03) 9758 3964. Wyrd Sisters by Sir Terry Pratchett. Bendigo Theatre Company. Apr 5 - 8. bendigotheatrecompany.org Violet. Music by Jeanine Tesori. Book and lyrics by Brian Crawley. Fab Nobs Theatre. Apr 6 - 21. www.fabnobstheatre.com.au Beauty and the Beast. Music by Alan Menken. Lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice. Book by Linda Woolverton. Panorama Theatre Co. Apr 13 - 22. Frankston Arts Centre. panoramatheatre.com.au Monty Python’s Spamalot by Eric Idle & John Du Prez. BLOC Music Theatre (Ballarat). Apr 14 - 22. Wendouree Centre for Performing Arts. blocmusictheatre.com Right Now by Catherine-Anne Toupin, translated by Chris Campbell. Red Stitch. Apr 17 May 20. Red Stitch Actors Theatre, St Kilda East. (03) 9533 8083. La Traviata by Verdi. Opera Australia. Apr 17 - May 11. Arts Centre Melbourne. 1300 182 183. 39 Forever by Amity Dry. Apr 18 - 22. Chapel off Chapel. (03) 8290 7000. Stones in his Pockets by Marie Jones. Williamstown Little Theatre. Apr 19 - May 5. 0447 340 665. All Things Considered by Ben Brown. Mordialloc Theatre Company. Apr 20 - May 5. Shirley Burke Theatre, Parkdale. 9587 5141. Our Town by Thornton Wilder. Malvern Theatre Company Inc. Apr 20 - May 5. 1300 131 552. Farndale Avenue … Murder Mystery by David McGillivray and Walter Zerlin Jr. Frankston Theatre Group. Apr 20 - 29. Mount Eliza Community Centre. Cabaret Style - Bring your own drinks and nibbles. 1300 665 377. frankstontheatregroup.org.au
Victoria The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht, adapted by George Tabori. Geelong Repertory Theatre Company. Apr 20 - May 5. www.geelongrep.com Away by Michael Gow. Encore Theatre Company Inc. Apr 20 May 5. 1300 739 099. Bosom Buddies - Nancye Hayes & Todd McKenney. Apr 20 & 21, Karralyka Centre, Ringwood, (03) 9870 2888; Apr 28, Geelong Performing Arts Centre, (03) 5225 1200; May 1, Frankston Arts Centre, 03 9784 1060; May 4 & 5, Whitehorse Centre, Nunawading, (03) 9262 6555; May 8, Ulumbarra Theatre, Bendigo, (03) 5434 6100; May 10, Wendouree Centre for the Performing Arts, (03) 5338 0980; May 15, Latrobe Performing Arts Centre, Traralgon, 03 5176 3333; May 17, Drum Theatre, Dandenong, (03) 8571 1666; May 18 & 19, The Clocktower
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Centre, Moonee Ponds, (03) 9243 9191. One Act Play Season - English Made Simple by David Ives, On The Edge by Kylie Rackham and A Little Box of Oblivion by Stephen Bean. Peridot Theatre. Apr 23 - 29. Unicorn Theatre, Mount Waverley Secondary College. (03) 9808 0770 (10am2pm Mon-Fri). Fall on Death Ears. Apr 23 - 28. The Butterfly Club. (03) 9663 8107. Hard to Handel. Max Riebl. Apr 23 - 28. The Butterfly Club. (03) 9663 8107. Tosca by Puccini. Opera Australia. Apr 24 - May 10. Arts Centre Melbourne. 1300 182 183 Dookie - The Musical. Book by John Head, with score and lyrics by Wade Gregory and Helen Rankin. Shepparton Theatre Arts Group. Apr 25 - 28. Riverlinks WestSide. (03) 5832 9511.
Stage Whispers 59
On Stage Anthony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare. Bell Shakespeare. Apr 26 - May 13. Arts Centre Melbourne, Fairfax Studio. 1300 182 183. The House of Bernarda Alba by Fredrico Garcia Lorca, translated by David Hare. Heidelberg Theatre Co. Apr 27 - May 12. (03) 9457 4117. One Act Play Season. Eltham Little Theatre. Apr 27 - May 12. 0411 713 095. Hello Beautiful by Hannie Rayson. Theatre Works. May 2 6. Theatre Works, St Kilda. (03) 9534 3388. Tasmania Les Misérables. Music by Claude -Michel Schönberg. Lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer. Original French text by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel. Additional Material by James Fenton. Encore Theatre Company. Mar 16 - 31. Princess Theatre, Launceston. (03) 6323 3666.
60 Stage Whispers
Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia
Charlotte’s Web. Based on the novel by E.B White. Stage Right Youth Theatre. Mar 26 & 27. Earl Arts Centre, Launceston. (03) 6323 3666. I Am a Lake. Mudlark Theatre. Mar 16 & 17. Backspace Theatre, Theatre Royal Hobart. (03) 6233 2299. The Epic. Ten Tonne Sparrow. Mar 22 & 23. Backspace Theatre, Theatre Royal, Hobart. (03) 6233 2299. Tapestry: The Songs of Carole King. Grows on Trees Productions. Mar 22 & 23. Theatre Royal, Hobart. (03) 6233 2299. A Prudent Man. Lab Kelpie. Mar 28 & 29. Backspace Theatre, Theatre Royal, Hobart. (03) 6233 2299. Oedipus Schmoedipus. POST. Apr 4, Princess Theatre, Launceston, (03) 6323 3666; Apr 6 & 7, Backspace Theatre, Theatre Royal, Hobart, (03) 6233 2299.
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Hobart Repertory Theatre Society. Apr 6 - 28. The Playhouse Theatre. (03) 6234 5998 Before The Fetch. Devised and performed by Michael Edgar. Apr 20 & 21. Earl Arts Centre, Launceston. (03) 6323 3666. Bosom Buddies. Todd McKenney and Nancye Hayes. Apr 24, Theatre Royal, Hobart, (03) 6233 2299; Apr 26, Princess Theatre, Launceston, (03) 6323 3666. The Riddle of Washpool Gully. Writer and Director David Morton. Terrapin Puppet Theatre / Dead Puppet Society. Apr 13 - 21, Backspace Theatre, Theatre Royal, Hobart, (03) 6233 2299; Apr 27, Earl Arts Centre, Launceston, (03) 6323 3666. The Nutcracker. Moscow Ballet La Classique, presented by Grand International Concerts. Apr 26 & 27, Theatre Royal, Hobart, (03) 6233 2299; Apr 28, Princess Theatre, Launceston, (03) 6323 3666. Alice’s Adventures Under Ground. Adapted from the works of Lewis Carroll by Christopher Hampton in collaboration with Martha Clarke. Hamley Productions. May 3 - 5. Earl Arts Centre, Launceston. (03) 6323 3666. South Australia Adelaide Fringe 2018. Until Mar 18. Wide range of events. Various venues, Adelaide. www.adelaidefringe.com.au Adelaide Festival. Mar 2-18. Wide range of events and Adelaide Festival venues. www.adelaidefestival.com.au Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard. The Stirling Players. Until Mar 10. Stirling Community Theatre. www.stirlingplayers.sct.org.au In the Club by Patricia Cornelius. Until Mar 18. State Theatre Company SA. www.statetheatrecompany.com.au The Way of the World by William Congreve - staged
playreading. Mar 15 - 17 University of Adelaide Theatre Guild. The Little Theatre. www.trybooking.com/335327 A Fete Worse than Death by Richard James. Mar 23 - Apr 7. Venture Theatre Company. Trinity Hall, Christies Beach. venturetheatreco@gmail.com Especially on Birthdays by The PaperBoats. Mar 24. Country Arts SA. Hopgood Theatre. (08) 7009 4400. www.countryartsa.org.au Communicating Doors by Alan Ayckbourn. Apr 4 - 14. Tea Tree Players. Tea Tree Players Theatre. www.teatreeplayers.com Frankenstein by Nick Dear. Apr 5 - 14. Adelaide Repertory Theatre. Arts Theatre. (08) 8212 5777. www.adelaiderep.com After Dinner by Andrew Bovell. Apr 7 - 29. The State Theatre Company of South Australia. Dunstan Playhouse. 131 246 or www.statetheatrecompany.com.au Make Mama Proud. Apr 10. Country Arts SA. Hopgood Theatre. www.countryarts.org.au Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Music & Lyrics: Richard & Robert Sherman. Book: Jeremy Sams & Ray Roderick, based on the film by Roald Dahl and Ken Hughes and the novel by Ian Fleming. Apr 13 - 28. Northern Light Theatre Company. Shedley Theatre. (08) 8281 5026. www.northernlight.org.au/ticket Taking Steps by Alan Ayckbourn. Apr 19 - 28. St Jude’s Players. St Jude’s Hall. 0436 262 628. stjudesplayers.asn.au/bookings A Little Night Music by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler. Apr 26 - May 5. Gilbert & Sullivan Society of SA. The Arts Theatre. (08) 8447 7239. tickets@gandssa.com.au Born Yesterday by Garson Kanin. Apr 27 - May 5. Independent Theatre. Goodwood Theatre. www.independenttheatre.org.au
Just $50 a month to reach thousands of theatre goers. Contact Stage Whispers for details.
On Stage
Western Australia
Online extras! Check out a trailer for Calamity Jane by scanning the QR code or visiting https://youtu.be/9RhOv2ExUig
Following the success of Calamity Jane at Hayes Theatre Co in 2017, One Eyed Man Productions in association with Neglected Musicals and Hayes Theatre Co are touring the production in 2018. Calamity Jane plays at IIlawarra Performing Arts Centre from Mar 7, then Arts Centre Melbourne from Mar 14 to 25, with seasons in Canberra (Aug) and at Belvoir (Aug/Sep). Pictured: Anthony Gooley, Virginia Gay, Laura Bunting, Matthew Pearce and company. Photo: John Mcrae. Read more on our website at http://bit.ly/2onAsip Western Australia Marble by Marina Carr. Darlington Theatre Players. Until Mar 10. While you were dreaming of him, he was dreaming of you. Marloo Theatre, Greenmount. (08) 9255 1783. www.marlootheatre.com.au The Unexpected Guest by Agatha Christie. Old Mill Theatre. Until Mar 10. Classic murder mystery. Old Mill Theatre, South Perth. www.oldmilltheatre.com.au Venus in Fur by David Ives. Melville Theatre. Until Mar 3. Sexy provocative hilarious drama. Melville Theatre. www.meltheco.org.au Don’t Dress For Dinner by Marc Camoletti. Harbour Theatre. Until Mar 4. Comedy. Camelot Theatre, Mosman Park. (08) 9255 3336. The Way of the World by William Cosgrove. Garrick
Theatre. Mar 1 - 18. Restoration Comedy directed by Raymond Omedei. Garrick Theatre, Guildford. (08) 9378 1990. You Know We Belong Together by Julia Hales and Collaborators. Black Swan State Theatre Company. Mar 1 - 4. Theatre Underground, State Theatre Centre of WA. (08) 6212 9292. www.tickets.ptt.wa.gov.au Rock of Ages by Chris D’Arienzo. Koorliny Arts Centre. Mar 2 - 18. 80s jukebox musical. Koorliny Arts Centre. (08) 9467 7118. www.koorliny.com.au Robin Hood, The Truth Behind the Green Tights by David Neilson. Roleystone Theatre. Mar 7 - 16. Roleystone Theatre, Brookton Hwy, Roleystone. www.roleystonetheatre.com.au Death of A Salesman by Arthur Miller. Wanneroo Repertory. Mar 8 - 17. Classic American Drama, Limelight Theatre,
Wanneroo. 0499 954 016. www.limelighttheatre.com.au Disney’s Mulan Jnr. Music and lyrics by David Zippel, Jeanine Tesori, Stephen Schwartz, Matthew Wilder and Alexa Junge. Music adapted and arranged, and additional music and lyrics by Bryan Louiselle. Book adapted and additional lyrics by Patricia Cotter. Phoenix Theatre. Mar 9 - 24. Musical based on hit film. Phoenix Theatre, Memorial Hall, Hamilton Hill. www.phoenixtheatreinc.com.au The Crucible by Arthur Miller. WAAPA 3rd Year Acting Students. American Classic drama directed by Matt Edgerton. Mar 16 - 22. Geoff Gibbs Theatre, WAAPA, Edith Cowan University, Mt Lawley. (08) 9370 6636. Atlas. Devised work inspired by Jeanette Winterson’s book Weight. WAAPA 2nd Year Acting
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Students. Mar 16 - 22. Devised work inspired by Jeanette Winterson’s book- Weight. Tricycle Theatre, Mt Lawley Senior High School. (08) 9370 6636. The Arabian Nights by Dominic Cooke. WAAPA 2nd Year Music Theatre Students. Mar 16 - 22. The Enright Theatre, WAAPA, Edith Cowan University, Mt Lawley. (08) 9370 6636. In the Heights by Quiara Alegria Hudes and Lin-Manuel Miranda. WAAPA 3rd Year Music Theatre Students. Mar 17 - 24. Tony and Olivier Award Winning Musical. The Roundhouse Theatre, WAAPA, Edith Cowan University, Mt Lawley. (08) 9370 6636. Thoroughly Modern Millie by Jeanine Tesori, Dick Scanlan and Richard Morris. Iona Presentation College. Mar 23 25. Musical set in the 1920s.
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On Stage
Western Australia & New Zealand
Regal Theatre, Subiaco. www.ticketek.com.au Camelot by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. Old Mill Theatre. Apr 27 - May 12. Classic musical. Old Mill Theatre, South Perth. www.oldmilltheatre.com.au ‘Allo ‘Allo by David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd. Stirling Players. Apr 27 - May 12. Based on the TV series. Stirling Theatre, Morris Place, Innaloo. (08) 9446 9120. Mr Bailey’s Minder by Debra Oswald. Melville Theatre. Apr 27 - May 12. Tough, funny, Australian drama. www.meltheco.org.au New Zealand New Zealand Festival. Until Mar 18. www.festival.co.nz New Zealand Fringe Festival. Mar 2 - 24. www.fringe.co.nz Mary Poppins. Based on the book by P.L. Travers and the Walt Disney Film. Music and Lyrics by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B Sherman. Book by Julian Fellows. New Songs by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe. Rotorua Musical Theatre. Mar 9 - 24. Energy Events Centre. ticketmaster.co.nz 12 Angry Men by Reginald Rose. Cambridge Repertory Society. Mar 10 - 24. The Gaslight Theatre. www.cambridgerepertory.org.nz Hot Water by Roger Hall. Dolphin Theatre, Auckland. Mar 2 - 17. dolphintheatre.org.nz Still Life with Chickens by D.F. Mamea. Auckland Theatre Company. Mar 8 - 18, Māngere Arts Centre; Mar 17 - 24, ASB Cube, ASB Waterfront Theatre; May 8 - Jun 2, Circa Theatre, Wellington. www.atc.co.nz The Jailhouse Frocks by Devon Williamson. Detour Theatre, Tauranga. Mar 8 - 24. iTicket. Tosca by Puccini. Opera New Zealand. Mar 8 - 16. Isaac Theatre Royal, Christchurch. www.nzopera.com 1984 by George Orwell. A new adaptation created by Robert
Bernstein. Opera New Zealand. Mar 23 - 25. Auckland Town Hall. www.nzopera.com Mamma Mia! By Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus and Catherine Johnson. Michael Amici Productions / Auckland Music Theatre. Mar 24 - Apr 8. Bruce Mason Centre, Auckland. TicketMaster. The Woman in Black by Stephen Mallatratt and Susan Hill. NO Productions Theatre. Mar 29 Apr 1. Isaac Theatre Royal, Christchurch. Ticketek. Our Country’s Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker. Wellington Repertory Theatre. Apr 4 - 14. Gryphon Theatre. 021 08202357. Shrek Jr. Book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire. Music by Jeanine Tesori. Gore Musical Theatre. Apr 5 - 8. St James Theatre. iTicket. The Truth by Florian Zeller, translated by Christopher Hampton. Apr 7 - May 5. Circa Theatre. (04) 801 7992. Snoopy The Musical. Book by Charles M. Schulz Creative Associates, Warren Lockhart, Arthur Whitelaw and Michael L. Grace. Music by Larry Grossman. Lyrics by Hal Hackady. Whangarei Theatre Company. Apr 6 - 21. whangareitheatrecompany.org.nz Oliver! By Lionel Bart. Napier Operatic. Apr 6 - 28. Tabard Theatre. www.napieroperatic.org.nz Wicked. Music and Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz. Book by Winnie Holzman. Based on the novel by Gregory Maguire. Showbiz Christchurch. Apr 6 15. Issac Theatre Royal. 0800 842 538 An Iliad by Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare. Fortune Theatre, Dunedin. Apr 7 - 21. (03) 477 8323. Seussical Kids and Hairspray Jr. South Canterbury Drama. Apr 12 - 14. Theatre Royal, Timaru. iTicket. Catch Me If You Can. Book by Terrance McNally. Lyrics by Marc
62 Stage Whispers
Ickle and Duncan McMillan. Auckland Theatre Company. ASB Waterfront Theatre. Mar 9 25. www.atc.co.nz Jesus Christ Superstar by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. Centrestage Theatre Company, Orewa. Mar 9 - 24. www.centrestagetheatre.co.nz Disney Beauty and the Beast Jr. Composer: Alan Menken. Lyricists: Howard Ashman and Tim Rice. Book by Linda Woolverton. Invercargill Musical Theatre Inc. Mar 15 - 17. Civic Theatre, Invercargill. TicketDirect. The Witches by Roald Dahl in an adaption by David Wood. Ellerslie Theatrical Society. Mar 15 - 24. iTicket. Perfect Wedding by Robert Hawdon. Mairangi Players. Mar 16 - 24. www.mairangiplayers.co.nz US/THEM by Carly Wijs. New Zealand Festival / BRONKS & Richard Jordan Productions with Theatre Royal Plymouth & Big in Belgiuim in association with Summerhall Belgium Theatre. Mar 16 - 18. Circa Theatre. (04) 801 7992. Switzerland by Joanna MurraySmith. Mar 17 - Apr 14. Circa Theatre. (04) 801 7992. Easy Money by Roger Hall. The Court Theatre, Christchurch. Mar 17 - Apr 14. courttheatre.org.nz The Savage Dilemma by John Patrick. Mar 20 - 31. Titirangi Theatre. www.titirangitheatre.co.nz At the Wake by Victor Rodger. Mar 21 - 31. Circa Theatre. (04) 801 7992. The Amorous Ambassador by Michael E. Parker. South Canterbury Drama League. Mar 22 - 29. The Playhouse, Timaru. iTicket Candide. Music by Leonard Bernstein, book by Hugh Wheeler after Voltaire, Lyrics by Richard Wilbur, with additional lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, John La Touche, Lillian Hellman, Dorothy Parker and Leonard
Shaiman. Music by Scott Whittman and Marc Shaiman. Tauranga Musical Theatre Inc. Apr 14 - 28. Westside Theatre iTicket. The Messy Magic Adventure: Kitchen Chaos. By David Ladderman and Lizzie Tollemache. Rollicking Entertainment. Apr 14 - 29. Circa Theatre. (04) 801 7992. Seven Deadly Stunts by David Ladderman and Lizzie Tollemache. Rollicking Entertainment. Apr 17 - May 5. Circa Theatre. (04) 801 7992. Always A Bridesmaid by Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten. Elmwood Players. Apr 18 - 28. Elmwood Auditorium, Merivale. www.elmwood-players.org.nz Seussical Jr. Music by Stephen Flaherty. Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens. Book by Ahrens and Flaherty. Co -conceived by Ahrens, Flaherty, and Eric Idle. Based on the works of Dr Seuss. Centrestage Theatre Company, Orewa. Apr 17 - 21. www.centrestagetheatre.co.nz Heathers The Musical by Laurence O’Keefe and Kevin Murphy. North Shore Music Theatre. Apr 20 - 28. www.nsmt.co.nz Mary Poppins. Based on the book by P.L. Travers and the Walt Disney Film. Music and Lyrics by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B Sherman. Book by Julian Fellows. New Songs by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe. Blenheim Musical Theatre. From Apr 20. ASB Theatre. www.bmt.net.nz Death of a Dream by Richard De Luca. Dolphin Theatre, Auckland. Apr 20 - May 5. dolphintheatre.org.nz Fiddler on the Roof. Book by Joseph Stein. Music by Jerry Bock. Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick. Manukau Performing Arts. Apr 21 - May 5. Spotlight Theatre, Papatoetoe. www.mpatheatre.co.nz
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Reviews: Premieres
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Barber Shop Chronicles. Photo: Prudence Upton.
Barber Shop Chronicles By Inua Ellams. Fuel / National Theatre / West Yorkshire Playhouse / Sydney Festival. Seymour Centre, York Theatre. Jan 18 - 28. BARBER Shop Chronicles from Nigerian-British writer Inua Ellams is surely the hit of the Sydney Festival. His Chronicles check in on what African men are talking about in barber shops across Johannesburg, Lagos, Harare, Accra, Kampala and south London. We return to some places and ongoing stories, and all are masterfully linked by a nail-biting international soccer match, a repeated joke about three men in a pub and a powerful theme of men cut off from their fathers. This African diaspora of experience is suggested by the shining world globe, amidst garlands of lights and local barber shop advertising, hanging above designer Rae Smith’s clutter of cheap barber shop furniture. Too much of the black banter and strut of dialogue from these 12 fine and varied actors is lost in this theatre. But you’re certainly on the edge of your seat trying to catch it all. Director Bijan Sheibani creates a joyous swirl of song, chanting or dancing as the actors regroup for each new setting. And each is played out without sentimentality, conversations sometimes petty and posturing and teasing, other times rich in male bonding and intimacy as well as spirted topical argument.
And talking of Dads, the search for a model of strong black manhood is movingly articulated at the end of this wonderful show piece. Martin Portus Tree of Codes Wayne McGregor, Olafur Eliasson and Jamie xx. Sydney Festival / Studio Wayne McGregor and Manchester International Festival. Darling Harbour Theatre. Jan 6 - 10. THE kaleidoscopic impact of London wunderkind Wayne McGregor’s dance epic Tree of Codes even fills the cavernous theatre space in Sydney’s new International Convention Centre. Colours and spots beam constantly into the audience, with angled onstage mirrors reflecting us back on ourselves, and transforming the near-naked dancers into a chorus line of multiple versions. Olafur Eliasson’s ever shifting architectural installations fracture the light and slice the action with huge coloured frames. Music producer Jamie xx keeps up with a soaring score travelling from a community of handclapping through a range of individual instruments, backed with voice echoes, all synthesized to the max. The dozen dancers of Company Wayne McGregor are beautifully poised and agile, classically erect one moment, rubber limbed and frenzied the next. As for meaning, McGregor takes his text from Jonathan Safran Foer’s sliced up version of a 1936 Polish collection
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Stage Whispers 63
Online extras! Go behind the scenes of Amazing Grace by scanning the QR code or visiting http://bit.ly/2CHIFTM
Amazing Grace. Photo: Jodie Hutchinson.
of short stories. The dance, in short, is indecipherable, more a deconstructionist’s picnic. While chorographically inventive, with its rushes of duos and trios, and chattering of arms, there is no pause, no punctuation, for reflection or feeling or meaning. This is not to deny McGregor’s seductive theatricality, his even joyous circus of thrills, but the impact evaporates in the dark. Martin Portus Amazing Grace Manilla Street Productions. Creator / Director: Karen Jemison. Musical Director: Luke Hunter. Choreographers: Jeanne Sorich/Lucinda Williams. National Theatre, St Kilda. Feb 9 - 11. SOMETIMES it pays to read the fine print. Three music theatre stars and a large ensemble. Should be a great night. It was a calisthenics concert! Not my main line of expertise. It was amazing! This was no junior calisthenics concert. All the performers were adults who had been practising their craft for more than a decade, and it showed! All of them could stand on one leg with the other pointing towards the ceiling; they could walk across stage on their hands, and all in perfect sync. They were beautiful, strong, flexible and they all had rhythm. Their skills with rods, clubs and balletic movements were impressive. 64 Stage Whispers
Of course the costumes were spectacular, an essential for a calisthenics concert. Fortunately they had guest artists to allow for time to change. Thomas McGuane had the enviable task of being the token male surrounded by a bevy of beautiful women. His natural tenor was a delight and his easy manner and good looks were an asset. Samantha Morley and Taneel Van Zyl were the other guests, both singing up a storm. These guests were not just tacked on to fill out the program, but an integral part of the show. They all moved well and joined in some of the choreography. Two highlights for me were the “Cell Block Tango” and “Mein Herr”, the latter with Morley taking the lead, and she was one of the soloists in the former. The band played well, the sound system was effective and the lighting spectacular. There were no gaps in the program with one item slotting into place as the applause from the previous number died down. Next time I might read the fine print, but on this occasion, I’m so glad I didn’t. Graham Ford #romeoandjuliet Devised by Kimberley Twiner, Lily Fish & Giovanni Fusetti. Performed by Twiner and Fish. Outside Eye/Rehearsal Director Steph Kehoe. La Mama Theatre, Carlton VIC. Jan 16 - 21. #ROMEOANDJULIET begins as a very small circus, kept alive by the boundless delusions, ego and conceit of its
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‘star’, Veronique (Kimberley Twiner). Her ‘assistant’ Stephanie (Lily Fish) is also stage manager, unconvincing performer, and under the thumb of her boss. Then Stephanie finds a copy of Romeo and Juliet in the lost property box, and rebellion is in the air… Director Steph Kehoe’s ‘outside eye’ has brought precision and perfect comic timing to the performances. The characters are conceived for maximum contrast and conflict - a ‘clown’ show that plays on the ancient conventions of the White Clown and the victim clown ‘Auguste’. But if there are any echoes, they are soon subverted. Ms Twiner’s Veronique is ‘glamorous’ in her sequinned circus bustier, train and pink tights, making wonderful use of a wide and shark-like smile. Veronique is a stressed control freak, pushy, dominating, bullying, nasty and totally without talent - but still believing that her audience simply adores her. That Ms Twiner can convey all that and make us laugh, means that she is very talented. (She designed the set and costumes too.) Ms Fish, meanwhile, gormless rather than glamorous, has possibly the most expressive face on any Melbourne stage. Solemn, serious, flustered, entreating, vulnerable, resigned, afraid, sceptical, angry, naughty, rebellious, delighted - and then quite bossy herself - and finally sensual as well. She is totally in control of that face, which tells the audience so much - and touches our hearts as well as making us laugh. Michael Brindley The Town Hall Affair Based on the film Town Bloody Hall by Chris Hegedus & D.A. Pennebaker. Wooster Group / Sydney Festival. Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House. Jan 7 - 13. NEW York’s Wooster Group finally debuts in Sydney, and they’re still sitting at the same long table with mics, deconstructing classic texts and major cultural events. Their subject now is the landmark 1971 Manhattan debate on women’s liberation, which was documented in the film Town Bloody Hall. Extracts are screened as the Wooster actors play out the same sequences. The performances are technically impressive, the feminist topic is timely, but does this theatrical replication add much to a good doco? The raucous debate, which was surprisingly obscure intellectually, was/is chaired by the misogynist Norman Mailer. He’d just declared his biological imperatives for women in an essay, The Prisoner of Sex. Taking him on is Germaine Greer (acted more moderately than expected by Maura Tierney), the lesbian activist Jill Johnston (a colourfully disobedient Kate Valk) and the conservative feminist and literary critic Diana Trilling (effectively realised by a male, Greg Mehrten). Mailer is played by two actors, Ari Fliakos and Scott Shepherd, another random casting decision apparently, but it certainly works when his two parts end in bloody conflict. The Town Hall Affair is ingenious and sometimes affecting time travel, and upstage the Wooster Group bristles with more audio and screen technology than
before. But as an edited debate, directed by Wooster cofounder Elizabeth LeCompte, it lacks a fresh and strong editorial interpretation. Martin Portus Take Me To Neverland By Riley McLean. Bearfoot Theatre, at the Civic Playhouse, Newcastle. Jan 11 - 13. NEWCASTLE playwright Riley McLean’s reworking of the story of Peter Pan puts that ageless boy into realistic, but still amusing situations. Peter (played by Tom Rodgers) is initially seen surrounded by other playful young boys in a building that turns out to be an orphanage. He’s next seen alone with Wendy (Savannah Geddes), who announces that she has been sent to care for him, so those watching realise that this is a different venue and time, and years later, with Peter ignoring that he is bodily becoming a man. McLean, who co-directed with Cassie Hamilton, uses many elements from the Peter Pan narrative to show the real nature of Peter. The other orphans initially accept Peter’s need to give them the names of the lost boys as they play amusing childhood games, but as time passes they move away from him. And Wendy’s offer to give Peter a kiss in an early meeting, something he hasn’t had before, retains the action from J.M.Barrie’s story of her giving him a thimble as a kiss, with that initiative eventually losing its power. The eight young actors - the others were Grace Alston, Sam Hawkins, Konstanze Koedam, Harry Lyddiard, Bonnie McPeak and Taylor Reece - brought out the changing characteristics of the other orphans. And good use was made of the large double-deck bed at stage centre, with the orphans playing on the lower level, and Peter and Wendy using the top as an intimate meeting place where they could discuss issues. While the play, which effectively moves between the two places and times, could do with more development of the relationship between Peter and Wendy, it is an engaging look at what psychologists call the Peter Pan syndrome. Ken Longworth We Were There Devised & directed by Dirk Hault. Tilted Projects. Chapel Off Chapel, Prahran VIC. Jan 23 - Feb 4. FOUR engaging, talented actors tell stories of the experience of women and AIDS - from before the condition had a name, let alone treatment. They tell of bafflement and fear, suffering, and shame - but also resilience, love, and acceptance. The playwright, Dirk Hoult, thought it was time the usual emphasis on men’s experience was corrected. We Were There is so-called ‘verbatim theatre’: the testimony comes from carers, volunteers, nurses, doctors, wives, family members and sufferers. It is not sensational, maudlin or self-pitying. There is, rather, humour, a sort of incredulity (‘Can you believe it?’) and a keen sense of irony. The cast - Leah Baulch, Perri Cummings, Jodie Le Vesconte and Olivia Monticciolo - are effectively different
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in manner, appearance and mode of performance. For the most part, they find light and shade in their text, with intensity, tenderness and rueful remembering - but don’t always overcome the problem of distinguishing one ‘witness’ from another. The show is most effective when the various ‘characters’ appear to interact, sharing experiences and reflections - suggesting strongly the bonds that form between women, especially when outsiders just don’t get it. Alex Hiller supplies a suggestive, near surreal stage design: a huge, distorted white package, criss-crossed with cords - mysterious and threatening. Jason Bovaird’s lighting provides clear mood and transitions, and Connor Ross’ sound design is unobtrusive while enhancing the text. We Were There, perhaps inevitably, can fall into the trap of the too obviously ‘important’ or worthy, and then it sounds like a Department of Health pamphlet. But the cast carries us past those moments and, after all, the subject is important. Michael Brindley
over the socket, he sees more about the relationships and realities of life than those around him. The play’s dark humour is intermingled with moving moments that bring out the down-to-earth sides of the people, though invariably they try to hide such aspects. Likewise, Dufault’s scripted advice to have the actors cast as Dickie and Phillipa doubling as fowls caught up in the cockfight training adds to the humour and watchers’ thoughts about the sport, with Stephanie Priest as the over -plump female chicken Gil rescued from a McDonald’s supplier to help raise the spirit and fighting ability of Odie showing how she is able to attract the rooster. Director Allison Van Gaal and other backstage team members helped to make this a memorable work, and one worthy of a second season. Ken Longworth
Love Bird By Georgina Harriss. The Butterfly Club, Melbourne. Jan 30 - Feb 4. HILARIOUS new absurdist comedy Love Bird is a family drama turned on its head and pulled from side to side to Year Of The Rooster portray preposterous situations in a frivolous and comical By Olivia Dufault. Knock&Run Theatre. The Royal Exchange, manner. Newcastle. Jan 30 - Feb 1. It’s an extraordinary quirky feast of quite bizarre events OLIVIA Dufault’s play has been a knock-out hit in the that reflect on the general malfunctions of family life. United States since it premiered in New York at the end of Franny (Jessica Martin) has just turned eight, she has no 2013, and it is to the credit of Newcastle’s Knock&Run friends and her parents decide to give her a pet parrot as a Theatre that it staged the first Australian production and birthday gift because it will train her to be responsible, made it so engrossing. caring and prevent her from feeling lonely. The mother is a Year of the Rooster is set in a small country town where foul mouthed, anxious neurotic and the father is a bird cock-fighting continues to take place. It begins with watching geek. Full credit goes to Prince Ping Pong (John Odysseus Rex (played by James Chapman), a rooster Marc Desengano), a brilliantly nuanced performance dressed like a feathered rocker, ranting about the sun displaying an impeccable talent for parrot mimicry. waking him. Odie, as he is known, is being trained to fight Love Bird is an authentic new play by local writer by his owner, Gil Pepper (Will Parker), a troubled young Georgina Harriss, who has a serious penchant for delving man in his early 20s who is bullied and belittled by into the dark side of the family unit and teasing out its everyone, including his mechanised-chair-bound aged tensions and anxieties, and actually making people laugh. mother, Lou (Jan Hunt), sharp-tongued man-about-town Despite the constraints of a tiny set, the performers Dickie Thimble (Carl Gregory) who sees himself as the were quick off the mark and manipulated the burg’s best rooster handler, and Phillipa Long (Stephanie claustrophobic space with ease, further amplifying the Priest), a sarcastic 19-year-old who is Gil’s boss at the local absurdity. McDonald’s. Gil has lost an eye to a rooster while training It is a fun and probing show that entertains and one to fight, but, even though he wears a black eyepatch questions family values. Harriss is on par with the Wes Andersons of the world and l am eager to see more of her stuff. Flora Georgiou
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An Act Of God By David Javerbaum. Darlinghurst Theatre Company. Eternity Playhouse, Darlinghurst, NSW. Feb 2 - 25. SELF-PROCLAIMING “three-time Helpmann Awardwinner” Mitchell Butel is here the vessel through which God steps down to revise with us his now musty Ten Commandments. It’s a God, of course, more queenly than godly, an acidic, point scoring showman who, while correcting many of our biblical misunderstandings, ends a little conflicted about his values.
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John Batchelor & Emily Weir in La Boite & Playlab’s The Dead Devils Of Cockle Creek. Photo: Dylan Evans.
Online extras! Check out the preview clip for The Dead Devils Of Cockle Creek. Scan or visit https://youtu.be/e4bOqNMGF9E
A cabaret-style monologue developed by US talk show producer David Javerbaum from his popular blog, this heavenly egotist is artfully steered by Butel and co-director Richard Carroll into more global, sometimes Australian satire. And there’s a threatening amount of audience participation, including when Adam is selected, a rib taken, and his ideal partner created, a well-hung Steve. On a talk show couch half way up a white staircase, Mitchell teases, carps and unburdens himself, while flanked by his bullied Angels Gabriel (Laura Murphy) and Michael (Alan Flower). No wonder humanity has problems if we’re made in his image - as he confesses, he’s an arsehole Bigger theological questions get some light handling in Javerbaum’s random but often hilarious cruise, and naturally we end with a big musical climax. Butel masterfully sustains our attention, leaping between text and campy asides, even if his theatrical punctuation inevitably gets a little slurred. But this is 75 minutes which rarely flags. And Charles Davis’ appealing set is artfully lit by Katie Sfetkidis. Martin Portus The Dead Devils Of Cockle Creek Written by Kathryn Marquet. Directed by Ian Lawson. Presented by La Boite and Playlab. La Boite Roundhouse Theatre. Feb 10 - Mar 3. THE crowd adored the opening night of this worldpremiere; screeching with laughter at the outrageous dialogue one moment, pin-drop quiet the next, as seething tensions rose among the characters.
This black comedy sees environmental scientist Georgina working with Harris, a park ranger, in an isolated shack in Tasmania. She’s trying to save the Tasmanian Devil population from tumours and she’s close to a breakthrough when an encounter with Mickey O’Toole turns their world upside-down. Amid violence, chaos and panic, enters lost schoolgirl Destinee Lee to shake things up even more. The actors were all very well rehearsed and showed good teamwork. Kimie Tsukakoshi (Destinee) took bold comedic risks. Emily Weir (Georgina) was especially brave during her final scene with John Batchelor (Mickey). John delivered an incredibly believable characterisation, nailing the Irish accent. Julian Curtis (Harris) also mastered his New Zealander accent, with almost every line he spoke delivered with great comic effect. The slightly surreal angled stage and set was a great metaphor for the state of the characters’ lives. Lighting effects were subtle and unobtrusive, with some nice uses of gobos. Direction by Ian Lawson was cleverly seamless; he allowed the script, crew and actors to shine. This play is an important response to a modern age fraught with misinformation. It inspires lasting reflection, calling out absurd phenomena like the flat earth movement, in comparison to noble causes such as animal rights. It’s also packed with laughs and memorable lines of dialogue you’ll be quoting on the way home. Kiesten McCauley
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Stage Whispers 67
Serenading Adela, A Street Opera. Artistic Director, Jeannie Marsh. Centenary Performance, Pentridge Piazza, Coburg. Jan 7. ON 7 January 1918 supporters of Adela Pankhurst’s anti -WWI anti-conscription cause gathered outside the bluestone walls of the women’s prison at Pentridge to serenade her with socialist songs, cooees, and coloured lights. Adela, who was exiled to Australia when she fell out of favour with her famous UK suffragette family, had been imprisoned for her energetic anti-war campaigning. The event was re-enacted through an ingenious project which brought together a variety of local musical and theatrical talent to commemorate and celebrate the socialist ideals and solidarity that Adela Pankhurst had successfully galvanised. Adela was played by Lisa-Marie Parker, who was beautifully flanked by a small choir, a big choir, an unruly mob, a street band and the Brunswick Secondary College Singers. The community spirit of the project was well and truly evident and reverberated throughout each song. The performance also detailed this chapter in Adela’s life and framed her important political activism in a delightfully entertaining manner. The absolute highlight of the event was Parker’s performance of the song Ghosts Don’t Lie by Stephen Taberner. The song was composed especially for the reenactment and the lyrics were based on stories of the effects of war shared by local families. This was an extremely moving song which elevated the event both musically and emotionally. This is a highly admirable project that builds community spirit by acknowledging its long heritage. Patricia Di Risio
life the more independent and troubled Rose, a haunting presence who generally seems removed, somewhat toxic, and willfully unaffected by her friends. William Zappa plays Robin, Hazel’s husband, the character with a greater sense of humour. As with the other two his character expresses a very finely toned sense of his own self-importance. Throughout there are a number of rather clunky clichés and strangely simplistic statements. All three characters are penned as clever privileged people exhibiting the appropriate blend of narcissism of those of their generation. All three have a disparate awkwardness about them as they relate to each other in an often-prickly manner. Sound by Steve Francis is minimal and extremely effective, particularly in the last moments of the staging. Suzanne Sandow
The Bridge By Nick Rinke & Caitilin Docking. Adelaide Fringe Festival. Bakehouse Theatre. Feb 19 - 24. THE Bridge is a new play from Canada. Very rarely, if indeed ever, do we see contemporary work from Canada. This is great shame as we are missing out on some truly excellent plays. The Bridge is an ‘apocalyptic play’. Two young people find themselves ‘on the road’ after the apocalypse. They are alone and walking to San Francisco in the hope of finding other people. To stop themselves from going mad from the overwhelming silence, they try every means they can to dispel their fear and despondency - singing, dancing, and playing games. This includes ‘shadow puppetry’ in which they play the characters of ‘Captain’ and ‘Lieutenant’, along with other characters such as a pack of wolves and Christopher The Children Walken. They also have that grand ‘hippie’ classic 60s pop By Lucy Kirkwood. Melbourne Theatre Company. song, Scott McKenzie’s San Francisco, which is the only Southbank Theatre, The Sumner. Feb 3 - Mar 10. piece of music they have on an old and dying mobile A CHALLENGING and rewarding work, The Children phone. They are starving and yet remain in hope, until they unfolds naturalistically in real time. make a fateful decision that ends the play. On a simple, functional set of a rustic kitchen by This play is concise and engaging. The audience yearns Elizabeth Gadsby, superbly lit by Paul Jackson, three clever for a happy ending, but it would be romantic and and influential sixty something nuclear physicists reunite. sentimental, inappropriate and illogical for this human The world as they know it has been turned upside down by tragedy. a Fukushima like disaster. Some of their pasts are divulged The play begs the question, could we live with silence, and we get to witness their flawed and often messy with no noise, with nothing around us, in a kind of sensehumanness. The apparently altruistic reason for the, often depredation hell? The answer is probably ‘no’. uncomfortable, ‘get together’ is revealed in the last This all sounds very depressing; but what makes this 50 minutes of the piece. minute one-act play so compelling is the wit and ‘gallows Lucy Kirkwood’s text functions on a number of levels. humour’ of the writing and the engaging performances of As an unfolding story it is full of surprises and maintains the two young Canadian actors-writers. interest. However as an observation of characters from the This a very poignant and important addition to this baby boomer generation it sometimes feels like an year’s Adelaide Fringe Festival. indictment. Tony Knight There is lots of humour and many laughs in this work. Pamela Rabe’s Hazel is upfront, fascinated by and To read more Adelaide Fringe 2018 reviews, visit unapologetic for her own very human foibles. At times she our website: http://bit.ly/2EZXBlB seems to be Hazel but every now and again she performs Hazel with self-deprecating humour. Sarah Peirse brings to 68 Stage Whispers
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Online extras! Check out a trailer for The Motor Camp by scanning the QR code or visiting http://youtu.be/tKBpyoaokaM The Wider Earth. Photo: Jamie Williams.
Reviews: Plays The Wider Earth Queensland Theatre / Dead Puppet Society / Sydney Festival. Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House. Jan 17 - 27. QUEENSLAND Theatre and the Dead Puppet Society have created a luminous boys’ own adventure about the voyage of young Charles Darwin on the Beagle. The Beagle is really off to convert heathens in Tierra del Fuego, but the Captain and his cleric soon sink into maelstrom and madness, while Charles boyishly chases the world’s biology and begins to trace his logic On the Origin of Species. This clash between God and Science, as the Beagle faces disasters, is the most engaging part of this epic written and directed by David Morton - as well as the theatrical tools he uses. The star is the huge rock/ship shape carved on one side as if by nature, revolving to the interiors of homes and ship, designed by Morton with Aaron Barton, as are the colourful period costumes. Behind, a panoramic screen speedily paints and signatures each new setting and projects beautiful abstracts of sea and sky (Justin Harrison), driven by a rousing score from Lior and Tony Buchen. And then there are Morton’s designed puppets - the huge turtles, iguanas and a host of fish and birds, big and small, and Darwin’s favourite dog (a beagle!). Alone, the puppetry is modest, even pedestrian, but together with all else, and in the hands of the seven busy actors, The Wider Earth is compelling story-telling. Tom Conroy is suitably intense as Darwin, leading an energetic ensemble of Margi Brown Ash, Emily Burton,
Thomas Larkin, David Lynch, Anthony Standish and Jaime Ureta. Martin Portus Black Is The New White By Nakkiah Lui. Queensland Theatre. Playhouse, QPAC. Feb 1 - 17, and touring. AH - Aussie Christmas - don’t you just love it? Families spend time together, hidden frustrations surface like icebergs! Add an interracial wedding and opposing Black and White politics - what could possibly go wrong? In Black is the New White, writer Nakkiah Lui gives us her take on a French farce, with a side serve of Greek tragedy. The result is a wild and warm, crazy platypus of a play - the collision of styles a unique Aussie fusion. For the farce, we have the cringe-making setting of an uppermiddle-class Aboriginal family meeting their daughter’s new boyfriend. He is white, unemployed, and definitely not in the ‘upper’ part of any class. When his parents turn up for Christmas lunch, the playwright has fun with the clash of cultures that ensues. Black is the New White is irreverent, blasphemous, wordy, loud, messy, non-PC - and very funny, thanks to a fast-paced script and high-calibre actors who savour the wild ride: Melodie Reynolds-Diarra and Tony Briggs, Vanessa Downing and Geoff Morrell are the two sets of parents; Shari Sebbens and Tom Stokes young lovers in their happy couple bubble; Miranda Tapsell and Anthony Taufa the hilarious sibling and in-law support act. The generous script has a Christmas cracker scene for every
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character. As Greek chorus Narrator (or Spirit of Christmas) Luke Carroll flits around like Puck, moving the action along and revealing some surprising secrets. Lui and Director Paige Rattray use the farce form to inject irreverent messages about Aussie class, race, consumerism, politics and feminism. But, most of all, they use humour to engage our empathy. The family’s Christmas toast sums up this play’s simple but essential message: ‘Love our imperfections’. Beth Keehn Metamorphoses By Mary Zimmerman. Red Line Productions, in association with Apocalypse Theatre Company. Old Fitz Theatre. Feb 8 - Mar 10. DIRECTOR Dino Dimitriadis and his often naked cast produce a strikingly queered version of Mary Zimmerman’s adaptation of Ovid’s Greek legends. From the shadows around a milky pool, hanging from scaffolding, the actors tell us in chorus these ten tales, while gods and fallible humans play out their roles in and around the water. Almost all are truly stories of metamorphoses, of characters disguised or transformed into different beings, so across these shifting forms, it’s an easy leap to have genders swapped and Ovid’s heterosexual stories queered. Metamorphoses. Photo: Robert Catto.
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King Midas is a bare breasted woman who wins the power of alchemy but grieves when his daughter, here girly male, is also frozen into gold. The drowned King Ceyz is mourned by his wife/boyfriend but then the two handsome lads are well united as seabirds. And, splashing in the pool, two girls endlessly repeat that profound moment when Orpheus fatefully looks back at Eurydice. Some stories are mashed by under-developed voices in the cast, especially when shouted at us line by line by different actors. But the imagery through Jonathan Hindmarsh’s scaffolding, spot lit by Benjamin Brockman, is often compelling and the characterisations reach from real and tender to witty and camp. The nakedness is sexy and yet unsensational, more an exposure of humanity, especially with the uplifting climax when the cast line up to wish that our loving may outlast our deaths. This ensemble delivers inventive, shape-shifting, moving theatre. Martin Portus Much Ado About Nothing By William Shakespeare. Melbourne Shakespeare Company. St Kilda Botanical Gardens. Dec 2 - 17, 2017 SURROUNDED by the rose garden at the St Kilda Botanical Gardens, Melbourne Shakespeare Company set up their stage for Much Ado About Nothing. This re-structuring was filled to the brim with elements of Commedia dell’arte, slapstick, Lecoq physicality and Gaulier clowning techniques. Not to mention the addition of modern music sprinkled throughout the show, including a Pitch Perfect style sing-along. Director Jennifer Sarah Dean knew the right ways to take the very subtle humor in the script and bring it to the forefront, creating a version unlike anything I had ever seen before. Cuts and additions did not detract in any way from the original text, but enhanced the subtle nature of the wit and intellect of Shakespeare and his characters. Annabelle Tudor as Beatrice was a perfect blend of bold, brash, sass, wit and subtlety. The ease with which she commanded the character was a joy to behold; it seemed to be an extension of her own self. I loved the relationship between Leonarto (Syd Brisbane) and Antonia (Lelda Kapsis). The raunchiness of their ‘sugar daddy’ style love bought a great contrast to the other courtships. Other honourable mentions were Nicola Bowman as Margaret and Bridget Sweeney as [Girl] George. Bowman’s interactions with the audience were well timed and carried with conviction. Sweeney’s adorable awkwardness in her physicality allowed her to enrich a small role. Jonathan Peck and May Jasper as Dogberry and Verges, impeccable as the traditional comedic fodder, used vocal and physical slapstick clowning to augment the puerile nature of their position. This was my first Melbourne Shakespeare Company production, but it certainly will not be my last! Penelope Thomas
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Lord Of The Flies. Photo: Turn It Up Photography.
Lord Of The Flies By William Golding, adapted by Nigel Williams. Beenleigh Theatre Group. Jan 19 - Feb 3. LORD Of The Flies is transformed into a chilling, beautiful and hugely entertaining play, directed by Bradley Chapman. In this theatrical performance, the action is transferred from deserted island to deserted theatre as a group of schoolboys find themselves abandoned. With no adults around they start to make their own rules and create their own civilisation, before order breaks down and the story builds to an electrifying climax. There are splendid performances from the young cast, with Jayden McGinlay drawing us in with his likable and open Ralph. Levi Rayner’s Piggy is brilliantly updated from the original text and Nic Van Litsenborgh performs Jack as a bottle of pure spiteful malice. Jordan Stott is brooding and even frightening at times as Roger, which makes sense seeing how he’s a near-psychopath. The best re-imaginings of Lord of the Flies can only work if the boys themselves have a strong sense of community, and it’s clear that these fine actors have developed just that, making their story even more powerful when that community is broken The viciously potent fighting, choreographed by Justin Palazzo-Orr, and hunting scenes, were presented in a gruesome manner; we watched these school boys leave their innocence behind with the rest of their belongings, as the intense bodily action from the young actors showed us their gradual growth from human to animal formation.
Overall, this adaptation of Lord of the Flies was performed outstandingly by a mesmerising, strong cast of young talented boys. Mel Bobbermien Twelfth Night By William Shakespeare. Essential Theatre. Shakespeare in the Vines. Various Wineries across Australia. Dec 29, 2017 - May 5, 2018. WHAT a treat; a delightful, tight and fast paced production of Twelfth Night with all its surprises and vagaries. Under the direction of Amanda LeBonte it is acutely timed. An excellent set of skilled performers delight the audience in a brisk show that is about the experience of love. Jean Goodwin’s Viola is very solid and engaging. Sharon Davis almost lifts from the ground in her enthusiastic passion for Viola - disguised as a young gentleman. Ms. Davis’ feminine physicality is entrancing and feeds beautifully into her character’s climax of meeting and throwing herself at Sebastian (Jack Dixon Gunn). Tom Heath presents a lovely straight, sensitive Orsino and contrasts this delightfully with a wacky self-obsessed Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Meanwhile Grant Foulkes as the rather viciously tormented Malvolio is fabulous in his obsessive dedication to his Lady Olivia. Maria (Cariad Wallace) is bright, lively, energetic and an uncomplicated, naively unkind character.
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Strangers In Between. Photo: Sarah Walker.
Online extras! Check out a trailer for Strangers In Between. Scan the QR code or visit http://bit.ly/2CHawUl Helen Hopkins always inspires the sense of confidence that emanates from her as an experienced and well-tuned actor. Her beautiful singing voice seems to pitch the note for other performers. Drew Tingwell is able to delight us with that old rascal Sir Toby, always in his cups but never out of control. Costume design (Amaya Vecellio) in varying shades of black and white and grey works a treat. Suzanne Sandow Strangers In Between By Tommy Murphy. Cameron Lukey and Don’t Be Down Productions. Reginald Theatre, Seymour Centre. Feb 14 Mar 2. FRESH from a revival in the West End, and here staged for Mardi Gras, Tommy Murphy’s 2005 play is a simple but touching story of a 16-year-old boy from Goulburn finding his way - and new friendships - through Kings Cross. Wil King is perfect as the gangly Shane, with his teenage paranoias and non-sequiturs, his random enthusiasms. He sprays all this at his new bed buddy, the reserved if gorgeous Will (Guy Simon) and also an older gay man he meets, Peter, played with a gentle, cardiganed campness by Simon Burke. Not much happens. Shane’s bullying, troubled brother (also Guy Simon) arrives and tries to drag him home… and Shane gets a bad STD, which in a torrent of self-hatred unleashes his internal homophobia. But the long scenes between Shane and each character are profoundly true, 72 Stage Whispers
tender and funny, as his new alternative queer family takes shape. Director Daniel Lammin creates magic between his actors and trusts in their stillness without moving them around unnecessarily on Abbie Lea Hough’s open stage set. Her costumes nicely define character. This is a celebratory but achingly realistic look at gay lives, from the then young author who later was to bring us the play and film, Holding the Man. Martin Portus Four Flat Whites In Italy By Roger Hall. Castle Hill Players. The Pavilion Theatre. Feb 2 - 24. FOUR Flat Whites In Italy is a comedy written by Roger Hall, who can best be described as New Zealand’s equivalent of David Williamson. In this play he presents a smorgasbord of first world problems endured by tourists to Italy. The laughs came thick and fast and so did the recognition. Larry Murphy (Harry) is a right wing businessman with his second-wife Margaret Olive (Judy), who insists she is ‘not a trophy wife’ but at times acts like one. With them are retired Labor voting librarians Stephen Snars (Adrian) and Annette Emerton (Alison). Harry wants to have a good time, while Alison wants to soak up every bit of culture according to a regimented timetable that Mussolini would have been proud of.
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They arrive in Venice, immediately lose their way, get exhausted from dragging their suitcases up steep stairs and eventually find their preferred room at a Pensione has been given away, so (horror of horrors) they have to share a bathroom. Sometimes aspects of community theatre can top the experience of a professional production. Whereas when the Ensemble Theatre staged this play a few years ago it was all done (very nicely) with projections, designer Steve Wimmer treated the audience to an actual set comprising two squeezy bedrooms next to a share shower. A very cleverly designed canal bridge, gondola and a car were also wheeled onto the stage. Touché! The tightly directed production from Carol Wimmer was well cast and well-paced. The most fun is had by minor part actors Aurel Vasilescu and Michelle Masefield, who play a variety of Italian characters from waiters, to rip off merchants. But balanced against the frivolity are some serious themes, touching on love and loss, that make it a satisfying night in the theatre. David Spicer My Friend Miss Flint By Donald Churchill and Peter Yeldham. Tea Tree Players (SA). February 7 - 17. TEA Tree Players have been tailoring live community theatre to their loyal audiences since 1976 and My Friend Miss Flint, the first of this year’s offerings, is no exception. Written by successful comedy collaborators Donald Churchill and Peter Yeldham, the plot features well used comedy twists and turns, and without adding too much of a spoiler, includes a troublesome, non-existent Public Relations Consultant who is at the heart of all of the problems. Whilst television gardening personality Tom Lambert may not be in quite the same league as Martha Stewart or Al Capone, it appears that he has a very serious tax problem created by his dodgy accountant, Sarah, his exwife. She has invented an employee for Tom, Joanna Flint, who has been used as a tax dodge for him and a large number of other clients. Enter the Inland Revenue and Tom’s problems unfurl over the course of one day, in rapid succession. Director Selena Britz has gathered together a cast who clearly love their roles, but who, on opening night were having difficulty developing and sustaining their characters due to inconsistent energy and pacing. The small stage is well used, but the script describes Tom as a wealthy man in an upper tax bracket. His home decorations and furnishings, including a nondescript, backward sloping couch that seems to trap the actors, does not indicate a well to do warehouse apartment. Whilst My Friend Miss Flint may not be a deep and meaningful lesson in life, it is an entertaining audience pleaser that just might also remind us to have a quick chat with our tax accountant. Jude Hines
The Magnolia Tree By Michael Griffith. Directed by Michael Griffith. Presented by Path2Productions. The Wolves Theatre. The Q, Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre. Feb 14 - 17. THREE family members discover there are no easy solutions to the problem of their mother’s increasing dementia. Or perhaps there’s one? Dealing with an aging family member is an experience most of us will face at some point. Writer Michael Griffith takes the subject matter through to somewhere darker by pitting his characters against one another; playing with their foibles and desires. This interaction pushes the narrative into thriller territory. Vicky (Ruth Katerelos) has devoted the last 11 years of her life caring for her increasingly disabled mother. Her sister, single mother Debra (Rohana Hayes), is idealistic and dreamy which has lead to her being naïve. Their brother Jack (Ezra Bix), while pragmatic is remarkably manipulative - perhaps something he’s learned on the job as a real estate agent? Through well-crafted dialogue, family secrets and motivations are revealed. The characterisation for the most part is good, although there are moments when the action doesn’t quite match the mood or intensity of the dialogue, particularly earlier in the play. Griffith uses one postmodern gimmick, which is to ask the audience to choose the ending. On the one hand it effectively asks the audience to think about what they would do in a similar situation. On the other, it breaks the mood and removes mystery right at the climax. I would also have liked to have seen more of the consequences of the siblings’ choice, although the author was more concerned with the issues leading up to that decision. If you like provocative and moving character driven drama, you’ll enjoy The Magnolia Tree. Cathy Bannister Wild Bore Sydney Festival. Carriageworks. Jan 24 - 28. THREE female, boundary-bulldozing cabaret performers put their arses on the line with this spirited show attacking critics of their other shows. Zoe Coombs Marr, Ursula Martinez and Adrienne Truscott quote back these hyperbolic negativities through their three articulate arses, propped up on a table of mics as in a panel discussion - of arseholes. It’s a masterstroke of comedy which reaches new heights when the trio, now wearing arses as heads, move to a supersized table, suck their pencils contemplatively, scratch themselves and excrete yet more crap. While critics (to audience applause!) are demonised for their prejudices, conservatism and limited understanding, the trio do relish their extreme metaphors of outrage. Here Wild Bore begins to stagnate into repetitions and lost opportunities, before moving to newer territory with the feminist assertion that critics just don’t get women. In an hilarious image, Coombs Marr resorts to other channels by haranguing us as a penis projecting from
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Truscott on stilts. Responding to another critic crying out for more ‘personal truth’, Martinez brilliantly bores us silly with a story of her visit that day to the local IGA. And quick posturing vignettes by the trio, finally stripped naked, is also witty, once your quest for meaning is abandoned. A surprise final newcomer, British trans performer Krishna Istha, wonderfully sabotages this pageant of whitewomen self-pity, with an acerbic monologue brimming with yet newer PC agendas. Good luck to critics through those minefields. Martin Portus I Ought To Be In Pictures By Neil Simon. Newcastle Theatre Company. NTC Theatre, Lambton (Newcastle). Jan 20 - Feb 3. RENOWNED American comedy playwright Neil Simon gave a more down-to-earth nature to this 1980 work than to his earlier plays, and this production showed how well he did it, with audience members’ reactions moving between jovial laughter and engaged silence as they observed changes in the relationships of the three characters. The story begins with a 19-year-old girl, Libby (Maddy Clare Lardner), dressed in travel garb that includes cut-back denim shorts and carrying a large back-pack, knocking on the door of the rented Hollywood home of a screenplay writer, Herb Tucker (Mark Lidbury), to be greeted by elegantly garbed Steffy Blondell (Renee Thomas), a film make-up artist who shares Herb’s bed once a week. He’s asleep, and while they wait for him to wake, Libby reveals she is the daughter Herb left in New York when he deserted his family to head to Hollywood to work on films. Libby was just three at the time. Now a young adult, she has headed west to seek his help in getting screen roles. The acting trio, directed by David Murray, did an excellent job in revealing the lifestyles and histories of the three people, with amusing references to actors including Jane Fonda and Marlon Brando. And the impressive set, showing the main rooms of the house and a tree-lined yard, added to the reality, with decorations to the building’s interior by Libby as the story developed underlining her belief in living in the best possible world. Ken Longworth
opening moments, when Willey finds an apparently dead man outside the room, with his neck under what is clearly a faulty window. Things get increasingly chaotic as Willey tries to work out a way of disposing of the body, first hanging the man by his shirt from a hat hook in a cupboard. The other characters include George Pigden (Alex Simpson), Willey’s parliamentary secretary who is called to help dispose of the body, a room waiter (Robert Comber, also the play’s director) who increasingly holds out his hand for more money, the irate hotel manager (Colin Delaney), the husband (Matt Scoles) of the female secretary, Willey’s wife (Amanda Woolford), a nurse (Emma Campbell) attracted to Pigden, and a maid (Sharon Allen). Declan Johnson was eye-popping as the initially lifeless body. Writer Cooney gives amusingly different meanings to expressions such as “deadbeat”, and “you’ve hit it right on the head”. And the technical team did an eye-popping job in handling the movements of the window, with watchers wondering if and when it would fall and being openmouthed with surprise when that did happen. Ken Longworth
Seventeen By Matthew Whittet. Fringe World. Turquoise Theatre. Director: Susannah Thompson. The Blue Room Studio as part of Summer Nights, Perth, WA. Feb 6 - 10. BILLED as “Saggy skin, youthful dreams”, Turquoise Theatre’s Seventeen casts actors “over sixty” as teenagers celebrating their emerging adulthood. Set on the night after the last ATAR exam, a group of seventeen year olds (and a tag-along sibling) party hard, but reveal their hopes and fears, explore crushes and friendship and realise that their lives as they know them are about to change. Writer Matthew Whittet’s device of using older actors allows us to see what lies behind the alpha male, the loser and the queen bee, and reveal the vulnerability beneath. We are more invested in their future, as we can see what they will become. Vicki Billingham is compelling as “it girl” Jess, while Lis Hoffman has lovely depth as her friend Emelia. Colin Hughes shakes a move as popular Mike, with Tom Rees nicely layered as thoughtful mate Tom. Geoff Leeder beautifully reveals the sad story behind the awkward ‘loser’ Out of Order Ron, while Sharon Greenock is lovely as annoying fourteenBy Ray Cooney. Maitland Repertory Theatre, at its theatre. year-old sister Lizzy, whose insights are key to her friends’ Feb 7 - 25. self discovery. THIS staging of Ray Cooney’s Out of Order confirmed While a little shaky on opening night, it was clear that him to be one of the world’s best creators of farcical this would soon become a very crisp presentation. Some comedy, with the opening night audience laughing loudly wonderful performers, having fun with a thoughtful and from beginning to end. clever script. The title is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the behaviour Seventeen was a lovely show, which delivered on its of the main character, a British government minister, interesting premise. Richard Willey (Dan Shaunessy), who uses an all-night Kimberley Shaw parliamentary sitting for a liaison with the attractive secretary, Jane Worthington (Ashlyn Horder), of an To read more Fringe World 2018 reviews, visit our opposition front-bencher. Everything goes wrong from the website: http://bit.ly/2CGaOuG 74 Stage Whispers
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Reviews: Musicals
Online extras! Get a taste of Darlinghurst Nights by scanning the QR code or visiting https://youtu.be/9HQo7qaL_pY
Darlinghurst Nights. Photo: Brett Boardman.
Darlinghurst Nights Book by Katherine Thomson. Music by Max Lambert. Based on the book Darlinghurst Nights by Kenneth Slessor and an original concept by Andrew James. Directed by Lee Lewis. Musical Director Max Lambert. Hayes Theatre Co. Jan 4 Feb 3. THIS musical gem beautifully evokes the ghosts of those who once walked the streets of Darlinghurst and Kings Cross just outside the Hayes Theatre itself. Drawing on Kenneth Slessor’s collection of poems from the 1920-30s, it also travels in time - reviving an Australian musical successfully premiered 30 years ago. Kath Thomson skilfully presents a kaleidoscope of these stories and songs, in short, interconnected snippets, introduced by Slessor as the observant local poet (Sean O’Shea). We meet the spirited young Mabel (Baylie Carson) just arrived from the country; Cora (Billie Rose Pritchard), struggling to stay off the game; and Rose (Natalie Gamsu) an aging flapper about to lose her sugar daddy - all women trying to find independence. Spud (Abe Mitchell) is Cora’s small crim, bullying husband and Frank (Andrew Cutcliffe), a friend of Mabel’s, is an iceman losing his trade to the Kelvinators. As a foil for Slessor, Joe is his Irish mate, the affable if often drunken, depressive cartoonist (a fine Justin Smith). Joe’s haunting real-life disappearance on Sydney Harbour inspired Slessor’s famous poem Five Bells. Composer Max Lambert creates a cacophony of musical styles to match this dramatic jigsaw, a score arcing through
jazz, Broadway melodies, hymns and touches of Sondheim and Weill. And all from just Lambert on piano with musician Roger Lock. Thomson’s lyrics, drawing on Slessor’s often dark poetry, are more philosophical than character-driven adding a soulful depth to Darlinghurst Nights but also the challenge to fully enunciate them. But director Lee Lewis orchestrates magic from her talented ensemble, Thomson skilfully weaves this lyricism with the realistic street talk of her characters, while John O’Connell’s compelling choreography has a big show impact. It’s all squeezed onto a simple laneway set of packing pallets (designer Mason Browne), colourfully lit by Trent Suidgeest and drenched in local street sounds. Martin Portus The Rocky Horror Show Book, Music & Lyrics: Richard O’Brien. Howard Panter, John Frost, GWB Entertainment. Director: Christopher Luscombe. Musical Director: Dave Skelton. Concert Hall, QPAC, Brisbane. Jan 18 - Feb 11, and touring. THE Rocky Horror Show is back again in all its glory, with its excess of sequins, glitter and raunchy dialogue. It’s a reboot of the 40th anniversary production with a new cast (except for Brendan Irving’s Rocky) headed by last minute replacement Adam Rennie as Frank-N-Furter. Unlike his predecessors he didn’t bloat the role with ad-libs, but he sang it well and was funny, especially in the deflowering of Brad and Janet, which seemed to contain more explicit innuendo than normal.
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Rob Mallett (Brad) and Michelle Smitheram (Janet) were a cute couple of Ken and Barbie virgins - she with her poodle skirt looking like an Olivia Newton John clone, and he with his horn-rimmed glasses straight out of a 50s TV sitcom, while Amanda Harrison in the dual roles of the Roxy Usherette and Magenta was a class act in everything she did. Cameron Daddo played the Narrator with a knowing wink and looked sexier than almost anyone else on stage when he stripped to his fishnets at the end, Kristin Lavercombe was a Frankenstein hokey Riff Raff, with Nadia Komazec manically filling the tap shoes of Columbia. Brendan Irving (Rocky) again looked the part with muscles coming out of his ears, while James Bryers as Eddie was a blast with “Hot Patootie”. Peter Pinne The Little Mermaid Book: Doug Wright, Music: Alan Menken, Lyrics: Howard Ashman and Glenn Slater. Ballina Players. Director: Jacquie McCalman. Jan 12 - 20. FOR a refreshing change from the summer heat, Ballina’s underwater adventure The Little Mermaid is a cool hit! The Players’ annual youth production, once again, is riding on “the crest of the wave”. With a cast of Zack Weedon in First Date.
approximately 50, Director Jaquie McCalman, together with Musical Director Max Foggon and Choreographer Tim Roberts, has delivered a fabulous family friendly show. The strong principal line-up work wonderfully as a “shoal” and the supporting “school” of fishes add to the quality of the production which is enhanced by the “splash” of colour of the costumes and the scenery and electrified props. Having reviewed many of these youth productions it is wonderful to see these young people improve from show to show. Obviously, the training they received from the Players’ experienced adults is fantastic and gives them the confidence to deliver the quality performances seen in this “swell” production. The entire cast and crew are to be congratulated for a most entertaining production. Roger McKenzie First Date By Austin Winsberg, Alan Zachary and Michael Weiner. Shoebox Theatre Company. Armitage Centre, Toowoomba. Feb 15 - 17. SHOEBOX Theatre Company’s Queensland premiere of First Date is definitely a ‘swipe right’ - for its packed-house audience, it was love at first sight. This production showcased the best thing about so-called ‘amateur’ performances - a cast and crew infusing the show with a true sense of ensemble energy and infectious joy. The simple story of a blind date, First Date was much more than a cute, comedy sketch show. A mini Broadway musical, it ticked all the boxes: slow ballads, belt-em-out tunes, comedy highs and emotional lows - the perfect vehicle for a talented group of local actors and musicians. No musical-lite, First Date contains more than a dozen songs. It was definitely a perfect match for the Shoebox cast. As the first-daters, Jess Berwick and Dan Stewart prove they can handle challenging rom-com roles while selling a sweet pop song. The duo was confidently buoyed by a strong safety net ensemble. There were standout performances by Angela Ponting, Elesha Hetherington, Harrison Paroz, Matt Collins and Zack Weedon, each hitting the right note in a range of clever cameos that help or hinder the dating couple and move the action along. This group of Shoebox performers have appeared in more than 100 shows with local performing groups, making it difficult to judge them as ‘amateur’. Shoebox also displays marketing savvy, engaging Toowoomba’s vibrant café scene in promoting a lively local show - a marriage of culture and commerce made in heaven. Beth Keehn Xanadu Book by Douglas Carter Beane. Music and Lyrics by Jeff Lynne and John Farrar. Phoenix Ensemble (Qld). Feb 2 - 22. CAN a musical be simultaneously indefensible and irresistible? Why, yes it can. Witness Xanadu, the outlandishly enjoyable stage spoof of the outrageously bad movie from 1980 about a painter and his muse who find love at a roller disco in Los Angeles.
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Bonnie Fawcett, as the Greek demi-goddess Clio who also roams Venice Beach as the Australian mortal Kira, is simply heaven on eight little polyurethane wheels. Or heaven in leg warmers. Actually, she’s both. Two muses of myth, Melpomene (Shelley Scott) and Calliope (Laura Baker), deliver the bulk of the funny repartee with perfect comedic timing and on-stage sisterly chemistry. Sonny, the loveable and suicidal artist, is played with charm by Anthony Jacobsen - providing the perfect amount of ‘doeeyed-love’ for Clio. Ian Moore, as roller-rink entrepreneur Danny and inevitably Zeus, stuns the audience with his deep and rich vocals, bringing some perfect harmony to the sweet sound of Fawcett’s Clio. It is not every day that we see people singing, dancing, acting and making us laugh, all at once, and on roller-skates no less. The biggest highlight here would be the cohesive energy of the cast. It’s rare to find every performer on the same page in terms of production value but this cast does it with ease and charisma. It’s hard to resist the charm and energy of the production. Director Justin Tubb-Hearne brings a flamboyant vibrancy to the work, never missing a beat with his show’s unrelenting hammy humour. Always engaging and always in jest, every weakness of the 1980 film is turned into a knowing joke, as are the few effective poignancies from the original. Mel Bobbermien
tightened the piece but both acts are still too long (always a problem with Phillips’ original work). The only jarring note was Andrew Hallsworth’s jerky choreography, OK for “Splish Splash” but anachronistic for mostly everything else. Still it’s only a minor quibble, really, because you won’t be watching the ensemble, you’ll only be watching Campbell. He’s the real deal. A star! Peter Pinne
The View Upstairs By Max Vernon. Invisible Wall Productions / Sugary Rum Productions. Directed by Shaun Rennie. Hayes Theatre Co, Sydney. Feb 8 - Mar 11. BARS have long been central to gay life: for many years they were the only place to meet friends or a partner. But they’re much less pivotal today - and the communities who gathered in them are diminished. That’s the theme of the off-Broadway musical The View Upstairs, written by a young New Yorker, Max Vernon. The show’s conceit is clever: transport a young man who’s bought a former gay bar back to meet the characters who once inhabited it. The View Upstairs is patchy: some of the lines are funny but others are too obvious. The music is powerful but the lyrics and script are often preachy. The show has strengths but needs development. The production, however, is accomplished. Isabel Hudson’s set design is wonderful, creating the muchDream Lover needed sense of community. Shaun Rennie’s direction Music & Lyrics: Bobby Darin & Others. Concept & Book: keeps the action quick and easy to follow. John Michael Howson & Frank Howson. Additional material Henry Brett, playing the lead Wes, captures a touching by Simon Phillips & Carolyn Burns. John Frost & Gilbert vulnerability and nonchalance. Stephen Madsen, as Wes’s Theatrical. Director: Simon Phillips. Choreographer: Andrew love interest Patrick, is endearing. But this is an ensemble Hallsworth. Musical Director: Richard Montgomery. State piece and is strongest when everyone is on stage. Theatre, Arts Centre, Melbourne. Dec 31, 2017 - Mar 4, This is an excellent production of a show that needs 2018. more work. An enjoyable night in a very different world. DAVID Campbell is giving a gold standard Broadway Peter Gotting performance in Dream Lover, the jukebox musical based on the life of Bobby Darin. Rarely off-stage, he’s simply a We Will Rock You powerhouse delivering show-stopping vocals of Darin’s Music and lyrics by Queen. Story and script by Ben Elton. songbook that embrace everything from “Mack the Knife” Woftam Productions. NSW Amateur Premiere. Town Hall to “Splish Splash”, and the title tune. Theatre, Campbelltown. Feb 2 - 17. Although it’s a show-business saga, it carries some WOFTAM’s production was a thoroughly entertaining pathos and emotion which Campbell and Hannah premiere of one of the newest musicals to hit the amateur Frederickson play very well indeed. Her capturing of Sandra theatre circuit. The hilarious script by Ben Elton had the Dee’s vulnerability and sexual abuse back-story was audience in stitches, while also clapping and foot-tapping heartfelt and her solo spot with “Charade”, as a comment along to many of Queen’s rock classics. on their fractured marriage, was extremely effective. Full of colour, the bright and bold costumes, lighting Campbell was brilliant in the second act reveal when he and limited set pieces took us on the show’s journey. The finds out his mother is actually his grandmother. cast had an infectious energy. Marina Prior couldn’t have been better as the downJames Cassar, as Galileo, lead the show with some market Polly, then doing a complete switch with the driven powerful vocals and lovely harmonising. He has a youngish and determined-to-make-her-daughter-a-star Mary. Martin looking face but played the inquisitive rebel role well. Crewes was a great second-banana as Darin’s agent Steve Lauren Waite played Scaramouche perfectly, her bogan Blauner and his duet with Campbell of “The Best Is Yet To accent suiting her role. Vocally the stand out of the show, Come” was a blast. she blew me away with her rendition of “Somebody To There have been revisions to the show since its Sydney Love”. Her on stage chemistry with Cassar was clearly premiere in October in 2016 (gone are the Afro wigs in evident and believable. “Simple Songs of Freedom”) and director Simon Phillips has Longer versions of many reviews can now be found at www.stagewhispers.com.au
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Online extras! Join in on the excitement of Priscilla Queen Of The Desert: The Musical. https://youtu.be/dgHCeE-t5Rk
Euan Doidge in Priscilla Queen Of The Desert. Photo: Ben Symons.
Kat Feil as Killer Queen showed her vocal talents in “Another One Bites The Dust,” amongst many other numbers, and her commanding stage presence was just what the character needed, while she had some amazing costume pieces. Other performances deserving mention came from Ben Taylor as Brit and Renee Ciaparra as Oz (also Dance Captain). The choreography by Monique Barrios was effective, getting the best out of the dancing talent she had. Novakovich’s direction was effective on the limited space, with the stripped back stage and limited set pieces working well to change settings. The band, lead by Director/Musical Director Peter Novakovich, played the rock score to perfection. An encore after bows of “Bohemian Rhapsody”, performed by the whole cast, left the audience singing off into the night. James Russell
This unlikely road trip to the outback to put on a drag performance is a story that has enchanted audiences worldwide. Tick’s (David Harris) desire to connect with his son is at the forefront, emphasizing the important message of tolerance and inclusivity. However, there is always room for the gleeful subversive tone provided by his companions: Bernadette (Tony Sheldon), less jaded but just as tough and compassionate, and raucous Felicia (Euan Doidge), who provides an extremely facetious perspective to the unexpected events encountered along the road. There are both very recognisable and original designs. Tim Chappel and Lizzy Gardiner continue with their noholds-barred approach to the drag queen apparel and create some outrageously inventive costumes. This is a show with guaranteed doses of fun and laughter framed by some excellent singing, dancing and ensemble stagecraft. The Diva vocalists, Angelique Cassimatis, Samm Hagen and Cle Morgan, are supported by a smashing big band sound. Frequently belting out canonical hits such as “It’s Raining Men” and “Finally” while Priscilla Queen Of The Desert: The Musical. suspended in mid-air, these talented singers exhibit By Allan Scott and Stephan Elliott. Directed by Simon astonishing flair and power. Phillips. Regent Theatre, 191 Collins St, Melbourne. Jan 21 Shirley (Emma Powell), manager of the unwelcoming Apr 29, then touring. pub in Broken Hill, is also masterfully portrayed, allowing THIS 10th anniversary return of the musical version of for complete empathy with the glamorous drag queens and Priscilla Queen of the Desert is an absolute extravaganza of highlighting the hostility towards the gay community. The glittering costumes, awesome sets and fabulous musical Priscilla bus is a fantastic feature, both as a backdrop and a talent, just as flamboyant and impish as the original 1994 setting for many of the joys and challenges throughout the film. journey. 78 Stage Whispers
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The iconic value of Priscilla is fully exploited to ensure that the brash nature of Australian identity is always endearing and a source of pride. This show continues in the tradition of the film, bringing out the best of our culture by poking fun at some of our most unique national characteristics and idiosyncrasies. Patricia Di Risio
Sextimus. Shelley Whiteaker was a highly aggravating Queen Aggravain, delivering a likeable performance. Darren Bilston (The Minstrel) and Sarah Christiner (The Jester) worked expertly together in solid portrayals. Caris Read was a lovely Larken, working well with Vincent Moore, picture perfect as Harry. Matthew Wake gave an admirable performance as The Wizard. Great support from the myriad of cameo roles. I particularly enjoyed Tahlia Aitkenhead’s Princess Number 12 Charlotte’s Web By Jason Robinette and Charles Strouse. Stirling Players. and the Seven Dwarves. Directed by Fran Gordon. Stirling Theatre, Innaloo, WA. Feb While not all individual singing was outstanding, all 9 - 24. performances were likeable, characters were well drawn THERE is lots to like in this musical, performed by and there was lovely commitment at all times. Once Upon A Mattress was a delightful romp presented children from ten to fifteen. The production looks superb, with a picture-book set constructed by David and Jason by a director with a wonderful understanding of the text. Wall, beautifully painted. The costumes, especially the Kimberley Shaw animals (Fran Gordon and Cassidy Kempster) are gorgeous and the specialist makeup (Cassidy Kempster again) is Bring It On lovely. There was thoughtful attention to detail with props Book: Jeff Whitty, Music: Tom Kitt & Lin-Manuel Miranda, and set dressing. Lyrics: Amanda Green & Lin-Manuel Miranda. Directed by Enthusiastic performances abound. Solid acting Katherine Friend. Kalamunda Performing Arts Centre, WA. performances from central character Wilbur, a likeable and Feb 2 - 11. genuine Sean Smith, title role Charlotte, a mature and BLACK Box’s Bring It On is a cheerleading musical with a elegant Kate McCracken and young heroine Fern, a large cast, buckets of enthusiasm and team spirit. convincing and nuanced Ella Hagon. Katie Price (Campbell) is an outstanding leading lady Standouts in the cast of twenty-six - the vast majority with lovely depth, singing beautifully and a delight to with speaking roles - include the team of farm animals who watch. formed a lovely sub-ensemble. Cameron Clear as shady Campbell’s cheer buddies, Skylar and Kylar, were very Templeton the Rat coped professionally with a continually well portrayed by Asha Vivian and Saskia Ware. Eva, malfunctioning microphone. Jorja Austin and Ben Lane delightfully perky newcomer and secret evil master-mind, worked well together as Goose and Gander, with Macy was expertly played by Chloe Marlow, in a stellar portrayal. Waldram and Ella Simpson lovely as Sheep and Lamb. Campbell’s boyfriend was the very nice Harley Dasey. Cameron Taylor was memorable as Homer Zuckerman, Social misfit, and gorgeously geeky, Bridget was a with well-acted cameos from Jack Churchman (The loveable and layered performance from Matilda Jenkins. Photographer and Judge) and Denver Havercroft (The We meet cool girls Danielle (Amy Cornel - strong Concessionaire), but all of the performers were working contemporary vocals), Nautica (a vivacious Ariana Vallejo) hard and were nicely focused. Choreography, by Celeste and beautifully self-aware La Cienega (a confident Blake Underhill and Krispin Maesalu, was nicely executed. Jenkins). The boys are Randall (a smooth Cooper Jenkins), Kimberley Shaw sincere but inept Twig (a likeable Ashley Garner) and basketballer Cameron (great moves from Luis Barnes). Once Upon A Mattress The ensemble provides good support and strong vocals, Music by Mary Rodgers, lyrics by Marshall Barer, and book executing choreography (Shanice-Kalina Thompson) with by Jay Thompson, Dean Fuller, and Marshall Barer. energy and precision. The cast is well dressed in costumes Primadonna Productions. Directed by Carole Dhu. by Michaela Pavlov. Mandurah Performing Arts Centre, WA. Jan 11 - 14. Musical Director Phoebe Jackson produced solid vocal ONCE Upon A Mattress was a joyful celebration with performances and lead a live band. great colour, good laughs and lovely energy. Congratulations to director Katherine Freind and the Black The cast worked well as an ensemble telling the ‘true’ Box Team. story of The Princess and the Pea. Supported by a four-piece Kimberley Shaw band, group numbers sounded great under musical direction by Bruce Angus. Trial By Jukebox Much of the success of this show lies in the casting and Written by Gilbert & Sullivan, score re-imagined by Matt performance of Princess Winifred. Sian Dhu was a down-to- Harris. The Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Tasmania. Director: earth triumph, who owned the stage and charmed the Anne Blythe-Cooper. Supreme Court Hobart. Jan 5 - 27. audience. THE Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Tasmania has presented As unlikely love interest Dauntless the Drab, Peter Trial By Jury some 20 times since 1974. Usually they put a Bonner’s “Song of Love” with Sian Dhu was a showstopper. bit of a new spin on it, however director Anne BlytheMichael Caldwell brought personality to mute King Cooper said that never has the music been changed like it has for this production. Longer versions of many reviews can now be found at www.stagewhispers.com.au
Stage Whispers 79
The latest offering is Trial By Jukebox, in which the standard format has been “re-imagined” as a rock piece, adding freshness and some rocky re-workings of the original score. The varied cast, mostly of newcomers, with some old-hands, gave the director a lot to work with, creating a fresh and sassy look. Matt Harris re-imagined the score. “All hail great Judge”, formerly sonorous and anthemic, received a gospel treatment, becoming a fun, bouncy number with step-click time, performed delightfully by the chorus, court room cast and the gorgeous bridesmaids, Amanda and Veronicka Devlin. The Judge, experienced performer Mark Morgan, satirised all Elvis impersonators everywhere, in a satisfying performance, showcasing his comic timing. Sam Dean, as bad boy Eddie, played the defendant with a sulky lip-curl and sexy hip-swivel. Teenage newcomer Thomas Di Pretora is a find, playing the Usher with confidence and skill. Sanya Jones (Angie, the plaintiff), with her sweet voice and engaging stage presence, will benefit from a lapel mike and a little more experience. The courtroom’s fixtures and varied levels make an effective set. Fun songs with a rock or gospel feel showed the cohesion of the leads and chorus/ensemble: favourites were “Courthouse Rock”, “A Nice Dilemma” and final song “Joy Unbounded”, a rock tune with a Chuck Berry feel. It all Packemin Productions Shrek The Musical. Photo: Grant Leslie.
Online extras! Watch Jay Laga’aia’s transformation into Shrek by scanning the QR code or visiting http://bit.ly/2EP5c73 80 Stage Whispers
came together as a satisfyingly witty, bouncy take on a classic. Merlene Abbott Shrek The Musical Book and Lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire, Music by Jeanine Tesori. Based on the DreamWorks Animation Motion Picture and the book by William Steig. Packemin Productions. Riverside Theatres (Parramatta). Feb 2 - 17. I’VE had the pleasure of seeing a couple of Packemin Productions’ shows and each time I am impressed not just by the singing, acting and dancing, but the creative detail that goes into each production. Shrek The Musical was no different. Based on the smash hit DreamWorks Animation film, Shrek is a Tony Award winning fairy tale adventure, bringing the beloved characters from the movie to the stage. Jay Laga’aia as Shrek and Nat Jobe as Donkey both gave commendable performances, however Luke Joslin as Lord Farquaad was definitely a standout. As the character is short in stature, Luke spends his time on stage walking around on his knees. Any actor who can then perform a chorus line while kneeling deserves recognition! There was also something endearing about Mikayla Williams’ portrayal of the feisty and slightly crazy (well you would be too if you’d been locked in a tower for 8,423 days) Princess Fiona. While the leads were great, the ensemble really lifted this show. They were cohesive with their choreography, had amazing volume and I was drawn to the animated facial expressions on every performer’s face. The creative and technical skill of the production team also stood out with the impressive sets making clever use of perspective to add extra height to the stage and the bright, colourful costumes and props. I still can’t quite work out how Pinocchio’s nose grew every time he lied! I also loved that the show ended with a favourite tune from the movie which had everyone dancing in the aisles! Shannon O’Connell Shrek The Musical Music by Jeanine Tesori, with book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire. Adelaide Youth Theatre. Arts Theatre, Adelaide. Jan 19 - 27. IF you think Shrek is just for kids, think again. Set in medieval times, the ogre Shrek, played with a soothing Scottish accent by Andrew Crispe, endears himself to the audience with his crooning voice and gentle hip-swaying as he’s pestered by the camp, flamboyant Donkey (Nathan Stafford). During his journey, Shrek encounters an ensemble cast of fairy tale creatures, guards and court beauties, all magnificently costumed, entertaining the audience with well-rehearsed song, dance and tap numbers. The relentless comedy reaches new heights every time villain Lord Farquaad (Chad Crittle) appears. This half-pint character stole the show with his outrageous costume and ostentatious behaviour. Tegan Gully’s Fiona is an entertaining mix of neurotic, naughty and romantic. There was some nice chemistry
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Falsettos.
Online extras! Watch the cast of Falsettos perform “Unlikely Lovers.” Scan the code or visit https://youtu.be/EgTQnTlPh_8 between the Gully and Crispe, including duets such as “I Think I Got You Beat”. One up-and-comer to watch is Oscar Bridges, who played Pinocchio. His delivery showed a level of maturity beyond his years. The sound technicians were flawless and the sets of the highest quality, none more so than when the spectacular Dragon, led by Zali Sedgman, made its way on stage. With plenty of fart humour, there were many times when the audience was in fits of laughter. Adelaide Youth Theatre’s latest production is pure entertainment. Kerry Cooper Falsettos By James Lapine and William Finn. StageArt. Chapel Off Chapel. Feb 1 - 11. FALSETTOS is a superbly entertaining musical presented by Stage Art. It is an award winning musical about a dysfunctional yet loving New York Jewish family, set in late seventies with AIDS crisis looming. It is a timeless musical that delves into the need and quest for love and understanding. Falsettos will exhilarate and entertain and offer you a musical emotional roller coaster ride. The songs are soulstirring, melding dialogue into song. Tyran Parke’s direction and Madison Lee’s choreography are seamless. The show begins with Trina (Sarah Shahinian), who has just discovered her husband is in love with a caddish young gay man. Shahinian gives a dizzying and hilarious performance in “I’m Breaking Down”, and her playful
rendition of “I’m tired of all the Happy Men”, whilst berating herself for loving them, is moving and entertaining. The song and dance routines ooze a vaudevillian style with a distinctive New York flavor. Full credit to David Butler who is a real whizz on the piano. Marvin (Don Winsor), the husband who expects everyone to succumb to his own needs, is foppish and hilarious. Mendel (Nick Simpson-Deeks), the family psychiatrist, a lonely recumbent Jewish man seeking love, gives a stupendous performance with flawless flair. Overall praise to the entire Falsettos team, who were exquisite in their timing and performance. Flora Georgiou Elf Jnr. The Musical Songs Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin, with a book by Thomas Meehan and Bob Martin. Adelaide Youth Theatre. Arts Theatre. Dec 22 & 23 2017. ADELAIDE Youth Theatre’s latest production, teaming high energy production numbers with some catchy tunes, makes for an entertaining hour of festive fun. Its feel-good tale of an elf orphan (actually a human) is delightful in its execution, comical and touching. Director Alana Shepherdson and producers Emma Riggs and Kerreane Sarti have assembled a talented cast. Choreographer Holly Fennell does well to highlight strengths in individual performers and musical director Emma Knights does not miss a beat with the catchy score. Connor Olsson-Jones owns the lead role of Buddy the elf, oozing charisma, energy, talent and a touch of
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Stage Whispers 81
Wicked. Photo: Kit Haselden.
Online extras! Wicked was a hit with audiences. See what they had to say. Scan or visit https://youtu.be/gBsxu4OBU8E
innocence. His vocals were strong and needed to be as he featured in all but two musical numbers. Emily and Michael Hobbs were brought to life by Zali Sedgman and Miley Vincent respectively; their duet ‘I’ll Believe in You’ was a highlight. Set pieces were beautifully adorned with Christmas decorations and locations were projected on the back wall. Costume co-ordinator Lisa O’Donovan has chosen every variation of red and green material to dress the jolly cast. The production is truly a feast for the eyes. This fast-paced family frolic will have even the coldest of sceptics believing in Christmas. Kerry Cooper The Wedding Singer Book by Chad Beguelin and Tim Herlihy. Lyrics by Chad Begulin and music by Matthew Sklar. Based on the New Line Cinema film written by Tim Herlihy. Director: Pam Cooper. Musical Director: Sean Fagan. Sunnybank Theatre Group. Feb 9 - 17. THERE are a lot of things to be impressed about when you see The Wedding Singer. Everyone on stage has a cheerfully infectious joy. The cast are well-rehearsed, never appearing to miss a line or a beat. The show also benefits from great choreography by Jacquie Cullen to support the plentiful songs throughout. Fans of new music will be thrilled with the funny original tunes. The direction by Pam Cooper is tight. Lisa Alsop as Linda is fearlessly funny as well as having a great singing voice. Lesley Davis as Grandma Rosie is also a delight. Every time 82 Stage Whispers
Melanie Pennisi is on stage, she shines brightly enough to make one wish she had a larger role. Elton Jun Camagay is lovely as George, while both leads Chris-Morphett-Wheately (Robbie Hart) and Katya Bryant (Julia) take a little while to warm into their roles. There are a few moments when cast members’ selfconsciousness overshadows the characterisation. The leads can work a little more on generating the chemistry you see in a blooming romance. Sound levels are also occasionally problematic. That said, this show is really pleasurable and packed full of laughs. The digital set design is a cool idea, lighting good and costumes radical. The cast have so much fun performing it really does enhance the audience’s enjoyment. It doesn’t matter if you’ve seen the film or not, you were alive in the 80’s or just a twinkle in your parents’ eyes, this show has wide appeal and is very uplifting viewing. Kiesten McCauley Wicked Music and Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz. Book by Winnie Holzman. Young Australian Broadway Chorus. Director: Robert Coates. Musical Director: Andy Coates. Choreographer: Jacqui Green. National Theatre, St Kilda. Jan 19 - 27. THIS was the third production of Wicked I have encountered. I saw the professional production and reviewed a performance by one of the top amateur
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companies. So how would a company of juniors cope with this demanding musical? In a word, magnificently! With an ensemble of well over 100 performers, none over 21, the stage was generally bare, with big cogs on the sides in front of the proscenium. Different pieces of furniture were quickly brought on for different scenes to allow the action to flow. The lighting was impressive. The large chorus was a highlight. The sound was powerful, the harmony tight and the choreography even tighter. No professional company could afford an ensemble of that size. At one stage there was a large chorus of citizens of OZ then the curtains opened and we had a larger chorus of citizens of the Emerald City. Elphaba was sung by nineteen-year-old Emily Svarnias, who easily covered the full vocal range, from the touching pathos of “I’m not that Girl” to the powerhouse “Defying Gravity”. Eighteen-year-old Jasmine Arthur, a delightful Princess Fiona in Shrek Jnr last year, was equally impressive Glinda, looking and sounding beautiful. The two worked very well together. Tall, dashing Rishab Shrivastav was the love interest, Fiyero, torn between the two women and singing magnificently. Taylor Troeth and Emily Palmer were both strong as Nessarose and Madame Morrible. There were no weak links in this production. The band, also utilising youth, was tight and the costumes impressive. The only issue I had was the band sometimes being a bit loud, so that words were missed. The standing ovation at the end said it all. Graham Ford Oliver! Music, Book and Lyrics: Lionel Bart. Spotlight Theatre, Gold Coast. Director: Andrew Cockcroft-Penman. Feb 9 - Mar 4. LIONEL Bart’s popular musical returns to the stage at Spotlight with all the unsavoury characters that we have grown to love, or hate, as the case may be. This show has had a number of additional performances added to the originally planned season due to the demand for tickets. Sharing the title role are Flynn Nowlan and Zander Engel -Bowe, two talented youngsters with great futures in the business. Also, there are two Artful Dodgers: Jake Binns and Luke Harrison and two Charley Bates: Kieran McGinlay (cover for Oliver) and Connor Otto (cover for the Artful Dodger). The adult cast includes Rob Horton as Fagin, Zoe Richards as Nancy, Nathan Skaines as Mr Bubble, Katy Charles-Otto as The Widow Corney and David Law as Bill Sykes. The production team of Andrew Cockcroft-Penman, Caroline Taylor and Ben Murray (Co-Musical Directors) and Jamie Watt (Choreography) have created a fast moving, action packed show. With a cast of over 60, the logistics of this production were enormous (the majority of the cast are kids!) With an easily adaptable set, the show has pace and is a great theatre experience. Roger McKenzie
PERFORMING ARTS MAGAZINE MARCH/APRIL 2018. VOLUME 27, NUMBER 2 ABN 71 129 358 710 ISSN 1321 5965
All correspondence to: The Editor, Stage Whispers, P.O. Box 2274, Rose Bay North 2030, New South Wales. Telephone/Fax: (03) 9758 4522 Advertising: stagews@stagewhispers.com.au Editorial: neil@stagewhispers.com.au PRINTED BY: Spotpress Pty Ltd, 24-26 Lilian Fowler Place, Marrickville, 2204 PUBLISHED BY: Stage Whispers PRE-PRESS PRODUCTION & DESIGN BY: PJTonline Solutions, email: pjtonline@pjtonline.com DISTRIBUTED BY: Gordon & Gotch, 25-37 Huntingdale Road, Burwood, 3125 DEADLINES For inclusion in the next edition, please submit articles, company notes and advertisements to Stage Whispers by April 8th, 2018. SUBSCRIPTION Prices are $39.50 for 6 editions in Australia and $60AUD elsewhere. Overseas Surface Mail (Airmail by special arrangement). Overseas subscribers please send bank draft in Australian currency. Maximum suggested retail is $6.95 including GST. Address of all subscription correspondence to above address. When moving, advise us immediately of your old and new address in order to avoid lost or delayed copies. FREELANCE CONTRIBUTORS Are welcomed by this magazine and all articles should be addressed to Stage Whispers at the above address. The Publisher accepts no responsibility for unsolicited material. Black and white or colour photographs are suitable for production. DISCLAIMER All expressions of opinion in Stage Whispers are published on the basis that they reflect the personal opinion of the authors and as such are not to be taken as expressing the official opinion of The Publishers unless expressly so stated. Stage Whispers accepts no responsibility for the accuracy of any opinion or information contained in this magazine. LIMITED BACK COPIES AVAILABLE ADVERTISERS We accept no responsibility for material submitted that does not comply with the Trade Practices Act. CAST & CREW Editor: Neil Litchfield 0438 938 064 Sub-editor: David Spicer Advertising: Angela Thompson 03 9758 4522 Digital production: Phillip Tyson 0414 781 008 Contributors: Alex Armstrong, Cathy Bannister, Anne BlytheCooper, Mel Bobbermien, Michael Brindley, Rose Cooper, Kerry Cooper, Ken Cotterill, Bill Davies, Coral Drouyn, Graham Ford, Peter Gotting, Frank Hatherley, Shelley Hampton, John P. Harvey, Barry Hill, Clare James, Tony Knight, Neil Litchfield, Ken Longworth, Kiesten Mcauley, Rachel McGrath-Kerr, Roger McKenzie, Peter Novakovich, Shannon O’Connell, Peter Pinne, Martin Portus, Sally Putnam, Lesley Reed, Lisa Romeo, Suzanne Sandow, Kimberley Shaw, David Spicer, Penelope Thomas, Anthony Vawser and Carol Wimmer.
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Stage Whispers 83
the regular average. A 51 year old man had a massive heart attack ten minutes after saying his last goodbyes to his daughter. What would I have done if I had been awake when the text came through? Well my first instinct would have been to get out of the high rise building we were in. But where do you hide? And even the threat of bomb may not be enough to dislodge a teenager from her slumber. We would have turned on the TV and seen the message being flashed across the screen, which would have
Musical Spice
The most dramatic thing to happen to me this year took place in Hawaii, when my mobile phone buzzed with a warning text message - “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” The phrase “This is not a drill” is the same as that used in a frantic radio message from a pilot when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour. For 38 minutes the people of Hawaii were in varying states of terror, confusion and apathy. How long before someone makes this into a one act play? It was the second day of our holiday and my sleep had been interrupted several times during the night by buzzing noises on my daughter’s phone. Nothing about a rogue dictator in North Korea - just social media notifications from her friends. When the ballistic missile text came through, I was in a deep sleep. My wife Ruthie heard the unusual buzz on the phone and made the sensible decision to turn the device over and ignore it. Then the evacuation alarm started going off. By the time I woke up someone in the corridor was saying false alarm. A new message buzzed on my phone: “There is no missile threat or danger to the State or Hawaii. Repeat. False Alarm.”
I switched on CNN. It was the lead story. Should I ring the newsroom where I work and file a story? Yes. Soon I was on national television doing a phone interview, then came the request to file a story for the evening news. My problem was we were booked on a cruise ship at 4pm - I would be copping a ballistic missile from my wife if I missed the boat. Within a short space of time a freelance cameraman was found who came to me, and all I had to do was find some quotes from members of the general public who were affected by the text and do a piece to camera. What should I wear? A Hawaiian shirt or that striped casual shirt I packed? I made a mistake and chose the striped top - the Hawaiian shirt pictured here would have been much more theatrical. All up it was the easiest story I had worked on in a
84 Stage Whispers March - April 2018
long while and my freelance cameraman even gave us a lift to the cruise ship terminal. As we continued our holiday we learnt other people did not have such a jolly experience. A couple we met rang their family at home, told them they loved them, then headed to the bar for their last drink. Japanese tourists were seen running in panic on Waikiki beach. One resident put his child into a sewer pipe. A bus driver told me that a local resident broke into a hardware shop to steal duct tape to secure his windows. He was arrested by Police, but I presume would be let off under the circumstances. Planes were grounded, buses on day long tours were turned around. The Honolulu Emergency Medical Service received 29 calls in the hour after the text, which was more than double
ratcheted up the blood pressure. Even though the ‘emergency’ was over in 38 minutes, the story has continued for weeks. The employee who ‘pressed the wrong button’ lost his job. His supervisor who issued the order also lost his job. The employee did not hear the word “Exercise” repeated six times when the order came through at a change of shift. Perhaps the real comedy of errors was how long it took to retract the order. The US Military command immediately confirmed it was a false alarm but Governor of Hawaii did not have the password for his Twitter account to send out a retraction. Let’s hope it’s the last time someone presses the wrong button. David Spicer
Read scripts, listen to music and order free catalogue at: www.davidspicer.com.au david@davidspicer.com (02) 9371 8458
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