Stage Whispers May/June 2021 edition

stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 1

7 In this issue

A German Life .................................................................................................. 4 How ‘Trumpism’ lured Robyn Nevin to portray an ‘ordinary’ life in Nazi Germany The Heart Of Hamilton.................................................................................... 10 An audience at NIDA with Hamilton’s international producer Jeffrey Seller

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The Past Is Never Dead ................................................................................... 14 How a trip to Berlin and family history inspired Joanna Murray-Smith’s latest play Theatrical Throwback...................................................................................... 20 The Wedding Singer: The Musical on tour Moulin Rouge & Jagged Little Pill .................................................................... 22 Broadway’s paused hits reach Australia Almost Friends ............................................................................................... 24 The musical parody of popular TV sitcom Friends hits our stages

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Lighting Hamilton ........................................................................................... 30 Breaking down Tony Award-winning Howell Binkley’s lighting design On The Buses ................................................................................................. 32 Building Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert for Community Theatre stages Behind The Scenes With Debora Krizak ........................................................... 36 A Musical Theatre star on why performers depend on audio Hearing The People Sing Again ....................................................................... 39 How an audio event company survived COVID-19 and has re-emerged

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The Power Of Sound....................................................................................... 42 We speak to four of our top sound designers

Regular Features Script Extract: Melanie Tait’s successful Australian comedy The Appleton Ladies’ Potato Race 26

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Staging & Theatre Tech

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Stage On Page

46

Stage On Disc

48

What’s On

50

Reviews

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Musical Spice: Come in spinner!

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Editorial Dear theatre-goers and theatre-doers, I’ve been performing in Community Theatre for so long that the programs had no credit for sound design.

Vocal projection and diction were the tools we employed to make ourselves heard throughout the auditorium. We performed in front of the same familiar painted backcloths which had done duty in many a suburban production.

Sometimes our voices were supplemented by a handful of shotgun mics across the front of the stage, Our very own Angela Thompson meets with or mics hanging from the flies, but it was generally the Book Nook’s Mary Sutherland following conductor’s baton and gestures which controlled the Stage Whispers’ purchase of the business. balance between singers and musicians, not a sound board.

Plays had a few sound effects (I recall hilariously mis-cued gunshots and telephone rings) and incidental music tracks, but not atmospheric soundscapes.

The arrival of the rock musicals Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar on professional stages, though, was already revolutionising the sound of musical theatre, as the line between rock concerts, concept albums and stage shows blurred.

Radio mics were changing the sound of more conventional shows too, by the 70s, though on community theatre stages, diction and projection still reigned. It would still be some years before I would get to wear a body mic in an amateur musical.

But enough nostalgia!

I love what technology allows us to do in theatre today. In our digital age, with ever-advancing technology, the increasing subtlety and nuance of the sound mix is the big pay-off, semi-cinematic soundscapes are possible, and rock musicals rock more than ever.

All this is by way of introducing our annual technical and staging showcase, with some great stories on lighting and sound, including the first in Debora Krizak’s series of articles on our unsung backstage heroes from a performer’s perspective.

But why mention those painted backcloths of my early days in amateur theatre? Well, who’d have imagined the high-tech buses, with their LED wizardry, currently being built for productions of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert across the country.

If you grew up in Sydney in the 1970s like me, there’s every chance that you bought your scripts and theatrical make-up from a funny little shop, upstairs in the Sydney School of Arts building, called Will Andrade’s, browsing through a treasure trove stacked to the rafters with all things theatrical.

Why do I mention yet another bit of history?

As we went to press, a new chapter in our business began, with the acquisition of Book Nook Performing Arts Book Shop. Stage Whispers Books has been expanding during the last year and we look forward to integrating Book Nook into this burgeoning business.

In this digital (and COVID-19) age, while we can’t invite you to a quaint little shop, packed to the rafters with all things theatrical, you can purchase Performing Arts books online at both stagewhispers.com.au/books and booknook.com.au.

More details to come in our next edition.

A New Chapter

Yours in Theatre,

Neil Litchfield Editor

CONNECT

Cover image: Robyn Nevin plays Brunhilde Pomsel in the upcoming national tour of A German Life.

She discusses this portrayal with Jude Hines in our feature story on page 4.

Photo: Hugh Stewart.

Inset: Hamilton.

Photo: Daniel Boud. stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 3

Australia’s grande dame of theatre, Robyn Nevin AO, shares her insights into the ‘ordinary’ life in Nazi Germany she is currently portraying on stages around Australia, and its contemporary resonances.

Stage Whispers’ Jude Hines reports.

Having marvelled at the dramatisation of a completely authentic, yet unimagined testimony of ordinary life in Nazi Germany, I left the theatre somewhat ‘battered’ by the deeply moving Australian premiere of A German Life. I was hungering to further explore this multi-layered story beyond the simple level of an historical recount.

Robyn Nevin portrays Brunhilde Pomsel - an unassuming woman with good shorthand skills who, almost by chance, came to work for Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels. The audience’s standing ovations at the Adelaide Festival premiere attest to descriptions of this as Robyn Nevin’s finest work.

Speaking to the multi-award-winning actor-director from her NSW Southern Highlands home had a profound impact on my understanding of Christopher Hampton’s play.

I asked Robyn, why this piece now?

Unashamedly forthright on why she was so passionate about her return to the stage after a four-year hiatus, she swiftly pointed out the parallels between Goebbels’ Nazi propaganda machine in the play, and the rise of what she describes as ‘Trumpisms’.

Robyn referred to Trump’s invention of “fake news and alternative facts” and sees his attack on truth, and his creation of yet another era of a powerful reinvented form of propaganda, as a warning bell that must be called out and addressed. For her, it was a call to action.

Typically candid, she described her real concern about the proliferation and rise of modern-day propaganda and the opportunity that this play presents to use the lens of 4 Stage Whispers May 2021 - June 2021

historical events, and the strong parallels between an era that we regard as horrific, to focus on today’s subtle and insidious mirroring of those events. She refers to this as a “slippery slope play”, and for her, the play, and its message “was irresistible”. At the very least, she hopes that A German Life is an “uncomfortable cause for reflection”.

Robyn Nevin has nothing to prove. Over her stellar career she has played leading roles with all of Australia’s leading theatre companies, and she has performed in London’s West End and in New York. She has a shelf full of Helpmann Awards, and is credited with turning the Queensland Theatre Company around, supporting it to become one of the country’s best. Her work at the Sydney Theatre Company was innovative and ground breaking, and, coincidentally, along the way she helped bring Cate Blanchett to prominence.

A German Life is confronting. I asked Robyn if there had been any ‘backlash’ from groups for whom the memories of Nazi Germany were still raw?

She cited two examples of people of European descent who had responded quite differently from each other.

Rather than ignore these voices, Robyn took the time to meet with and listen to these people. She acknowledged the painful, real suffering of the family of an Auschwitz survivor and also a young woman who challenged the play’s voracity, in speaking for a race of people. Thus theatregoers should be prepared to be challenged on (Continued on page 6)

Cover Story Robyn Nevin.

Photo: Hugh Stewart.

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footage of the subsequent privation endured by millions of their own, and other people. It is simple, it is genius, and again and again we are reminded that charisma, fear (Continued from page 4) and purposeful ignorance are easy bedfellows with both atrocity and tenuous survival. more than one level by the facts, the messages and the I asked why, after so many years, and so many roles, confronting visual images used to support Pomsel’s story. Robyn chose to undertake this extraordinary challenge, Robyn described the rigour, the demands, and the and unsurprisingly she said that she simply could not discovery process for A German Life as grueling. She spent imagine not working. Entering NIDA as one of its first weeks in a River Torrens boatshed and a progress intake, she was barely 17. It was a brave step for a young association hall in the town of Tonga in NSW, amid girl. She has been acting in multiple mediums, sometimes COVID-19, crafting and refining this solo performance. concurrently, since. When I commented on the difficulty, Directed by Neil Armfield O.A.M., A German Life at any age, of learning such a detailed, historically correct, draws on 235 interviews conducted with 102-year-old sequential piece, she said somewhat offhandedly, “I am quite good at learning scripts,” and her ultimate, telling Brunhilde Pomsel in 2013. Her recount begins with childhood and teenage memories in the Great Depression, comment was, “the harder the piece, the more I learn.” and, chillingly, her words at the outset are that “the main In crafting and developing this piece with Armfield, thing was obedience.”

Thus the tenet of this compelling eye-opening soliloquy is set.

Robyn Nevin is a theatre force to be reckoned with. Slightly bent, and clad in colourless she acknowledged that she missed the camaraderie of rehearsing and learning with others, but on day one of clothing just a little too big for this gradually shrinking diminutive old woman, she cautiously shuffles around the rehearsals informed him that she had learned all the room in which she has been sequestered, perhaps for dialogue ready for them to shape it together.

We talked about the uniqueness of being a solitary many years, by choice, or perhaps by design? With careful use of nuanced, understandable accented English, the performer, and it is obvious that her theatre partnership physicality of an old woman and the fussiness of an and trust of the collaboration with Armfield is institutionalised resident, pottering around, cautiously unwavering. They have walked very similar professional cradling cups, she paints the picture of a naïve war paths and undoubtedly share the same gruelling personal demands. Initially, they focussed on accent, movement survivor, at ease with her invested stories.

Robyn spent months listening to and studying German and finding the character’s ‘voice’. Part of the challenge people speaking in order to develop Pomsel’s accent, and she described was portraying an older person, whilst remaining ‘energised’ as the story unfolds. She considerable time was spent exploring the technical aspects. She incorporated the uniqueness of this old commented, “the process of acting requires you to access woman, commenting “Pomsel was not a theatrical or a range of emotional resources. It takes time.” articulate woman.” My observation was that one of the Even after more than six decades, Robyn mused, “How challenges for Robyn lay, of course, in holding the do you act? I had to find a voice for her, a silhouette. I looked for and found habits, things she does with her audience with the words of a very ‘ordinary’ woman.

We discussed older people, their memories, their hands. You gather these things. But, ultimately, it is stories, and Robyn commented that she “marvelled at the driven by the text, and this text is unusual; it is only one voice.” joy and satisfaction that older people often show when someone is keen to listen to their story.” This is one of the I reflected on the fact that not once, during the tools that she uses to take Pomsel from an excited young lengthy performance, was I tired of her voice, her story, woman to a beleaguered prisoner of war herself, and the message, and I marvelled that I was captivated by a finally to a very old lady for whom vagueness of memory play where an old lady spent at least 80 minutes in a chair, telling her life story. The authenticity is undeniable, co-exists with moments of piercing clarity.

The set, initially presented as a sparse room, and for a moment, at the end, I was angry with Robyn hauntingly becomes completely lit up with often chilling (Continued on page 8) World War Two footage of Nazi Germany and real-life

Cover Story

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Online extras!

Watch a moving preview of Robyn Nevin in A German Life. Scan or visit youtu.be/dIX6tN96XBI

A German Life.

Photo: Andrew Beveridge.

stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 7

and accompanies key sections of Pomsel’s story. Robyn credits this sound bed with providing abundance, depth and poignancy and said that she simply “could not (Continued from page 6) imagine the play without it,” citing the role of music in Nevin, who had so completely ‘become’ Brunhilde capturing so many of the emotions in our lives. It is apt, Pomsel. and, at times, is used to underline horror and sadness. It Unashamedly a ‘borrower’, Robyn described spending completes and adds a deeply soulful feel, bringing hours watching people in all sorts of situations and, as mournful undertones to an already gripping picture of the Pomsel, her careful handling and positioning of her times. teacup, her caution with the electric jug, her slight Clearly, theatre is Robyn Nevin’s touchstone, her hesitation with lifting and holding, is all drawn from bedrock, and A German Life is a fitting challenge for her watching and reflecting on friends and acquaintances skills, but it is not simply that. She somewhat proudly who, as many older people do, suffer the scourge of reminded me that she would turn 80 next year, and, arthritis. frankly, the power, energy and vibrancy of Robyn Nevin With a career spanning more than 60 years, including belies this. She has a message, and with her customary roles in radio, television, stage and film, her plaudits passion, determination, and power as an actor, in this include awards for Women of Troy, Summer of the piece, both she and Armfield remind us, as we reflect on Seventeenth Doll, Angels in America, and for the musical our world, not to be smug and complacent. They My Fair Lady. Clearly, Robyn’s unique portrayal of such challenge us to face the questions, issues, and perhaps diverse characters put her in good stead to craft Pomsel. catastrophes that are on each and every individual, It has been said that music tells the stories of the heart national and international doorstep in 2021, mindful that and I was captivated and haunted by the exquisite live we cannot create our future without firmly understanding cello performance and accompaniment of Alan John’s our past. beautiful music composition, performed by Catherine Finnis. It is Neil Armfield’s inspired addition to the play, The author thanks Robyn Nevin for her generosity of time and this beautiful, haunting cello performance precedes and support in developing this article.

Cover Story

A German Life Canberra - Canberra Playhouse. From May 11.

Brisbane - Playhouse, QPAC. From June 2.

Melbourne - Arts Centre Melbourne Playhouse. From July 21. agermanlife.com.au

A German Life.

Photo: Andrew Beveridge.

8 Stage Whispers May 2021 - June 2021

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Jason Arrow and the Australian cast of Hamilton.

Photo: Daniel Boud.

The Heart Of Hamilton NIDA welcomed Jeffrey Seller, the multi-award winning and original producer of the musical Hamilton, for a conversation with NIDA Director in Residence David Berthold and students.

Four musicals produced by Jeffrey Seller have won Tony Awards for Best Musical - Rent (1996), Avenue Q (2004), In the Heights (2008) and Hamilton (2016). He spoke about his journey as a producer, his commitment to keeping shows accessible to young people, the phenomenon that is Hamilton, and what he sees as the future of American storytelling through musical theatre.

David Berthold: What does a theatrical producer do?

Jeffrey Seller: Picks the play.

Therein lies my values, my aesthetics, and my opportunity about what kind of stories I want to put out in the 10 Stage Whispers May 2021 - June 2021

world. What play I produce will become my biggest artistic expression.

Then there is nurturing, cheerleading, criticising authors, directors, designers, and putting them together, where the chemistry in the room they create in whole, is greater than the parts.

Another thing a producer does is sell. My name is Jeffery Seller. We have to sell, sell, sell. Sometimes I am selling to an author to work on a musical, a landlord to get a venue, to actors to be in the show, then (later) selling to ticket buyers. You know what happens when we stop selling?

The show closes.

DB: You were raised in Detroit, not in affluent circumstances. How did you begin as a producer?

JS: In third grade I was cast in a play. In fourth grade - during Maths I started writing a play called Adventure. I was in it, directed and produced it. When I formed my new company eight years ago, I called it Adventureland.

DB: You were a producer then?

JS: Like many I started out as an actor. I joined community theatre in seventh grade in their youth theatre. I got a role in The Adventures of Popcorn Pete. Not many came to see it. I didn’t think it was very good. I asked who chose it? They said the

play reading committee and within two years I became the play reading committee. If you want to be in theatre you must learn to push people out - that was a joke. (To select a play) I would ask myself what would be good to give us pleasure as actors.

Secondly, what would help the audience be excited to come see it.

Soon I commenced writing press releases and solicited program advertising. Before I hit puberty, I was picking the play, marketing and helping raise money.

DB: So it was in your bones and heart. Let’s skip ahead. You went to University of Michigan. After graduating you went to New York doing community theatre. There you were asked to see a solo rock show.

What led to that?

JS: I am 25 years old. I am a booking agent for national tours of musicals. I have been doing it three years but I am not happy. I want to be a producer. I feel lost. I hate my job and I just broke up with my boyfriend. A friend asked did I want to see a rock monologue? It is hard for me to tell without crying. The band took to the stage. Out comes a tall lanky guy with big ears and curly hair. He attacks the piano and starts performing a song cycle of his 30th birthday. He hears time going off in his head going tick, tick, tick...boom!

He thinks he will explode. The 30-year -old writes rock musicals no one

Online extras!

Watch the full conversation between David Berthold and Jeffrey Seller. youtu.be/DJd1hWTUMTs

David Berthold and Jeffrey Seller.

Photo: Tony Mott.

wants to produce, he has an agent who won’t return his calls and he has a girlfriend he knows is not right for him, but is afraid to break up. His roommate offers him a job. He is asking should I hang onto my dreams or take this job? That was Jonathan Larson. I am balling. I don’t understand how this man I have never met is telling my story. I wrote him a letter. I want to produce your musicals. That was in 1990. I was 25.

He was 30. In 1996 we premiered Rent at the NY Theatre workshop. LinManuel Miranda has made a movie of

Tick, Tick...Boom! which will be released later this year on Netflix.

DB: That was a huge transforming moment, not only for your life but also American theatre. At the time Broadway was dominated by British musicals such as Cats and Phantom.

This was new music and new stories about gay couples, drugs, homelessness and dealing with HIV AIDS. JL: When I was speaking with Jonathan as he was developing Rent, he used to say all those shows are not our characters or our music. He said, (Continued on page 12)

stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 11

Online extras!

See the 2020 Australian cast of Rent in action. Scan the QR code or visit fb.watch/53ydarSGSI

a small theatre Off-Broadway - maybe 300 seats. It occurred to my business ‘I am going to change all that. I am partner and I that this musical had the going to make the Hair of the 90’s.’ breadth of themes and big emotions Even though he did that, his two to carry a Broadway musical. We favourite musicals were West Side knew we had to find a new way to make it accessible. There was already Story and Fiddler of the Roof. He knew how to use the bones of our a rush ticket for seats in the last two structure to reinvent it for our time. rows. I got the cheeky idea that He did exactly what he set out to do, instead of putting them in the back but tragically died three hours after row, put them in the front and send the first dress rehearsal. their energy back through the theatre as a wave. It started as first come first DB: Do you miss him?

JL: I miss him right now. I think of served. Within a year we had a tent the cruelty of leading your whole life city. One line for Friday night, the wanting to achieve something then others for Saturday matinee and dying on eve of first performance. nights. Fearing someone would get DB: Not many people could afford killed, we converted it into an on-line to see Broadway shows (such as lottery. Even the Metropolitan Opera Rent). You wanted more to see it. uses this system now.

DB: Could you tell us the story of What did you do about that? how you found someone in the New JL: When we did Rent I was 31 years old. We thought it would play in York Drama Book Shop?

(Continued from page 11)

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JL: Avenue Q was about to start previews. My business partner Kevin McCollum discovered this band of theatre makers led by Lin-Manuel Miranda concocting this little show In The Heights, set on the northern tip of NY. He had started writing it in college. Kevin said, ‘We’ve got to do this show.’ That was 2003. One of the things that made In the Heights so beautiful is that Lin was writing about his own community. The Puerto Rican / Dominican folks have their own beautiful sounds, traditions and ways of life. He wrote that show after he went to the theatre with his girlfriend and saw Rent. He told me Rent made him realise ‘I can write about my community.’

DB: You and Lin have now bought that book shop?

JS: About two ago years the owner announced she was closing down.

where it happens.’ Not throwing away your best shot. On the night when Trump was elected, the next day you had two shows scheduled.

What was that like?

LS: Excruciating. I called a meeting before the matinee to find out whether we could we go on because the pain was so deep. We got together and opened the floor up. A Mexican-American actress said, ‘I am suddenly afraid for my safety.’ Actors cried, whilst others were rebellious.

Rent at the Sydney What we learned that day is Hamilton Opera House (2020). was even more important than the Photo: Prudence Upton. day before, for telling a story that represents our best impulses and best Tommy (Thomas Kail, the director of values as Americans. I don’t deny our Hamilton), Lin and I bought it. With show embraces conflict, pettiness, luck it will open in June on West 39th selfishness and greed. Still, we build Street. We are doing a good deed so that young artisans still have a drama something great through disagreement. book shop to go to as resource to We made it through nine days, read a play. when I got a phone call that Vice DB: Talk a little about Hamilton.

Can you tell us a little about EduHam? President-Elect Mike Pence wanted to see the show on Friday night. I did JS: Similar (to the lottery) we not say he could not come - that wanted to make it accessible for young people. We created a Hamilton would have been rude. I used a education day, to sell the whole house threadbare argument to address him directly. His staff phoned the landlord to young people. They have to get a house seat. Because he workshops with cast and perform wanted special treatment, we their own material based on themes of Hamilton. 215,000 teenagers have thought we could give him special treatment. I composed a note to be now seen Hamilton for $10 or nothing. It dovetails into their study of read from the stage by Brandon Victor Dixon, playing Adam Burr. ‘Mr the American Revolution.

Vice President-Elect, we are the DB: Seeing the show last night it diverse Americans. We appeal to you struck me how much it was an to see us, and represent us, and to Obama era musical. ‘In the room

ensure our inalienable rights.’ The Vice President-Elect Pence was gentlemanly in how he received it. He said after it was reasonable and I applaud it. The man he was working for whipped up a Twitter storm with the story ricocheting around the world. That had consequences. We had threats and had to quadruple security. We had an incident in Chicago. That night a rowdy drunk audience member started shouting and screaming from balcony. They became fearful for their lives. We are proud that might be called first resistance. To say this is not normal and we are going to resist.

DB: Hamilton is a story of America as told by artists and actors, as America is. Do you have any notion of what America might be (in the future?)

LS: Whoa! I did not get through my life without my optimism. I also have a lot of pessimism. Some say Hamilton is the best musical ever made. We keep getting better. I think of the pivotal events last year - Black Lives Matter, LGBTQI+, Asian American movement - all of those movements galvanised by young people are going to make us a better people and nation. I look at young people; I look and see diversity. My 18-year-old uses the pronoun They.

My kids are completely colour blind.

There is the new world. It fills me with optimism. stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 13

The Past Is Never Dead Playwright Joanna Murray-Smith explains to Michael Brindley how a visit to Berlin and her own family history inspired her new play Berlin. Will this internationally themed play, currently premiering at the MTC, have the same resonance as her previous hits and take it to the West End and Broadway?

The past is never dead. In fact, it’s Visiting Berlin today, for anyone not even past. with even the scantiest knowledge of William Faulkner 20th century history, it is almost impossible to ignore the Holocaust in “I didn’t want to dramatise the Germany’s past. Murray-Smith told past through the people who lived me she was struck by matter-of-fact it,” playwright Joanna Murray-Smith signs in the U-Bahn (underground) tells me about her new play Berlin. “I stating plainly that this or that station wanted to dramatise it through the was a departure point for transports to the death camps. But there are experience of young people today and ask, ‘do they inherit the past?’” other reminders all around you in Her two 20-something characters, Berlin.

Jewish Australian Tom (Michael There is Daniel Lebeskind’s vast Wahr) and German Charlotte (Grace Jewish Museum which covers the history of the Jews in Germany from Cummings), meet in Berlin and fall passionately in love, but both carry the Middle Ages to the present. Its the burden of their forebears’ history. exhibits insist that the Holocaust is an indelible part of that history. The Murray-Smith’s generation - or her part of it - had the good fortune Holocaust Memorial (or The to avoid the traumas of history (she Memorial to the Murdered Jews of was born in 1962). But she is acutely Europe), with its 2,711 irregular grey aware - and was made the more so concrete slabs, is at the very centre of Berlin, near the Brandenburg Gate. A in Berlin itself - of how recent that past is. Her mother Nita was a Jewish permanent, comprehensive refugee, arriving in Australia aged 11 photographic exhibition, Topography in 1938. Despite her becoming the of Terror, 1933-1945, on the site of complete Anglophile - and atheist what was Gestapo headquarters, Communist - her Jewish heritage documents the Nazi era in pictures and documents - and the remained. Nita’s father Israel was a Tzadik (a righteous man) who was accompanying text repeatedly, important at the schul. There were inescapably reminds the visitor that the policies and atrocities of the the annual Passover celebrations at which some guests, survivors, had Nazis had the enthusiastic support of their death camp tattoos. Murraythe majority of the German people.

And there are the stolpersteine Smith’s originally Anglican father, editor, critic, and author Stephen (the so-called ‘stumble stones’), tiny Murray-Smith, connected with his brass plaques embedded in the pavement, particularly in Mitte, for wife’s heritage and was intensely respectful of it. So, the past, that instance, an old Jewish quarter of past, has always irrevocably been Berlin, outside what were the there for Joanna Murray-Smith - even addresses of Jewish families. The if she, like the late Jonathan Miller, is (Continued on page 16) more Jew-ish than Jewish.

14 Stage Whispers May 2021 - June 2021

Grace Cummings and Michael Wahr in MTC’s 2021 production of Joanna Murray-Smith’s Berlin.

Photo: Jeff Busby.

stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 15

Joanna Murray-Smith.

Photo: Per H. Lauke Verlag.

Online extras!

Joanna Murray-Smith reflects on her new romantic thriller Berlin. youtu.be/KhP9L12gWpo necessary nowadays to remind people - or even to tell younger people plaques name the people who lived what occurred. Germany there, and continue, “murdered in acknowledges her past (unlike most Auschwitz [or Bergen-Belsen or other countries) partly because it is so Treblinka or...] in 1942”. Or 1943 or horrific and every sane person over 1944. These stumble stones make the forty knows it, and partly because statistics specific and intimate. They acknowledgement is a reminder and a are in cities and towns across promise that “This must never happen Germany - as are other public again.” And Germany today is the memorials. most progressive and prosperous Such things are the nub of Murray nation in the EU. -Smith’s play - the past that weighs On a family holiday, six years ago, on her characters - so, I list the signs with her three children (then 20, 14 here because apparently, it’s and 10), Murray-Smith was firstly (Continued from page 14)

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surprised and impressed by how cosmopolitan Berlin is today with its vitality, artistic communities, café culture, orchestras, theatres, and galleries. But there was also for Murray-Smith a reminder of her Jewish heritage and the ineluctable past - with the signs all over the city.

Penance? Maybe. Guilt? Certainly, for the direct perhaps descendants of the proven war criminals. But for Germans seventy years on?

Murray-Smith expected her children to lose interest quickly in the museums and monuments that acknowledge the Holocaust. On the contrary, they were fascinated by those reminders of the past - the weight of history, so to speak - and they wondered how people today lived with that ever-present past. And so, the seed of Berlin, the play, was planted.

It didn’t lie dormant, because that is not how writers’ minds work, but in between there have been four other plays - American Song, Three Little Words, a revision of the 2013 Fury, and L’appartement.

Even while Berlin was in rehearsal, so also was Honour - her most performed and most translated play, from 1995. It’s being staged at Sydney’s Ensemble Theatre (April 23 to June 5). Murray-Smith attended the rehearsals - somewhat unnecessarily, she told me, but invited and able to cast an objective and more confident eye over the play and see how it might be ‘fixed’ twenty-six years after it was written. She also had a short piece in Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre collection of short pieces, Tenderness, in Alma Park, East St Kilda at the end of March.

No spoilers here, but clearly Murray-Smith’s young lovers in present day Berlin, Charlotte and Tom, carry the burdens of the past, even if they want to ‘move on’, or think they had. (I’ve heard of young Germans at the Berlinale Film Festival calling out when a movie depicted the Nazi era or its aftermath, “Oh, no, not this again.”)

But isn’t there a similar rejection of any guilt in Australia too? Are there Germans who want to diminish the

significance of the Nazi era and reject it as a ‘black armband’ version of history? So, a play about two young people in today’s Germany could have more resonance than is immediately obvious.

“I didn’t want to write a polemic,” Murray-Smith says, “but I do want to explore how different pasts - or different perceptions or memories of the past - can be reconciled - or not.”

She wants to see and dramatise how the past intersects with the present, how it feels to be a young German today - and a young Jew, neither ‘responsible’ for the past, for the actions or the sufferings of their ancestors. How do you judge the past when you weren’t there - and the people who were, are dead and can’t defend themselves?

Berlin is bound to disturb and polarise audiences. I ask Murray-Smith about how she’s been, firstly and notably, criticised (as have others) for writing ‘middle-class characters’. She agrees but adds that it’s curious: this is a problem she has only encountered in Australia. The attacks come, she says, from privileged middle-class people. She wonders if it’s bourgeois guilt - but she goes on, “These are the people I know. Those are the voices I hear in my head. I’m interested in showing their aspirations and their concern for appearances - as a way of exposing human frailty.”

After all, Murray-Smith grew up in a household of fierce debate and contention, with the literary and intellectual luminaries frequent guests. Her mother and father quit

Joanna Murray-Smith’s International Productions Honour - Colombia University NY 1995; Belasco Theatre, NY, 1998; Royal National Theatre, London, 1998; Wyndham’s Theatre, London West End, 2006; Park Theatre, London 2018. (Overall, Honour has been produced in more than 36 countries.)

Honour, Nightfall, Rapture, Ninety, Fury, Day One, A Hotel, Evening - all had staged readings or productions at NY Stage & Film Festival, Vassar College.

Scenes From A Marriage (commissioned, adapted from the 1973 Bergman film) - Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, 2008; St James Theatre, London, 2013.

The Female Of The Species - Vaudeville Theatre, London West End, 2008; Geffen Playhouse, Los Angeles, 2010.

Switzerland - Geffen Theatre, Los Angeles, 2015; Theatre Royal, Bath, 2018; Ambassadors Theatre, London West End, 2018; 59E59 Theatres, NY, 2019.

(Also produced in Germany, Denmark and Switzerland.)

American Song - Milwaukee Rep, Wisconsin, 2016 (commissioned) Songs For Nobodies - Milwaukee Rep, Wisconsin, 2018; Ambassadors Theatre, London West End, 2019.

Purchase scripts by Joanna Murray-Smith at Stage Whispers Books stagewhispers.com.au/books/author/29489 the Communist Party in 1958, after the Soviet invasion of Hungary. But Stephen Murray-Smith still had to rescue Overland, the magazine he’d started with his friend Ian Turner, from the Communist Party. He said he wanted to “avoid the humourlessness and dogmatism of the fully convinced.” So, Joanna Murray-Smith took in the clash of ideas, ideologies, and emotions - and the avoidance of humourlessness and dogmatism from the start. An ideal background for a playwright.

Looking over her previous and very varied work, there is a marked tendency to upset the apple cart and

to challenge accepted norms. She does that, of course, through her characters; she has a pronounced ability to put a character before us and make us think yes, we’ve got ‘em, we know them, only to find, half or two-thirds of the way through, that we were wrong. The strong turn out to be vulnerable, the shallow to have depths, the courageous to be wrongheaded, the dogmatic to have doubts.

I put that to her, and she says, as if a little surprised by the question, “Of course - my characters are human beings.” In her beautiful obituary for (Continued on page 18)

stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 17

(Continued from page 17)

her mother, Murray-Smith writes that for her mother, “Art had to allow for human complexity to be truthful.”

Re-reading her 2014 play Switzerland, I was struck by a speech from (Murray-Smith’s version of) novelist Patricia Highsmith: Writers are exceptional because we don’t care about your moral compass...It’s not my job to pass judgement - it’s my job to persuade.

The reader [or the theatre audience] takes sides. I sit there, right in the middle.

I asked Murray-Smith, is that your credo? She agreed to the word ‘persuade’ - yes, she seeks to persuade. But we can be sure that in this new play Berlin there is not a solution or a resolution or an ending anything less than ‘open’. That’s not her way. As Chekhov (surely a precursor of Murray-Smith’s) said, it’s not the artist’s job to provide answers, but to ask the right questions.

18 Stage Whispers May 2021 - June 2021

Switzerland by Joanna Murray-Smith at the Ambassador’s Theatre, London (2018).

Photo: Alastair Muir.

Fun Home

Coral Drouyn takes a look at the Tony Award-winning musical now playing in Sydney.

Ground-breaking history was made on June 7 2015.

No, I’m not talking about the G7 summit in Bavaria, or the death of horror film star Christopher Lee. It was something far more earth shattering than that. On June 7 - only six years ago - two women won the Tony Award for Best Musical. It was the only time in the 73 years of the awards that a female team of composer and lyricist/librettist had won the Tonys for both Best Original Score and Best Book of a musical, as well as the prized Best Musical award - for their ground-breaking musical Fun Home. And the question we should ask is: “What took so long?”

Composer Jeanine Testori was already well known, with for Tony nominations for Violet, Caroline or Change, Twelfth Night, and the new score for the 2002 production of Thoroughly Modern Millie. Lyricist and librettist Lisa Kron had been a well-known playwright and actress for many years. Their musical, Fun Home, is based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel, about a young lesbian girl coming to terms with her sexuality and her discovery that her dead father was gay, which is hardly the usual candidate for the The MTC/STC co-production of Fun Home plays at Roslyn Packer Theatre until May 29. sydneytheatre.com.au

Tonys. It’s contentious, confronting, contemporary, courageous and comedic, which made the win all that more gratifying. It’s also a show for NOW, with everything that is going on around us.

After a year or more of pandemic closures, which has seen Australian theatres suffer major losses, finally Fun Home is coming to Australia. The show has been talked about for more than four years, and was scheduled for the MTC last year, but life - and the loss of it - got in the way.

Even a great show can’t compete with COVID-19. But with new hope for the future of theatre, in Australia at least, Creative Director Kip Williams has committed the Sydney Theatre Company to a season through to May 29. It’s a brave move for STC to present something so different when it would be easier and cheaper to satisfy subscribers with a revival of something more mainstream.

Dean Bryant directs a stunning cast in the Sydney production, which includes everyone’s favourite Marina Prior, Maggie McKenna, who wowed audiences in Muriel’s Wedding and Lucy Maunder, a wonderful addition to any musical. The supporting cast is a glittering array of professional favourites and Lucy Bermingham is Musical Director.

Don’t dismiss Fun Home as just a “gay feminist musical”. It is so much more than that. It’s about family, belonging and discovery. And it has a beautiful score to match the book. And, at a time when we are learning to laugh, to cry, to understand our fellow man, it’s the most important musical in a long time.

Maggie McKenna & director Dean Bryant

Online extras!

Join the cast of Fun Home during rehearsal. Scan the QR code or visit youtu.be/OV6mWrAViQ4 stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 19

Mark Wickett braved the shoulder pads, spandex, curls and fingerless gloves at the opening of the Australian tour of The Wedding Singer in Adelaide.

Robbie Hart, titular star of The Wedding Singer, is played by Christian Charisiou in the current Australian production of the musical. I spoke to him before seeing an evening performance.

“You can expect a show full of energy and great music,” Charisiou told me. “It’s kept a couple of the original songs from the 1998 movie, but there is a lot of new music that audiences will love.”

Written by Tim Herlihy, who wrote the original smash-hit movie starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore,

20 Stage Whispers May 2021 - June 2021

the stage musical scored a Tony Award nomination for Best Musical.

It’s produced by David Venn Enterprises, who produced the Green Room awarded Bring It On: The Musical in 2018 and 2019, and features many of that show’s creatives.

The director Alister Smith says that the musical is about finding your voice and following your heart - and though set in the 1980s, is no less relevant today. Choreographer Michael Ralph was inspired by the most iconic music videos and dance films of the 80s and has a strong

ensemble to deliver high energy dance sequences.

Leading man Charisiou supports the creative team’s vision.

“It’s looking back at the eighties, from today,” says Charisiou, laughing about his struggle to find the right hairspray to hold up his curls in an authentic style. “It has the music, the clothes, the dance moves.”

When I asked about playing a character defined by Adam Sandler, he said that he knows he must respect that performance but not be limited by it. “Some of those trademark moments from the movie

The Wedding Singer Adelaide - Her Majesty’s Theatre. Closed on April 24.

Melbourne - Athenaeum Theatre. Until June 5.

Gold Coast - HOTA. June 16 to 26.

Sydney - State Theatre. From June 30. weddingsingermusical.com.au are there, but I have to create my own from a different script.”

Following its immense success hosting arts festivals a few weeks earlier, I suggested to Charisiou that Adelaide was more than prepared to premiere a national show.

“Adelaide was ready for us - it’s great to open here, and in such a wonderful theatre,” says Charisiou.

“Audiences are getting what they want - and then more on top of that.

They’re arriving pumped up before curtain and it’s wonderful to see such enthusiasm from the start.”

Glancing around the auditorium later, waiting for the house lights to dim, I saw people young and old groups of those that had grown up through the eighties excited to recapture some of those memories and others who were now bringing

Christian Charisiou and Teagan Wouters as Robbie and Julia in The Wedding Singer.

Photo: Nicole Cleary.

their teenage children to show them something of what that was about.

The show itself delivers on its promise: plenty of call-backs to the movie and to 1980s icons of music, film, and television; costumes that make us cringe when we remember how much we wanted to wear them; and music that still stimulates and inspires. The talent of the cast across dance, song and drama will leave you exhausted, but their enthusiasm is infectious - it is a good escape from the world outside, a romantic comedy where you don’t have to remember the eighties to enjoy it.

Charisiou agrees with the idea that a lack of knowledge of the movie or the 80s vibe will not deter audiences.

“It’s a love story; and love is universal.”

Ed Daganos, Nadia Komazec, Christian Charisiou, Teagan Wouters and Stephen Mahy in The Wedding Singer.

Photo: Nicole Cleary.

Online extras!

Join the audience on the opening night of The Wedding Singer. Scan or visit youtu.be/FtnO5a_sNog stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 21

Global Creatures has revealed the Australian cast of Moulin Rouge! The Musical, playing at Melbourne’s Regent Theatre from August 13 2021.

Alinta Chidzey will star as the sparkling diamond, Satine, opposite newcomer Des Flanagan as bohemian dreamer Christian.

Simon Burke AO will play club impresario Harold Zidler and Andrew Cook will play The Duke.

Montmartre’s resident artistes will be played by Tim Omaji as ToulouseLautrec and Ryan Gonzalez as Santiago.

The club’s entertainers, known as the ‘Lady Ms’, will be played by Samantha Dodemaide as Nini, Elenoa Rokobaro as Arabia, Ruva Ngwenya as La Chocolat, and Christopher J Scalzo as Babydoll.

Also joining the company are Fabian Andrés, Amy Berrisford, Devon Braithwaite, James Bryers, Anica Calida, Kahlia Davis, Rodney Dobson, Joseph Donovan, Jarrod Draper,

Bayley John Edmends, Brittany Ford, Chaska Halliday, Scout Hook, Graeme Isaako, Keian Langdon, Bree Langridge, David Ouch, Sam Parkes, Clay Roberts, Emma Russell, Maxwell Simon, Kara Sims, David Sirianni and Patrice Tipoki.

Read more on our website at bit.ly/2QIw3bF

Alinta Chidzey and Des Flanagan.

Photo: Steven Grace.

Online extras!

Discover the creative process of creating Moulin Rouge! The Musical. youtu.be/CG8SzB296T0 22 Stage Whispers May 2021 - June 2021

Jagged Little Pill To Reopen Sydney’s Theatre Royal Jagged Little Pill, the 15-time Tony Award nominated Broadway musical, inspired by the rock album of the same name by Grammy Award winner Alanis Morissette, will premiere at Theatre Royal Sydney in September 2021. Sydney audiences will be the first outside of Broadway to experience this production, which will relaunch the Theatre Royal, currently undergoing a multi-million dollar refurbishment.

Jagged Little Pill is a new musical with a story that looks at what it means to be alive in 21st century America, ignited by Morissette’s hits such as ‘You Oughta Know’, ‘Head Over Feet’, ‘Hand In My Pocket’ and ‘Ironic’, as well as 2 brand new songs written just for the show. Jagged Little Pill features lyrics by Alanis Morissette with music by Morissette and six-time Grammy Award winner Glen Ballard and an original story written by Oscar Award winner Diablo Cody (Juno, Tully). The production is directed by Tony Award winner Diane Paulus (Waitress, Pippin), movement direction and choreography is by Olivier Award winner Sidi Larbi

Celia Rose Gooding, Lauren Patten and the company of the original Broadway cast of Jagged Little Pill.

Photo: Matthew Murphy

Cherkaoui with music supervision, orchestrations and arrangements by Tony and Pulitzer Prize winner Tom Kitt.

Released on June 13 1995, the tremendous success of Alanis Morissette’s album Jagged Little Pill skyrocketed her to become the bestselling international debut artist in history; a title she still holds, with the record’s sales reaching 33 million copies worldwide and winning 5 Grammy Awards. Now, 25 years after its release, Jagged Little Pill continues

to be one of the Top 20 Best-Selling Albums of All Time.

The story of Jagged Little Pill centres around The Healys, a seemingly perfect suburban family striving to hide the cracks beneath the surface when a troubling event shakes their community. Using themes and emotions in the original album, the musical tackles social issues very relevant in today’s society, ultimately highlighting the hope and healing that comes when people come together.

Jagged Little Pill opened on Broadway in December 2019 following its world premiere at the American Repertory Theater, before being shut down due to COVID-19 restrictions 3 months into its Broadway season. It won a Grammy Award for the Best Musical Theatre Album, released through Atlantic Records.

Read more on our website at bit.ly/3x6cdbc The Jagged Little Pill creative team: Tom Kitt, Alanis Morissette, Diane Paulus, Diablo Cody and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui.

Continue reading about Musicals in 2021 and beyond on our website: stagewhispers.com.au/news/musicals-2021-and-beyond stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 23

Coral Drouyn takes a look at Friends! The Musical Parody, a ‘loving lampoon’ of perhaps the most loved TV sitcom ever made.

It’s said that there are two kinds of people in the world - those who avidly watch Friends - and those who lie about it. Seriously though, you would have to have been living under a rock (with very poor TV reception) since the 1990s not to be aware of the iconic blockbuster. It made a superstar out of Jennifer Aniston and attracted guest stars by the truckload. The fact that the apartment the girls shared would have been priced out of existence for them in NYC didn’t matter one bit. We were hooked from the first time we heard the song and joined in ‘I’ll Be There For You’.

The series was ripe for a smash musical about the six loveable singles.

Except - what happens when you are a couple of little-known comedy writers and you can’t get the rights to the scripts, the theme song, or anything recognisable except for the first names for the characters? Well, like all good writers everywhere you make them up or ‘re-imagine’ them - and call it parody.

Those writers are Bob and Tobly (no that’s not a typo) McSmith. There’s little information on these two young New York comedy writers, except that they have found themselves a niche with a doorway to a goldmine. Tobly is proudly transgender and immensely grateful for support of Bob, who is no relative, but a best friend.

The two shared an apartment in New York (with numerous unidentified flatmates) when Tobly first arrived from 24 Stage Whispers May 2021 - June 2021

his native Texas. Both played instruments badly, smoked a lot of pot, drank a lot of beer, loved the same comedy and just sat down one day and said, “Let’s write a musical” without having the slightest idea how to start.

Both had day jobs and so losing themselves by lampooning favourite television shows was an escape from the everyday.

Their output to date has been nine musical parodies on everything from Showgirls to Beverly Hills 90210 and Saved By The Bell. They even managed to get sued by Andrew Lloyd Webber for their parody on both Cats and Keeping Up With The Kardashians. The result was Katdashians! The Musical.

In the early days the two friends put on the shows themselves - writing, producing, directing and even making costumes - at whatever venues they could find, with virtually no budget. It was an example of ‘off-off Broadway’ at its finest, and even reminiscent of the Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney musicals of the forties.

Inspired by Matt Stone and Trey Parker (Book of Mormon), they crossed the line so many times that the line ceased to exist, but it is the universal appeal of Friends - whose fans are as fanatical as any footy club’s - which rocketed them to international appeal.

At the time of the pandemic closing theatres, the pair had four shows on, including one in London. All closed simultaneously but, with Australian theatres re-opening first, we get to see

Friends -The Musical Parody with a stellar Australian cast and direction by Dash Kruck - no slouch at musicals himself.

I was lucky enough to see the show in its short preview season earlier this year. It was a hoot, and far more than I had hoped for. The casting is excellent, with all of the friends clearly recognisable by their traits and foibles (and of course, their names!).

Shakespearean trained actor Chris Huntly-Turner plays Gunther, owner of the coffee shop Central Perk. To say he is hilarious is a gross understatement.

Everyone has their favourite friend but our favourite couple has to be Rachel and Ross. Even today people quote the characters - and “I thought we were on a break” has become the stock explanation for some young men cheating. The combination of a nerdy, uptight, socially inept academic and a self-absorbed preppie and privileged Princess was always going to be the backbone of romantic comedy for the show, regardless of how many other hook-ups there were.

The casting of Rachel and Ross could be considered a key element, even in an ensemble show like this, so it seemed natural to ask the actors themselves how they felt about the roles.

Tyran Stig (Ross) was a radio producer in Newcastle before making his professional debut in the show.

He’s a true triple threat.

Online extras!

more and I don’t know how my boyfriend would feel about it, but I can definitely say that I won’t be marrying a woman anytime soon.

Sarah: I’m not as quick-witted and I The original Australian cast of despise shopping. Some would also say Friends! The Musical Parody.

I am a good cook, and others would Photo: Joseph Byford. not.

Coral: How do you feel about playing such an iconic character?

Tyran: It’s a dream come true but at the same time it’s the most anxietyinducing role I’ve ever performed. On one hand, it’s amazing to be able to tackle a character from a show that you have admired for majority of your life and get to play around with him on stage and put your own spin on it.

However, on the other hand, the world loves these characters so much, and know their ins and outs so well, that if Friends! The Musical Parody you don’t get it right they will know Melbourne - Comedy Theatre. June 15 to July 4. straight away.

Brisbane - Tivoli Theatre, Fortitude Valley. August 18 to 25.

Sarah: I love it! I love her! After Sydney - Riverside Theatres, Parramatta. September 2 to 4. spending so many hours analysing Adelaide - Her Majesty’s Theatre. September 24 & 25. both Jennifer Aniston and Rachel, I feel Perth - Regal Theatre. October 16 & 17. like I know her (cue cringe). It was such a thrill hearing the Gold Coast friendsmusical.com.au audiences recognise little quirks or Sarah Krndija (Rachel) is a graduate Coral: Who was your favourite mannerisms we’ve been able to find of VCA with extensive credits with character back in the day? from our homework - binge watching.

Melbourne Theatre Company, Tyran: Chandler, because I always Coral: And lastly, what is your Melbourne Shakespeare Company and found his goofiness and ‘dad jokes’ favourite episode or storyline involving independent companies including endearing and funny. I always had a Ross and Rachel?

Pursued by Bear. soft spot for Monica as well because I Tyran: I personally love the episode I asked both what they felt about think Courteney Cox was so underrated leading up to Ross and Rachel getting the show and their characters. Their as an actress in the show. drunkenly married in Vegas. The answers are both thoughtful and Sarah: My favourite was probably moments between them on the plane funny.

Chandler (sorry Rachel). trying to one-up each other and make Coral: How old were you when you Coral: What are the similarities them embarrassed is so clever and well first saw Friends and what was your between you and your character - how done. No matter how many times I reaction? do you identify with him/her? watch that episode, I am still in stitches Tyran: I am truly a nerd at heart. I laughing. “Well hello, Mr. Rachel.”

Tyran: I think I was somewhere around 9 or 10 when I first got love how passionate Ross is about the Hilarious! introduced to the show. My dad things that he loves, even though Sarah: I always cry/weep/wail in the decided that I was ready for my first others may think it’s weird. I am very “I got off the plane” episode. They’re ‘adult’ TV show. He still watches it on passionate about my love for Taylor both so wonderful in it. I also love syndication and my mum texts me Swift. I get judged heavily on my whenever Rachel is drunk - a favourite every night to tell me that she can hear obsession for Taylor Swift. And, just is when Julie and Ross are getting a cat him from other room, laughing his like Ross and his dinosaurs, I will and Rach is bombing a first date by defend Taylor until my dying breath. calling Ross to explain that she’s found head off.

Sarah: Truthfully, I don’t remember.

Sarah: We’re both dreadful closure. “You’re being a little weird It’s one of those shows that feels like waitresses and lack hand-eye about your phone.” Classic. coordination.

And yes, it is classic, and so is the it’s always been around. I remember having an enormous crush on Coral: How are you totally different stage show. Friends! The Musical Courteney Cox. But I never sat down to your character? (Thank God for Parody is a show for all lovers of the and watched all of the seasons until acting.) television series, for lovers of comedy, auditioning for the musical - I’d say I Tyran: Well, Ross was married to and for lovers of musicals. spent 41% of Melbourne’s lockdown three different women throughout his Don’t miss it. watching Friends with my family. life and had relationships with many

Watch a preview of the smash hit Friends! The Musical Parody. youtu.be/v2pceK9-IPc

stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 25

The Appleton Ladies’ Potato Race Melanie Tait’s sparkling comedy The Appleton Ladies’ Potato Race has been published by Currency Press and is now available for performance by community theatre. The play has a sackful of appealing characters including prodigal daughter Penny - who returns from the big smoke to set up shop as a GP. Penny never much cared about the potato race, until she discovers that the men win five times as much prize money as the women.

Ensemble Theatre’s 2019 production of The Appleton Ladies’ Potato Race.

Photo: Phil Erbacher.

26 Stage Whispers May 2021 - June 2021

SCENE TWO [PENNY, 40, is sitting in the hairdresser’s chair and immediately we know it’s not a place she’s comfortable. She’s having her foils done by her cousin NIKKI, 40, who’s all jangling jewels and loud prints that she makes work even though the whole outfit probably cost her thirty dollars.

This is her domain. She’s the queen of this salon.]

NIKKI: You dusting off your old scone recipe for the Show this year?

PENNY: Is Old Wendy still alive?

NIKKI: You bet. Her hundred and eighty -seventh birthday party was at the School of Arts a couple of weeks ago.

PENNY: No scone baking for me then.

NIKKI: Why not?

PENNY: I’m in my forties. If I go in the scone competition, she’ll have been beating me since I was nine years old. I can’t take it! Nanna reckoned she cheats anyway.

NIKKI: How can you cheat at a scone competition?

PENNY: Store-bought mix.

NIKKI: Rubbish.

PENNY: Why would Nanna lie?

NIKKI: To stop you from having a spack about losing something?

PENNY: You can’t say ‘spack’ anymore, Nikki.

NIKKI: Why? PENNY: It’s offensive.

NIKKI: What, to carpenters? Bunnings workers? What dickhead would give a shit about me saying ‘spack’?

PENNY: It’s a derivative of ‘spastic’.

NIKKI: Oh. Not Spakfilla?

PENNY: When was the last time someone had a Spakfilla?

NIKKI: You’re a Spakfilla.

PENNY: You are.

[A beat.]

NIKKI: How’re you settling into your grand design?

PENNY: My ‘grand design’?

NIKKI: Your house! I still can’t believe you bought that old place. I smoked my first bong in that house.

PENNY: I know, I was with you.

Remember? Your fourteenth birthday. You let me come, for once. We went up there...smoking bongs, drinking Bundy and Coke, reading dirty poetry...

NIKKI: As if there would have been dirty poetry. Porno mags, probably.

PENNY: The night of the Nirvana t-shirt Incident!

NIKKI: Oh, yeah! I lent you that t-shirt so you’d look cool for the first time in your life and you ruined it. I won’t be able to look at your fireplace without remembering that super-spew.

PENNY: I still can’t drink Bundy and Coke.

NIKKI: Why would you want to?

PENNY: I thought you loved a mixed spirit in a can.

NIKKI: What does that mean?

PENNY: Nothing - I just remember you liked those Jack and Coke cans.

NIKKI: Twenty years ago, maybe. Now it’s white wine - like every other single mum in town. From the bottle, in case you were wondering about that too.

PENNY: Goons are making a comeback!

NIKKI: Not in my fridge, they’re not.

PENNY: I love a goon.

NIKKI: You can take the girl out of Appleton...

PENNY: Hey! I’m proud of my bogan roots.

[Bullseye, a nerve has been hit!

Does this say to NIKKI that PENNY thinks she’s better? A beat.]

NIKKI: Is it spooky there? Living on your own?

PENNY: It’s a bit depressing. It’s not what I planned.

NIKKI: Haven’t heard from your missus?

PENNY: No. She’s moved on. She’s not coming back.

NIKKI: You need to get out and about!

Find someone new!

PENNY: At one of Appleton’s several dyke nights? Ha! I dunno. I think maybe I’m meant to be by myself. I can’t seem to get it together with other people.

NIKKI: I dream about not having to worry about other people. Eighty percent of the time kids suck, then just when you think it’s time to hand them over to social services, they win an encouragement award.

Or hug you for no reason at all.

Crafty little buggers.

PENNY: Sounds wonderful.

NIKKI: You’re living the dream. You can go to the city whenever you want.

Get a massage whenever you want.

There’s no-one nagging you on the phone to get home, leaving fresh dog shit in his little brother’s bed.

PENNY: Which one did that?

NIKKI: Ethan, of course.

PENNY: Yuck!

NIKKI: And the BO. All the Lynx deodorant in the world can’t hide their hormonal teen spirit.

PENNY: I miss someone nagging me on the phone to get home. Is Mark any help?

NIKKI: Mark’s a champion when he’s not boozing. He got up to twenty seven days before he fell off the wagon at Christmas.

PENNY: That’s terrific.

NIKKI: Actually, it’s not. I haven’t seen a cent from him since he moved in with his mother and he’s been too shit-faced to do anything for the boys. I can’t do this. I’m not going to talk to you about Mark.

PENNY: Okay. It’s just...if you need any help...

NIKKI: Stop.

[A tiny beat.]

NIKKI: Any news on your mum?

PENNY: What do you think?

NIKKI: Righto.

PENNY: Right.

[RANIA enters, 30s with a bag of potatoes over her shoulders. This is a woman who’s comfortable in this place and her own skin. There’s an artistic bent to her clothing - think Claudia Kishi, grown up. It’s quite the entrance.]

RANIA: Nikki, we can train properly now! Look what just arrived at the fruit and veg!

NIKKI: Don’t come any further! I don’t want soil on my beautiful clean floor.

RANIA: They’re firmly on my shoulders.

A potato in each hand for grip.

Evenly distributed. My core is switched on, knees are bent and these potatoes are going nowhere near your floor.

NIKKI: You’re a second prize winner in the making. Can you pop them behind the counter, mate?

RANIA: [to PENNY] Are you the doctor cousin?

PENNY: I am. You have to be Rania!

Script Excerpt NIKKI: You reckon no-one interesting ever comes here, Penny? Rania’s from Kabul.

RANIA: Actually, Nikki - Aleppo.

Aleppo. Can you say it out loud?

NIKKI: Ah-lehp-oh. Sorry, mate.

RANIA: Aleppo’s in Syria, Kabul’s in Afghanistan. Different wars, different places. Different ways of cooking chickpeas.

PENNY: Nikki...

NIKKI: Mate, it’s not my fault I get all them cities mixed up. It’s places with sand. They don’t stick in my head...

PENNY: Nikki!

NIKKI: It’s true! Can never remember whether it’s Byron Bay them Hemsworths live in or Tweed Heads. Seriously - it’s a sand thing.

It’s not a… ummm… y’know… terrorist thing.

PENNY: Nikki!

RANIA: Aleppo is about as sandy as Appleton - actually my daughter and I worked out the distance between Sydney and Perth. It’s almost the same as the distance between Aleppo and Kabul.

NIKKI: See, not so bad, eh? I wouldn’t give a shit if someone thought I was from Perth.

PENNY: Culturally, we’re the same as Perth. Afghanistan and Syria couldn’t be more different, for a start...

NIKKI: Yeah, righto, we all know you have a university degree, Penny Rania’s cool.

PENNY: Actually, I have two university degrees. Three fellowships.

NIKKI: How about that, Rania? You come in to drop off a bag of potatoes and you meet the biggest brain Appleton has ever flung out into the real world.

RANIA: It’s an honour.

NIKKI: Cut it out.

RANIA: It is! You don’t honour doctors in Appleton? In my home country, doctors are, as you’d say, Nikki ‘The Shit’.

PENNY: They are in this country too, Rania. It’s just the message hasn’t reached this particular hairdressing (Continued on page 28) stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 27

Script Excerpt

Ensemble Theatre’s 2019 production of The Appleton Ladies’ Potato Race.

Photo: Phil Erbacher.

The Appleton Ladies’ Potato Race The Ensemble production tours nationally in May and June. ensemble.com.au Get yourself a copy from Stage Whispers Books. stagewhispers.com.au/books (Continued from page 27)

salon yet. What about you, what do you do?

RANIA: I’m an art teacher - but I think I’ll be an old lady by the time this country recognises my qualifications. So I’m chipping away at an online diploma, and trying to keep my daughter out of trouble.

And, training for the potato race!

PENNY: I can’t believe Nikki’s roped you into it! Still, if you’re going to be roped into it by anyone, Nikki’s your person.

NIKKI: If I win this year, I go on the Appleton Potato Race Honour Board in the Show Pavilion. You want to be part of this town again, Pen? Strap a bag of potatoes on your back, mate!

RANIA: Come on, Penny.

PENNY: No thanks, I’ll just be waiting in my surgery on the Monday morning after the Show for all the injuries to come in. So many bulbous hernias, so little time!

NIKKI: Penny’s the only person in our family who doesn’t get this race.

PENNY: It’s not that I don’t get it. I just have no interest in putting a bag of potatoes on my back and running around the oval.

28 Stage Whispers May 2021 - June 2021

NIKKI: It’s a big deal now.

PENNY: It’s always been a big deal.

You couldn’t pay me to do it.

NIKKI: You do get paid to do it. If you win.

PENNY: How much do you get? A fivedollar note Aunty Barb safetypins to the pink sash? Please tell me they’ve changed the colour of the sash...

NIKKI: Nah, Pen. It’s big-time now!

Two hundred bucks for us, a grand for the men’s race.

PENNY: What?

NIKKI: Back in the old days, you’d just get the sash, and the sack of potatoes you ran with. Now, if I win, I leave the kids with Bev and take myself to Sydney to see a show.

This year, I’m off to Muriel’s Wedding the Musical [insert the name of whatever commercial musical is big at the time] for the second time. If I win, that is. If Rania wins - what are you going to do, mate?

RANIA: I’m going to take Miriam to Sydney to climb the Harbour Bridge!

PENNY: The winner of the men’s race gets a grand and you get two hundred dollars? That won’t get you up the first pylon.

NIKKI: Penny. The blokes carry fifty kilos. We carry twenty. It’s fair enough.

PENNY: It’s 2019, Nikki. Even Wimbledon has equal prize money.

NIKKI: It’s hardly Wimbledon. It’s a bunch of unfit, middle-aged parents with drinking problems, carting potatoes around a muddy oval.

RANIA: Hey! [Is this the moment they’re going to explode with each other? Not just yet…]

PENNY: I think it’s dumb. And you deserve as much cash as the men when you win.

NIKKI: Think what you like, Penny. I’m the one racing. I’m the one who always wins unless I’m up the duff or breastfeeding, and I’m over the moon to have an extra two hundred buckeltinis in my pocket.

PENNY: But if you’re working out the cash in terms of weight, you should be getting - let’s see - four hundred dollars - but that’s hardly the point...

NIKKI: Okay, Penny, thanks. You’ve been around the world and you think our race is for boofheads. And whaddaya know, it’s time to go under the dryer.

[PENNY is put under the hair dryer and shut out by its noise.]

NIKKI: [To RANIA] Quick lap?

RANIA: Sure!

[THEY pop behind the counter and get their potato sacks into place for a bit of training.]

NIKKI: It’s hard, because your shoulders don’t want to admit it, but your boobs are your best friend in the potato race, mate. They’re your talisman. Think of them like floodlights. Pointing ahead, lighting the path to victory. That’s the mistake the other chicks make. They forget the importance of upright boobage. They’re hunched over to buggery by the time they get to the finish line. Guaranteed, you let your boobs be the boss? Remembering these funbags is the key to becoming an Appleton Ladies’ Potato Race Champion, trust me.

No back problems. No hernias. Just you, the dirt, the potatoes and the finish line.

stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 29

Tony Award-winning lighting designer Howell Binkley (1956 - 2020) discussed his work on Hamilton during a 2018 webcast at livedesignonline.com. David Spicer has selected some of the highlights, illustrated here with images from the Australian production.

The show starts with a warm white sepia look. There is no blackout during either the first or second act - the machine starts and does not stop. There’s a lot of storytelling ground to cover - ballads, love stories, battles - so every song has a unique signature to avoid repetition.

It is not until Hamilton goes to war that some colour is integrated.

There is a lot of isolation in the course of the action. The leads are broken up in different settings. The wood in the set has a major impact. It takes colour beautifully.

30 Stage Whispers May 2021 - June 2021

Online extras!

Watch the full Howell Binkley webcast at Live Design Online. Scan or visit bit.ly/3vdNSyv

Staging & Theatre Tech The Australian cast of Hamilton.

Photos: Daniel Boud.

King George has his own motif. It is a vibrant off-the-chart look that is comic relief after a battle to break all the tension. The director came up with the idea that when he says “blue” the lights switch accordingly.

The fabric of the girls’ dresses works favourably. They take colour well and are vibrant. Low side lighting is used to drive the sculpting of the dancers. The cream colour of their costumes take the light beautifully.

stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 31

On The Buses Community Theatres are facing their biggest technical challenge yet building their own buses for productions of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert.

CLOC in Melbourne, Willoughby Theatre Company in Sydney and Platinum Entertainment in Perth take us for a peek under the bonnet.

including the iconic bus Priscilla were well on the way.

“And then - well, we all know what happened. Rehearsals, costumes, sets, the bus and the Karen Greenwood reports that Priscilla, the most expensive set piece production all came to a grinding ever constructed by the company, is a halt.

“As community restrictions eased replica of a 1960s Leyland bus. this year, CLOC decided to resume “In early 2019, which now seems Priscilla rehearsals and preparations for an extended season in April-May like ‘a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away’, Melbourne’s CLOC Musical 2021. With excitement, enthusiasm, Theatre started preparing for a visually masks and sanitisers, all departments and aurally spectacular production of - cast, crew, costume team, set builders, props makers - reconvened.

Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, “Amongst the tasks to be scheduled for May 2020. Rehearsals completed was the construction of began in February, and by March, Priscilla, the titular bus and, in her costume making and set building own way, leading lady and co-star of

CLOC’s Priscilla Is Pure 1960s

32 Stage Whispers May 2021 - June 2021

the show. The bus, the most expensive single set item ever constructed in a CLOC show, is designed by the co-director Chris White.

“Our Technical Director Grant Alley and his assistants Justin Karakai and Peter Turley translated Chris’ design into a life-sized steel framework. They solved all the mechanical challenges in making the bus sturdy whilst being able to fit under the gantry that spans the width of the stage. It also moves upstage, downstage and revolves on cue, as well as being totally portable and transportable for future hire.

“Chris, a petrol-head from way back, emphasises that from the outset that his aim was to make a life-size

CLOC. Photos: Ben Fon.

Staging & Theatre Tech

Online extras!

CLOC takes their custom-built “Priscilla” for a quick spin. Scan or visit youtu.be/D481rvPdLfE

CLOC’s production of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert plays from April 30 to May 22 at the National Theatre Melbourne. cloc.org.au bus with accurate proportions comparable to an old Leyland bus from the 1960s/70s.

“Amongst the features on the bus are real air horns, working headlights and indicators, an actual steering wheel from an old tramway bus, a cocktail bar, beaded curtains, clothes racks - all the kitsch decorative comforts of home - and of course, the famous stiletto shoe perched on top of the bus, recreated from the memorable opera scene in the Priscilla movie.

“The bus remains onstage during the show, masked by onstage cloths and projections, and will be operated remotely by a crew member.

“Audiences will also be treated to spectacular costumes, headdresses, lights, sets, choreography, a parade of famous 80s disco hits - and of course Priscilla herself, who will be her own special star of the show. With great excitement, CLOC cannot wait to welcome audiences back to rediscover the joy of live musical theatre.”

(Continued on page 34) stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 33

Willoughby Theatre Company.

Catching The Bus To Willoughby

Peter O’Sullivan reports that Sydney’s Willoughby Theatre Company has included secret entrances on their Priscilla.

“The Willoughby Theatre Company was set to put on the spectacular show last year, but like all groups was forced to postpone due to COVID-19 restrictions.

“As the first community group to put the show on in New South Wales, the company has spared no expense to bring this larger-than-life adventure of three friends aboard a battered old bus bound for Alice Springs onto the stage. Their epic journey is a heartwarming story of self-discovery, sassiness and acceptance, and features some of the biggest pop hits of all time.

“At the heart of the show’s design is the big pink bus. It is a showstopping set piece that has had audiences internationally cheering as it makes its grand entrance in act one.

“To bring the overall vision of show’s director Adam Haynes to life, Willoughby engaged multi-award winning Queensland designer Josh 34 Stage Whispers May 2021 - June 2021

McIntosh to develop and construct the bus.

“Using 200 metres of steel in the frame, Josh has had to build the bus as lightweight as possible to ensure it can be moved easily and quickly by cast during and between scenes. The final bus only weighs approximately 350kg.

“Unique touches have also been added by Josh, and the bus comes

complete with working head and taillights, conventional bi-fold bus doors and removable side panels to create its different looks throughout the show.

“There are even secret entrances at the rear to hide the dressers for those impressive 20 second onstage quick changes for the three leads as they take the audience on their journey across the outback.

Willoughby Theatre Company’s production of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert plays at The Concourse, Chatswood (NSW) from May 15 to 30. willoughbytheatreco.com.au

Willoughby Theatre Company.

impact from the moment it arrives on the Concourse stage.

“We’re also looking forward to seeing the bus tour the country after our production has finished.”

For theatre companies interested in Priscilla set hire, including the bus, email Nikole Music nikolemusic@hotmail.com

Staging & Theatre Tech

“All of the external lights are being changed to LED fixtures controlled by wireless DMX. Our bus sits permanently on a revolving stage, which has power running to the bus via a slip ring.

“The LED screens are also controlled via wireless network, as indeed are PA monitors, so the singers can hear the music whilst inside. So, as you can see it’s a technical wonderland.

“Instead of strengthening the roof, Trevor Patient from Platinum Entertainment in Perth is recycling an we completely removed it and replaced it with staging deck on old school bus to create his Priscilla. ‘scaffold’ poles. Access is via a set of “When I commenced planning for steps that roll on and off from the the musical, I had to decide whether side.

“When I went to pick it up, I to build, hire or buy a set from “Before even hitting the stage for another company. noticed that it had a familiar logo. the first time, the bus for the “I started chatting to our cast “I hunted around on Facebook Willoughby Theatre Company about the bus and discovered that Market Place and found a bus at a production is already in high demand wrecker’s yard. this very vehicle was driven by a cast by other community groups.”

“Our resident bus mechanic gutted member Chris Gerrish when he taught Willoughby Theatre Company the vehicle, and our crew is refitting it at Newman College, the school where director of Priscilla, Adam Haynes, it was from. for use on stage. said, “We can’t wait for audiences to “Further investigation has revealed “We’re putting LED screens in the see his spectacular designs, including bus windows along one side so we that certain cast and crew members the bus which we know will create would have ridden on the bus as can change the colour and add text. students, so they will be very comfortable with the familiar surroundings.”

Platinum Entertainment’s production of Priscilla, Queen Of The

Priscilla Goes West

Desert plays at the Crown Theatre, Perth from May 7 to 30. crownperth.com.au

Platinum Entertainment.

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Staging & Theatre Tech

36 Stage Whispers May 2021 - June 2021

Behind The Scenes With Debora Krizak Acclaimed performer Debora Krizak is writing a special series on the unsung heroes of live theatre. For this edition she is focussing on sound designers and operators.

When it comes to performing, that age old saying is true - “you’re only as good as your soundie”. Over many years touring the country in rock bands, major musicals and cabaret, my overall experience on stage has often been dictated by whether I can hear myself clearly - as well as my fellow actors and musicians.

It’s a delicate balance that takes great skill to get right. What the audience hears and what a performer hears are often vastly different.

Having just completed a season in Packemin’s We Will Rock You at Riverside Theatres in western Sydney, I spoke to sound designers Chris Neal (We Will Rock You/Eclipse Lighting and Sound) and David Grigg (Pippin/ Sydney Opera House).

Chris operates his own audio/visual company and has produced We Will Rock You in an arena. David - a working musician - has emerged as one of Sydney’s most in demand sound designers.

Chris says, “On stage, I’m acutely aware of the challenges performers have hearing themselves. We now have in-ear monitoring which eliminates the need for bulky fold back wedges on stage and helps to control the spill of sound from the stage to auditorium.”

In WWRY, where we had a live rock band on stage, hearing myself and being able to pitch a tune was paramount. Initially there were some challenges, but by our first preview, Chris had our voices equalised, effects were programmed and by incorporating some vocal into the side -of-stage speakers, we were able to sing comfortably, without the risk of blowing out our vocal cords.

When a performer can’t get enough volume to sing over a loud

Debora Krizak.

Photo: Claudio Raschella.

band or orchestra the audience notices big time.

In a rock band, this is commonly overcome with the use of on-stage fold back monitors and a corded or cordless handheld mic. The performer can directly hear themselves in the foldback wedge and the sound engineer has control of the volume of the monitor. In-ear monitors are an added technical innovation as the singer can control the exact mix of voice and instruments they require in their fold back.

While the consensus is that they’re great, I’ve never been a fan of in-ear monitors as they create a slightly more superficial environment. There is something about being connected to the audience, and being able to hear what is happening around me.

“Not everybody understands the craft of what we do as sound designers - they just expect the end result to be good,” says Chris Neal. He adds that to achieve the right sound

balance, it’s important to consider the positioning of the speakers in relation to the performer.

“You never want speakers positioned behind a performer. If we have the capacity to place a lot of speakers throughout the theatre at a low volume, we can achieve the same natural aesthetic without losing any energy or clarity.”

Often this must happen in careful negotiation with directors and choreographers, as speaker positioning can impact sightlines.

Audiences need to see the performers from every angle and no choreographer wants to set a ten minute tap routine where feet are obscured. So, who and what wins out in the end?

“It’s a negotiation process between us all and ultimately we have to decide what’s best for the show,” states Chris.

I’d love to be a fly on the curtain for that debate, however Chris and I do agree on amplification. Too often I see a musical and the first thing that lets it down is the sound balance.

Different styles of musicals can require more conservative sound mixing but I still like to hear the singers ringing straight through the middle of a swelling orchestra.

Perhaps it’s the former rock chick in me.

A musical requires designing a system for amplifying a live orchestra or band, usually in an orchestra pit beneath the stage, with live vocals from the cast moving around a stage.

David adds that this means every instrument has one or multiple microphones positioned in front of them, and each cast member has a (Continued on page 38) stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 37

Staging & Theatre Tech

mics and communicate to mic technicians that there’s a problem wireless microphone positioned on with a particular mic. their head somewhere. Whereas a live During my stint in Cabaret, we lost band may use a handheld mic, microphones in the thick of the show theatre performers have radio on opening night. With many sound microphones carefully positioned in desks now being digital, it can take wigs at the top of the hairline or time to reboot. In this case they what’s referred to as a ‘Madonna mic’ stopped the show. The lead at the side of the mouth. performers left the stage, to pick up Often there are several mics for where they left off ten minutes later. each lead performer in case one David adds that there are plenty of becomes redundant (malfunctions) other challenges that sound designers due to sweat, loss of battery or even face. physical damage. When this happens “You’re trying to get the show it’s the sound operator’s job to switch sounding the same from every seat in the theatre, with the music having plenty of impact, yet having clear and (Continued from page 37)

easy to understand vocals. At the same time, you also want to avoid feedback which is caused by amplifying microphones too loudly into poorly positioned speakers. Once you have that designed, next comes the creativity of vocal and music effects, triggered sound effects, and programming.”

David recently made the transition from musicals to straight theatre which he says requires more creativity.

There are no live instruments, so most of the design is in the sourcing of music, atmospheres and sound effects that help support the storyline. With a play the sound bed is pre-recorded or pre-programmed. The potential for error or last-minute changes is real.

“During the final rehearsals you may have to record sounds, shorten a piece of transition music, or even change the location of a scene. All of these are time consuming, and you become particularly good at letting your creations go if things get cut.”

Well, getting “cut” goes hand in hand with our profession. It’s good to know that putting yourself out there doesn’t just resonate with performers.

“Sound is incredibly personal. You have got to have a thick skin. What one person says sounds fantastic, another may say is too loud.

Achieving optimal sound balance is ultimately a collaborative effort and it’s our job to manage all of that.

When a show settles and everyone is working at their peak, that’s when we achieve the perfect balance.” said Chris Neal.

Mic Drop What’s it like working with stage and musical performers?

David: “For the most part it’s a joy. You’re working with passionate people to achieve their vision and when you have mutual trust, it’s an absolute ball.”

Any advice for up-and-coming soundies?

David: “Networking. Say hello to everyone and be a good energy to be around. Get to know everyone you work with and be kind because I promise you, you will see them again.”

Chris: “Get yourself involved in live theatre. Find a theatre group - watch, help get involved. Break down the things you like and don’t like. Watch and learn.”

Most valuable personality trait?

David: “Patience. Remember you’re making art. Art takes time and patience.”

38 Stage Whispers May 2021 - June 2021

Hearing The People Sing Again What does an audio event company do when it goes from expecting its busiest year ever to zero bookings? David Betteridge from Loud and Clear Audio in Sydney explains that kindness and Government policy saved his business.

When asked to reflect on the impact of COVID-19 on our industry, as technical suppliers to the arts sector, it struck me how important the mantra is, that a business is defined by its people.

Building the right team and sustaining them leads to passion and growth, and loyalty to your brand and one another.

We have a core staff of five in the office here in Sydney, and like many in our industry, have a huge list of freelancers. Our primary source of work is musical theatre, both full production and hire, with a small amount of corporate event work, and a growing pro audio sales division.

On paper 2020 was looking like the busiest year in our history by a big margin - and we were suitably hyped and preparing ourselves, about to invest in more equipment, staff and training.

Then came those crazy few weeks at the beginning of March when the news was of nothing but the rising pandemic, and the phones started ringing and ringing. Within two weeks our planner was completely empty. Not a single job on the books.

As a business owner the first thing that comes into your mind is how to protect your staff. And to this end I congratulate the Federal Government for their response. I know many will disagree with me - but for us, it was tailored correctly and implemented quickly.

Yes, we were one of the first industries to shut down completely, purely based on the nature of what we do, and will likely be one of the last to fully open again. Yes, it would be nice if there was some additional means testing specific to our game to extend it further. Yes, it was a bit glitchy at the very start - but without it, we would no longer be trading. JobKeeper provided just the right amount of wages support to reflect the work we found to do.

(Continued on page 40)

Notable Theatre Company’s Les Misérables.

Photo: Grant Leslie Photography.

stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 39

(Continued from page 39)

We did what nearly all in the biz did - reduced hours, talked with banks and suppliers, and learned to manage a world of uncertainty.

The warehouse team cleaned everything we owned, at least twice. The accounts managers spent their days rebooking and cancelling and re-booking work. Suppliers were amazing, extending deadlines. But what about the banks? Ours was bloody useless! It managed to screw up just about everything it promised to do.

Looking forward it would be helpful if JobKeeper was extended, and we would most likely still qualify but (and I speak only for myself here) eventually someone, and that someone is each and every one of us, has to repay that debt.

And as much as we love our industry, just like sound is one department of many in a full-blown musical production, we are just one industry in a nation of many working towards the same goal.

I think we can survive from here, now that things are beginning to slowly open again. I do want to thank many of my colleagues with small businesses that we collaborate with, who throughout the whole period would call to see how we were, or drop in for a chat and a coffee. They supported us with solidarity, encouragement, and friendship.

Another significant factor in our survival was the loyalty and kindness shown by our customers. “What can we do?” many of them asked. I suggested to some that they look at replacing old and worn-out equipment, and sales increased dramatically in some months.

We also collaborated with companies to live stream events, all within the social distancing restrictions in place.

A select few schools were determined to produce their shows, no matter what. How do you produce and perform a full-blown musical production when you can only have five singers, all spread apart from each other, and when musicians cannot play together?

Well, you record the whole thing, piece by piece, master it down, and then mix the entire thing with whatever live portions the rules allow! Pre-production took two or three weeks alone for each show, but the results were amazing and allowed some of our customers to give their casts the opportunity to stage shows that looked impossible on first pass.

We are blessed in having a lot of diversity within our customer base. Between professional, community, school 40 Stage Whispers May 2021 - June 2021

PLC Sydney’s Virtual Choir Project - an online concert facilitated by the team at Loud And Clear. youtu.be/t9VXttFhse4

and corporate there was always a sector that needed a solution. Early in 2021 a lot of work continued to play the cancellation game, but in equal measure a whole raft of new work sprang from nowhere.

Also encouraging is the speed and efficiency of the health system in identifying new outbreaks of the virus and containing them within very short windows.

And so, to today. The cancellations have (almost) stopped.

I am still fearful for so many of our community theatre groups - some faced with even more issues than just COVID-19, such as losing their venues at the same time.

I do know that their customers, the theatre-going public, are desperate to get out and see their work again.

I hope that all the suppliers who contribute to making their work a reality (venues, rights holders, tech suppliers like us to name but a few) will stand by them and help them all to recover as quickly as possible. If ticket sales to Notable Theatre Company’s production of Les Misérables a few weeks back (our first community show since it all began) are anything to go by, then I already see the public are there in force to support them.

2021 is going to be a hard slog for us. But I believe that it will pave the way to 2022 being our biggest year ever. Everything that 2020 promised, just 24 months late.

Staging & Theatre Tech

Loud And Clear’s warehouse staff were kept busy on cleaning duty.

Notable Theatre Company’s Les Misérables.

Photo: Grant Leslie Photography.

stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 41

Staging & Theatre Tech

Beth Keehn speaks to four of our award-winning sound designers.

Sound design is like an invisible character in a stage play - it can tell so much of the story, yet you might only notice it when it makes a fumble, staggers into a performer, or hits a bad note on the piano!

A fascinating role, sound design is tackled by intrepid practitioners who often have to compose music as well.

Interestingly, the four sound designers I spoke to recently came to the role in different ways - but all share a passion for sound and music, and working with directors, cast and crew to help them use the unique sonic palette to bring a play to life in engaging and innovative ways.

Steve Francis has worked for Australia’s leading State and independent theatre companies including Bangarra Dance Theatre, as well as in film and television.

“The key to theatre sound and music is knowing when to stay out of the way,” he said.

42 Stage Whispers May 2021 - June 2021

As a guitarist and sound designer, Steve has an innate understanding of how sound can complement other storytelling elements.

“When I’m composing for a film, I always chat to the sound team because it’s good to know what they’re bringing to a particular scene.

You don’t want to be telling the same story or stepping on each other’s areas. The key to theatre sound and music is knowing when to stay out of the way.

“Sometimes the playwright will have a distinctive idea for sound. In his play Appropriate, Branden JacobsJenkins mentions cicadas, and Director Wesley Enoch (Sydney Theatre Company) had specific ideas about using them as a prevalent noise throughout the play. To add dynamic, I incorporated music into the sound effect.”

For Bangarra Dance Theatre’s SandSong, Steve worked in the opposite way - adding sound to music.

“We took a trip to the Kimberley to document some traditional songs, but I also recorded atmospheres and natural sounds to add to the score sometimes the non-musical aspects can ground you in the play’s particular world.”

Steve is starting work soon with Director Sam Strong on Boy Swallows Universe for Queensland Theatre (QT).

“I will set up my studio in a friend’s garage space and I’ll stay for the 5-week rehearsal. I usually take in some schematic ideas - a mood board version of the music - but then I’ll respond to what Sam’s doing with the actors. I love being around rehearsals. Hearing the actors perform is an inspiration.

“Also, we’ll chat about the design - the set design by Renée Mulder is extraordinary, with a large video element. That informs my world. Boy Swallows Universe has some very bold moments and I imagine that we’ll have some very bold storytelling within the sound design as well.”

Where to hear Anna’s work: Fertile Ground Metro Arts. May 25 to 29. metroarts.com.au

Anna Whitaker at the Home Of The Arts (HOTA) Gallery.

Photo: Daniel Kassulke.

Caesar La Boite. July 17 to August 7. laboite.com.au Anna Whitaker works as a composer, sound designer and audio engineer.

“There are so many different elements - that’s what I love about the role!” she said.

Anna thrives on collaboration and her work is multi-faceted across composition and sound. Her background was in classical music and violin, but it was while studying a Bachelor of Music Technology at the Queensland Conservatorium that she learned about studio production, mixing and live sound.

“As a composer and musician, it has been so useful having developed those skills for sound design in theatre. Having that understanding of the technical side has been incredibly

helpful in workflow and efficiency, especially when you often have short periods to write a lot of music, or a client wants an orchestral piece recorded.

“Sometimes you wear a lot of hats - you have the creative process with writing the music, and then you have to mix it and master it all, as well as the sound design, making sure it all

Where to hear Steve’s work SandSong: Stories from the Great Sandy Desert Bangarra at Sydney Opera House. June 10 to July 10, then country-wide until September. bangarra.com.au

sounds unified and together, and then programming it all in QLab. I love getting in the space early, meeting the director and the cast, talking with the artists about the emotions, the feeling of the world that we are creating and get an idea of what that sounds like.

(Continued on page 44)

Steve Francis at work on Bangarra Dance Theatre’s Dark Emu (2018).

Photos: Daniel Boud.

Boy Swallows Universe Queensland Theatre. August 30 to September 18. queenslandtheatre.com.au

stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 43

Staging & Theatre Tech

Where to hear Julian’s work: Late Night Staring At High Res Pixels Finborough Theatre online. finboroughtheatre.co.uk Hyperdream The Old Fitz Theatre. May 15 to June 5. redlineproductions.com.au

Julian Starr.

Photo: Courtesy NIDA.

the best utilisation of sound and music,” he said.

“I love the variety of doing “When I decided to work in the technical work, sound design, theatre, I wanted to become a stage composition and installations.” manager. But, while working with In 2019 Anna shared a Matilda Sarah Goodes at NIDA I realised I Award for Best Sound Design/ wanted to get more involved in music Composition as Associate Designer and sound. At the end of my third with Luke Smiles for Throttle - an year I was awarded a scholarship that immersive ‘B-Grade Horror’ dancetook me to the UK, where I worked theatre piece by The Farm, set in a with sound designer Paul Arditti at drive-in theatre space. the National Theatre, and on the “(For) Throttle the audience sat in Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, and their own cars and watched it in a Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein. field. The sound was all heard “My role is to collaborate with the through the car stereo system via a director and creative team to ensure dedicated radio station. There was creative problem-solving and deliver the best utilisation of sound and dialogue, atmos, sound effects - it was quite intense. music to support the show’s narrative, “I love collaboration and the character development and other variety of technical work, sound design elements as a whole. In 2019, design, composition and installations I designed and composed for 25 because I want to be open to all areas shows. Then - like so many others - I of sound. I enjoy the constant lost a whole year of work in one day. stimulation and getting to work on so Back in Australia, director Heather Fairbairn reached out as she’d just many different types of projects.” started the Hive Collective at Metro Julian Starr works in Australia and Arts. When she gave me the script for London as a sound designer and Elektra/Orestes, I jumped at the composer in venues ranging from the opportunity.

West End to castles.

“A month before rehearsals, “My role is to collaborate with the Heather visited my studio and gave director and creative team to deliver me three words: ‘dark, distorted and (Continued from page 43)

44 Stage Whispers May 2021 - June 2021

twisted’. ‘I can do that!’ I said. The play is in two settings and the second half goes back in time - we used sound to set up the tension for what is about to happen. I like to bring something new and interesting to a show, and I had just received a custom-made synth from Resonant Garden in LA, so many of the sounds and musical textures I created for Elektra/Orestes were heard by Brisbane audiences for the first time.

“You do have to be flexible because if the show’s changing, you have to adapt with the show and other creators. For example, I worked on a devised show called Scrounger at the Finborough in early 2020 and the director, Lily McLeish, played me a film soundtrack that sent me in a new direction. When that happens and a director likes a key element, then I know how to do the show. I usually lock myself away for 72 hours and complete the score - the ideas - you just have to work hard and fast to deliver.”

Tony Brumpton has regularly worked for Queensland Theatre (QT), Black Swan and Dead Puppet Society (The Wider Earth, Laser Beak Man).

Tony Brumpton.

Photo: Queensland Theatre.

Where to hear Tony’s work: Taming Of The Shrew Queensland Theatre. May 8 to June 5. queenslandtheatre.com.au The Time Is Now La Boite. May 24 to June 5. laboite.com.au Ishmael Dead Puppet Society at QPAC for the Brisbane Festival. August 30 to September 11. qpac.com.au

“I am actually thinking of the audience and what their sonic journey is going to be,” he said.

Some sound designers start from a musical background, but it was Tony’s technical skills that got him his first gig. It was for QT - Absurd Person Singular by Alan Ayckbourn - an FXladen script. Tony stepped up and found his route to sound design. He is currently back at QT and in rehearsals for Taming of the Shrew.

“Shrew is an unusual sound design because director Damien Ryan has reimagined Shakespeare’s play in a new time period - so we’ve been looking at music and sound that fits.

We had meetings a couple of months ago about what the concepts were.

On other shows, we can start years in advance. We’ve been working on Dead Puppet Society’s Ishmael for nearly three years - partly due to the lockdown, but also because it’s incredibly complex and we have to build the sounds from scratch.”

In 2017 Tony flew to London to help premiere Wider Earth as the first theatrical show to grace the heritagelisted Natural History Museum. The team had to build a new space to host the show in just six weeks.

theatre (unlike film) I am often designing the speaker system, making sure it suits the venue and is immersing the audience in the right way.”

Tony juggles his time between hands-on theatre work and lecturing at QUT. “I choose theatre projects that have something technically or acoustically challenging, or that support culturally important stories “With puppets, it’s a more for example, City of Gold or Black intensive process because you have to Diggers. Academics should have some develop the sound design as the script idea of practice - getting hands-on is being developed - coming up with and being active and involved - so an ‘aural stenography’ - the whole they can inform the next generation world, rather than just separate sound about the issues they will be working and music. I am actually thinking of with. the audience and what their sonic “With every project, I try to pick journey is going to be. one new thing to try. I also value the “For Dead Puppets, the musicians people you get to meet - it’s never like are usually recorded first and then I showing up to an office job - you still come in. For other shows I tend to spend a lot of time looking at take on the whole thing - writing spreadsheets, but different ones each music, finding soundscapes. And, in gig!”

stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 45

Stage on Page

By Peter Pinne

Hanky-Panky - The Theatrical Escapades of Ernest C. Rolls by Frank Van Straten (Australian Scholarly Publishing) Of all the rogues and vagabonds in Australia’s theatrical past, Ernie Rolls would have to be the most colorful, with a flair for exaggeration and careless with the truth. Frank Van Straten has done a mighty job of separating fact from fiction in this new book, dedicated to a long unjustly-forgotten theatrical entrepreneur.

Rolls’ Australian sojourn lasted fifteen years, from 1925 until 1940, and during that time he produced some of the most lavish Ziegfeld-type revues Australia has ever seen. His recipe for success was songs, dances, comedy and girls - lots of beautiful girls - the more scantily clad the better.

Ernest C. Rolls, or to give him his real name, Joseph Adolphe Darewski, was born June 6 1890, according to Van Straten, most probably in Vienna, to a large musical Jewish family who had originally come from Poland. His father, Eduard, sang tenor in opera, whilst his siblings Herman and Max became composers of note. The

46 Stage Whispers May 2021 - June 2021

family moved to Manchester, England in 1894, and later to London in 1899.

In his late teens, Rolls took on the mantle of producer. His first ‘star attraction’ was Eva Moore, a respected actress and future motherin-law of Laurence Olivier. When he didn’t pay her the agreed fee she took him to court. It was the first (but not the last) time he was the ‘star attraction’ in a courtroom.

Rolls’ first London production was the revue Oh Molly!, which formed half of a variety bill at the London Pavilion in 1912. He followed with some ten full-length revues in London and the provinces, which included Ragmania (1913), Full Inside (1914), and the all-male drag revue Splinters (1919).

When Full Inside opened in London, singer and comedienne Jennie Benson joined the cast. From that moment on Rolls’ and Benson’s careers were linked to each other.

They married in 1921 and remained together for the rest of their lives, despite going through turbulent financial times and the ignominy of Rolls’ infamous public disgrace when he exposed himself to two women.

This title is available for $49.95 from Australian Scholarly Publishing bit.ly/2QgcJCN Benson had been to Australia for the Tivoli Circuit in 1909 and loved it, so when another offer came to tour ‘down under’ in 1925 she jumped at the chance. Rolls was her conductor and manager. The next fifteen years saw Rolls become a permanent fixture on the theatrical scene producing his forte, lavish Ziegfeld-type revues and musicals - Sunny (1927) and Gladys Moncrieff in Rio Rita (1928) amongst others.

man himself. The book comes with some marvelous images, especially the art-deco program covers for Tout Paris, Rhapsodies of 1935 and Vogues of 1935 with their racy near-naked depictions of young women. It’s well documented and a riveting read.

A Star On Her Door - The Life and Career of June Bronhill (Wakefield Press) After writing definitive biographies of Stuart Challender, Marjorie Lawrence, Geoffrey Parsons and Eileen Joyce, author Richard Davies has now turned his attention to June Bronhill.

She is a more than worthy subject, with a career that covered grand opera, operetta, musicals, straight Pick up a copy of “A Star On plays, variety, radio, concerts, Her Door” for $31.50 from television and recording.

Stage Whispers Books Bronhill was born June Mary bit.ly/3n4QD2d Gough in Broken Hill, NSW, June 26 1929, the last child in the large family In the early thirties, in league with of George and Daisy Gough, who the Fuller organisation, Rolls set-up already had four daughters and a son. shop at the recently renamed Apollo She studied music with Marianne Theatre, Melbourne (formerly the Mathy, a former coloratura soprano Palace), and produced Rhapsodies of and it was Mathy who helped June 1935, with Strella Wilson and Roy select a new performing surname, an Rene ‘Mo’, and Jack O’Hagan’s abbreviation of her hometown Broken musical Flame of Desire (1935).

Hill.

In 1938, Rolls managed to inveigle Her first stage performances were his way onto the J.C. Williamson’s for the Rockdale Opera Company, board, which later found him Sydney, where she sang in Hansel and appointed co-managing director.

Gretel and A Masked Ball. Playing the Under his reign JCW produced The female lead Margo Bonvalet in The Women to great success around the Desert Song for Petersham Musical nation, but I Married an Angel Society, she met her first husband, performed dismally, running a mere Brian Martin, a sales representative for 29 performances. He and Benson Berlei Corsetry Company. Martin had returned to the UK in 1940, where his a daughter, Faith, by a previous credits included wartime provincial marriage. touring revues and a last ditch effort In 1952 they sailed for London, to revive music-hall at the where Bronhill was to study singing Metropolitan, Paddington. with Italian Dino Borgioli. She He died in 1964, whilst Benson auditioned for Sadler’s Wells and very died in 1979 aged 95. He was not soon became their leading soprano, always liked: Viola Tate in her book A appearing as Barbarina in The Family of Brothers disparagingly Marriage of Figaro and Adele in Die referred to him as ‘a Polish Jew’, but Fledermaus. She did two Menotti Roy Rene in Mo’s Memoirs said, ‘I operas on TV, The Saint of Bleeker think Rolls was one of the greatest Street and The Telephone, before showmen this country has ever seen.’ starring in one of the biggest It’s an engaging biography of successes of her career, The Merry Australia’s own Max Bialystock, or Widow.

‘Flash Ernie’ as he was known, and is This led to a string of EMI as flamboyant and salacious as the recordings of operettas - Land of

Smiles, Roberta and Orpheus in the Underworld - which she performed to great success on stage.

She returned to Australia with The Merry Widow and followed with the role of Maria in The Sound of Music, playing it to enormous success throughout Australia and New Zealand, which was where she met her second husband, Richard Finney.

They had a daughter Carolyn, but the marriage was in trouble, with infidelity on both sides. They divorced in 1971.

In 1964 Bronhill had an enormous success as poet Elizabeth Barrett in Robert and Elizabeth opposite Keith Michell as Robert Browning. After playing 948 West End performances, with Kevin Colson succeeding Michell as Browning, Bronhill toured the show to South Africa and Australia. It was a success in Melbourne, but flopped in Sydney.

Bronhill was devastated and ended up working at the Lido nightclub, Melbourne, to earn money. She returned to London for a provincial tour of Novello’s The Dancing Years which did a London stint, and also tours of Coward’s Bitter Sweet, and Novello’s Glamorous Night and Perchance to Dream.

In 1981 The Sound of Music beckoned again, only this time she played the Mother Abbess opposite Petula Clark as Maria. Following the season she returned to Australia to find her partner at the time, Freddie Wrennell, who had access to her bank accounts, had failed to pay her tax bills and drained her account, having spent the money on himself and lavish parties. Broke, she found work as Mrs. Pearce in My Fair Lady, Nunsense, and Arsenic and Old Lace with Gwen Plumb.

She began losing her hearing in 1992. Roles became more infrequent and eventually she went into aged care. She died in 2005. The book comes with lots of B&W photos and a loving foreword by her successor, Marina Prior. ‘She was also a star of the “old school” and an incandescent light on stage, able to hold thousands in her thrall. We will not see her like again. Brava, dear June.’ stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 47

Stage On Disc

By Peter Pinne

Anyone Can Whistle (Stephen Sondheim) (Jay Records 1457) Jay Records’ ambitious recording of Sondheim’s Anyone Can Whistle has been in the works for 23 years.

The original tracks were put down in 1997, additional work was done in 2013, and now we have the first complete version of this legendary 9 performance 1964 flop. The reasons for the delay were mainly administration and financial. So, after a 23 year wait, is it worth it? Yes, definitely, yes.

With two of Sondheim’s English muses at the helm, Maria Friedman and Julia McKenzie, who between them have introduced London to Sally, Mrs. Lovett, Dot and Fosca, John Barrowman, whose credits include Putting It Together, and John Owen Edwards leading a superb National Symphony Orchestra, the riches on offer are many.

One is continually blown-away by the score, the breadth of invention, and Don Walker’s orchestrations, which perfectly express the atonal nature of the subject, an industrial town that fakes a miracle to bring in the tourists.

The two extended musical sequences, ‘Simple’ and ‘The Cookie Chase’, were groundbreaking for Broadway in 1964. ‘Simple’ is astounding with its complex layered vocal parts, whilst ‘The Cookie Chase’, a 10 minute demented, but elaborate European operetta waltz sequence sung by Cora, the Mayoress, and the company is one of the musical theatre’s most accomplished pastiches.

McKenzie, in good, strong voice throughout, is a standout on the opening ‘Me and My Town’ with her four ‘boys’, but Friedman is a joy as the multiple personality frigid nurse Fay Apple, who can only function sexually when disguised as the ‘Lady from Lourdes’. ‘Come Play Wiz Me’ is fun and Barrowman, a lightweight Hapgood, duets nicely on it, while they both pull the emotion out of the title tune and ‘With So Little To Be Sure Of’, my favorite Sondheim song, although I miss the abrasiveness of Harry Guardino’s vocal on the original.

The ‘Everybody Says Don’t’ ballet is

Online extras!

Stream the 1964 recording of Anyone Can Whistle from Apple Music. apple.co/3sqH3aP 48 Stage Whispers May 2021 - June 2021

recorded for the first time, along with several playouts, the curtain call and exit music.  Les Misérables - The Staged Concert (Claude Michel Schönberg/Alain Boublil/Herbert Kretzmer) (Universal Pictures) The staged concert of Les Misérables played at the Gielgud Theatre, London, in 2019 while the newly christened Sondheim Theatre (formerly Queens) underwent refurbishments. With a company of over 65, the musical featured Alfie Boe as Jean Valjean, Michael Ball as Javert, Matt Lucas as Thénardier and Carrie Hope Fletcher as Fantine.

Directed by Laurence Connor and Jean-Pierre van de Spuy, it’s an emotional roller-coaster ride from start to finish. The voices are magnificent, and Boe and Ball are simply thrilling in rafter-raising versions of their roles. The concert ended with five actors who had portrayed Jean Valjean - John Owen-Jones, Jon Robyns, Dean Chisnall, Killian Donnelly and Boe, all singing ‘Bring Him Home’, with Ball and Bradley Jaden (the new Javert) singing ‘Stars’. When the company close with ‘One More Day’, there’s not a dry eye in the house. 

Online extras!

Grab a copy of Les Misérables: The Staged Concert from JB Hi-Fi. bit.ly/3v0jdVb Show Time - Volume 1 (Various) (Stage Door) In 1952, RCA Victor created the first 45rpm Extended Play records. Instead of re-releasing the back catalogue, they recorded, and beautifully recorded at that, new versions of popular musicals with Broadway stars of the time. Some had played in the original cast, others were replacement or touring cast members, and for some it was their first chance to commit to discs roles they had sung on Broadway or on tour.

Stage Door have now combined six of these EPs on one CD - two shows from Rodgers and Hammerstein, two

by Rodgers and Hart, and two by Jerome Kern.

The Rodgers and Hart and Kern are the most interesting - Jumbo, Babes in Arms, and The Cat and the Fiddle - as it’s not often we get recordings of these shows with their original orchestrations.

Stephen Douglass (Damn Yankees/The Pajama Game) is wonderful on ‘The Night was Made For Love’ and ‘She Rating  Only for the enthusiast  Borderline  Worth buying  Must have  Kill for it

Didn’t Say Yes’ from The Cat and the Fiddle. Lisa Kirk (Kiss Me, Kate/Mack and Mabel) brings classy vocals to Babes in Arms’ ‘The Lady is a Tramp’ and ‘My Funny Valentine’, but it’s Sheila Bond (Wish You Were Here) who’s vibrantly alive on ‘Johnny One Note’. A young sounding Jack Cassidy delightfully croons Jumbo’s ‘My Romance’ and ‘The Most Beautiful Girl in the World’, whilst Jordan Bentley, who memorably sang ‘Pass That Football’ in Wonderful Town, gets swept away in ‘Over and Over Again’, another gem from Jumbo.

Other shows are Show Boat, Carousel and Oklahoma! and other performers include John Raitt, Carol Bruce, Doretta Morrow and Patricia Neway, Broadway’s original Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music. 

Andrews in Camelot on Broadway, starred in London’s Ann Veronica, and played Madame Giry in the original The Phantom of the Opera. Contemporary audiences know her as Rose in Keeping Up Appearances. Opposite her as the ‘Red Shadow’ is Australian actor Robert Coleman, whose credits include Camelot, Charlie Girl and Robert and Elizabeth. They couple well on the title song, Coleman does nicely with ‘The Riff Song’ and ‘One Alone’, whilst Millar is equally as good on the ‘French Military Marching Song’ and ‘The Sabre Song’.

The CD comes with recordings from the original 1927 London cast, which starred Harry Welchman and Edith Day. The 78 clean-up is superb. Bonus tracks are by John Hanson, a frequent touring ‘Red Shadow’ of the sixties. 

R&H Goes Pop! (Richard Rodgers/Oscar Hammerstein ll) (#rhgoespop) When Broadway went into lockdown early last year, the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization started releasing contemporary versions of their classic catalogue by young Broadway performers. These have now been released as a download collection.

Online extras!

Hosted by Laura Osnes, the result puts a new spin on Order Show Time - Volume One from these old favourites. The most non-traditional are Ashley Stage Door Records. Scan or visit Park’s ‘Do-Re-Mi’ rap bit.ly/3uR9eS6 with four guys, Katrina Lenk’s countrified ‘Something Good’, The Desert Song (Sigmund Romberg/Otto Harback/ Ariana DeBose’s ‘Shall Oscar Hammerstein ll) (Stage Door STAGE 9080) Once upon a time, The Desert Song was the staple of We Dance’, which uses ‘A Wonderful Guy’ lyrics every amateur musical theatre group around the world, as rap, and Jelani but those days are long gone. This twenties operetta, Alladin and Matt Doyle originally called Fair Lady, has a glorious Sigmund with an interracial gay Romberg score, and was a huge hit when it opened on Broadway in 1926 and in London in 1927. Capitalising on take of ‘We Kiss In a Shadow’.  the then current Riff uprising in Morocco, Lawrence of Arabia and Rudolph Valentino’s success in The Sheik, the story was an up-to-date and contemporary tale involving Online extras! espionage, intrigue and romance.

Listen to R&H Goes Pop! on Spotify.

Its last outing in Scan the QR code or visit London was in 1967 spoti.fi/3vcPHvJ and this studio recording was released at that time. Mary Millar, who had toured as Margot Bonvalet in the show twice, was a well-known face on Broadway and London stages, having understudied Julie

Stage Whispers Directory premium listing: $20

Online extras!

Buy the London studio cast recording of The Desert Song from Amazon. amzn.to/3glnBtF

Get noticed on the Stage Whispers website with a premium listing at a great price stagewhispers.com.au/directory-central

stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 49

On Stage

A.C.T. & New South Wales Jonathan Biggins reassumes his role as Paul Keating in Soft Tread’s The Gospel According To Paul. Playing at Cessnock Performing Arts Centre on May 4, Civic Theatre, Newcastle on May 6 and Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre, Penrith on May 7 & 8 ahead of dates in Victoria and Queensland.

Photo: Brett Boardman. softtread.com.au

The Appleton Ladies’ Potato Race by Melanie Tait. Ensemble Theatre. Jun 3 - 5. The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre. canberratheatrecentre.com.au Impermanence. Sydney Dance Company. Jun 4 - 5. Canberra Theatre. canberratheatrecentre.com.au Grace Under Pressure by David Williams and Paul Dwyer.

Sydney Arts & Health Collective. Jun 10 - 12. The Q Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre. theq.net.au The 7 Stages of Grieving by Wesley Enoch and Deborah Mailman. Sydney Theatre Company. Jun 23 - 26. The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre. canberratheatrecentre.com.au Kiss Me, Kate. Book by Bella and Samuel Spewak. Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter. Jun 18 - 27. The Q - Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre. theq.net.au Melbourne International Comedy Festival Roadshow.

Jun 25 & 26. Canberra Theatre. canberratheatrecentre.com.au

Online extras!

Jonathan Biggins’ Keating has a few choice words for today’s politicians. youtu.be/FVchE12Vkh0 A.C.T. Mamma Mia! Music and lyrics

by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, with some songs by Stig Anderson. Book by Catherine Johnson. Free-Rain Theatre Company. Until May 8.

The Q - Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre. theq.net.au Animal Farm by George Orwell.

Shake & Stir. May 6 - 8. The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre. canberratheatrecentre.com.au 50 Stage Whispers

A German Life by Christopher Hampton. May 11 - 16. The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre. canberratheatrecentre.com.au Foxholes of the Mind by Bernard Clancy. WHAM. May 12 - 14. Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre Centre. canberratheatrecentre.com.au

Little Girls Alone in the Woods

by Morgan Rose. Canberra Youth Theatre. May 19 - 22.

Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre Centre. canberratheatrecentre.com.au

American Psycho The Musical.

Music and lyrics by Duncan Sheik and book by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. BB-Arts Entertainment & Two Doors Production. Jun 30 - Jul 3. The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre. canberratheatrecentre.com.au The Governor’s Family by Beatrix Christian. Canberra Rep. Jul 1 - 17. Theatre 3. canberrarep.org.au New South Wales

Rebel. Quantum Leap. May 20 - 22. The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre. canberratheatrecentre.com.au

Hamilton. Book, music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Michael Cassel Group.

Ongoing. Sydney Lyric Theatre. hamiltonmusical.com.au

Jekyll & Hyde by Robert Louis Rope by Patrick Hamilton.

Stevenson. A Slightly Isolated Canberra Rep. May 20 - Jun 5.

Dog. May 18 - 23. Bicentennial Theatre 3. canberrarep.org.au Hall, Queanbeyan. theq.net.au

Yellow Face by David Henry Wang. Dinosaurus Productions.

Until May 8. KXT - Kings Cross Theatre. kingsxtheatre.com

Just $50 a month to reach thousands of theatre goers. Contact Stage Whispers for details.

On Stage Home, I’m Darling by Laura Wade. Sydney Theatre Company. Until May 15.

Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House. sydneytheatre.com.au Magic Mike Live. Conceived and Directed by Channing Tatum. Until May 16. The Arcadia, The Entertainment Quarter, Moore Park. magicmikelive.com.au Macbeth by William Shakespeare. Campbelltown Theatre Group. Until May 19.

Campbelltown Town Hall Theatre. 0426 285 287. ctgi.org.au The Removalists by David Williamson. New Theatre, Newtown. Until May 22. newtheatre.org.au In Duty Bound by Ron Elisha.

Theatre on Chester, Epping.

Until May 22. theatreonchester.com.au Frozen. Music and lyrics by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and

Robert Lopez. Book by Jennifer Lee. Disney Theatrical Productions. Until May 23.

Capitol Theatre, Sydney. 1300 558 878. frozenthemusical.com.au Fun Home. Music by Jeanine Tesori; Book and Lyrics by Lisa Kron. Based on the novel by Alison Bechdel. Sydney Theatre Company. Until May 29. Roslyn Packer Theatre. sydneytheatre.com.au

New South Wales A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf, adapted for the stage by Carissa Licciardello & Tom Wright. Belvoir. May 6 23. Belvoir, Upstairs Theatre.

(02) 9699 3444. belvoir.com.au Our Town by Thornton Wilder.

The Guild. May 7 - Jun 5. The Guild Theatre, Walz Street, Rockdale. (02) 9597 4558. guildtheatre.com.au

Mann & Cynthia Weil. Blackout Theatre Company. May 7 - 9.

Pioneer Theatre, Castle Hill. blackouttheatre.com.au Steel Magnolias by Robert Harling. Tamworth Dramatic Society. May 7 - 15. Capitol Theatre, Tamworth. tms.org.au

Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.

Music by Alan Menken. Lyrics

by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice. Book by Linda The Children by Lucy Kirkwood. Woolverton. Orange Theatre Honour by Joanna MurrayBrunker Community Theatre.

Company. May 7 - 15. Orange Smith. Ensemble Theatre. Until May 7 - 22. Theatre on Civic Centre.

Jun 5. ensemble.com.au Brunker, Adamstown orangetheatreco.com.au (Newcastle). 0412 797 395.

Dogged by Andrea James and Waiting for Lefty by Clifford Catherine Ryan. Griffin Theatre Jersey Boys. Book by Marshall Odets. Reamus Youth Theatre.

Co. Until Jun 5. SBW Stables Brickman & Rick Elice. Music by May 7 - 22. Maitland Repertory Theatre. griffintheatre.com.au Bob Gaudio. Lyrics by Bob Theatre. 0466 332 766 (10am Crewe. So Popera Productions. - 2pm). mrt.org.au The Gospel According to Paul May 6 - 9. WIN Entertainment

by Jonathan Biggins. Soft Tread The Game’s Afoot by Ken Centre. ticketmaster.com.au Enterprises. May 4. Cessnock Ludwig. Arts Theatre Cronulla.

Performing Arts Centre, (02) Beautiful The Carole King May 7 - Jun 12. Arts Theatre, 6 4993 4266 & May 6. Civic Musical. Book by Douglas Surf Road, Cronulla. Bookings Theatre, Newcastle, (02) 4929 McGrath. Words and music by from Apr 24. (02) 9523 2779 Gerry Goffin, Carole King, Barry 1977. softtread.com.au

Advertise your show on the front page of stagewhispers.com.au

Stage Whispers 51

On Stage (9am - 12pm). artstheatrecronulla.com.au

New South Wales

Wicked. Music and Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz. Book by Winnie Holzman. Engadine Animal Farm by George Orwell, Musical Society. May 14 - 23. adapted by Nick Skubij. shake Engadine Community Centre. & stir theatre co. May 12, Civic engadinemusicalsociety.com.au Theatre, Newcastle (02) 4929 1977 & May 24, Cessnock Priscilla Queen of the Desert Performing Arts Centre, (02) The Musical by Allan Scott and 4993 4266.

Stephan Elliott. Willoughby Theatre Company. May 15 shakeandstir.com.au 30. The Concourse Theatre, Medea. Stray Dogs Theatre Chatswood. (02) 8075 8111.

Company. May 12 - 15. NTC willoughbytheatreco.com.au Theatre, Lambton (Newcastle).

(02) 4952 4958.

Hyperdream by Adraine Daff newcastletheatrecompany.com.au and Mikala Westall. Red Line Productions and The Last Great More Than A Little Black Dress Hunt. May 15 - Jun 6. Old Fitz

by Jo Denver. Blackheath Theatre.

Theatre Company. May 13 redlineproductions.com.au 16. Blackheath Community Centre Hall.

The Tempest by William blackheaththeatrecompany.com Shakespeare. Sport for Jove.

May 19 - 28. Riverside Theatre, The King and I by Rodgers and Parramatta.

Hammerstein. Bankstown riversideparramatta.com.au Theatre Company. May 14 23. Bryan Brown Theatre.

A Passage to India by E. M. bankstowntheatrecompany.com Forster, adapted by Martin Sherman. Genesian Theatre.

Steel Magnolias by Robert May 15 - Jun 19.

Harling. Lane Cove Theatre genesiantheatre.com.au Company. May 14 - 29. The Performance Space at St The 7 Stages of Grieving by Wesley Enoch and Deborah Aidan’s, Longueville. lanecovetheatrecompany.com Mailman. May 21 - Jun 19.

Wharf 1 Theatre.

We Will Rock You by Queen sydneytheatre.com.au and Ben Elton. The Players Theatre, Port Macquarie. May Keeping Up Appearances by Roy Clarke. Murwillumbah 14 - Jun 6. (02) 6584 6663. playerstheatre.org.au Theatre Company. May 22 -

Jun 6. Murwillumbah Civic Centre Auditorium. 0498 831 575. murwillumbahtheatrecompany.com.au Jersey Boys. Book by Marshall Brickman & Rick Elice. Music by Bob Gaudio. Lyrics by Bob Crewe. Blue Mountains Musical Society. May 22 - Jun 6. Blue Mountains Theatre. bmms.org.au Glorious! by Peter Quilter.

Wyong Drama Group. May 25 - Jun 5. wyongdramagroup.com.au Foxholes of the Mind by Bernard Clancy. WHAM. May 27 - 29. Civic Theatre, Newcastle. (02) 4929 1977. civictheatrenewcastle.com.au Zombie Thoughts by Jennifer A. Kokai and Oliver KokaiMeans. Riverside’s National Theatre of Parramatta. May 27 - Jun 5. Lennox Theatre, Riverside Theatres, Parramatta. riversideparramatta.com.au The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov. Belvoir. May 29 - Jun 27. Belvoir, Upstairs Theatre.

(02) 9699 3444. belvoir.com.au PAW Patrol Live! Race to the Rescue. Stan. May 29.

Newcastle Entertainment Centre. (02) 4921 2121. nec.net.au Disney’s The Little Mermaid Jr. Music by Alan Menken. Lyrics

by Howard Ashman & Glenn Slater. Book by Doug Wright.

Based on the Hans Christian Andersen story and the Disney film. Spectrum Theatre Group.

May 29 - Jun 19. Bega Commemorative Civic Centre.

0466 096 217. spectrumtheatregroup.com.au Significant Other by Joshua Harmon. New Theatre, Newtown. Jun 1 - 26. newtheatre.org.au Blithe Spirit by Noël Coward.

Pymble Players. Jun 2 - 26. pymbleplayers.com.au

52 Stage Whispers

The House of Bernarda Alba.

Newcastle Theatre Company.

Jun 5 - 26. NTC Theatre, Lambton (Newcastle). (02) 4952 4958. newcastletheatrecompany.com.au Grand Horizons. By Bess Wohl.

Starring John Bell and Linda Cropper. Sydney Theatre Company. Jun 7 - Jul 3. Roslyn Packer Theatre. sydneytheatre.com.au The Woman in Black. By Susan Hill, adapted for the stage by Stephen Mallatrat. Ensemble Theatre. Jun 11 - Jul 24. ensemble.com.au Melbourne International Comedy Festival Roadshow 2021. Jun 10, Cessnock Performing Arts Centre, (02) 4993 4266 & Jun 11 - 12, Civic Theatre, Newcastle (02) 4929 1977. comedyfestival.com.au Happy Days by Samuel Beckett.

Red Line Productions. Jun 12 Jul 3. Old Fitz Theatre. redlineproductions.com.au Così by Louis Nowra. Atwea College. Jun 17 - 19.

Community Arts Space (CAS) Theatre, Hamilton (Newcastle).

(02) 4925 4200.

Spiegelesque. Kermond Creative Entertainment. Jun 17 - 20. Lennox Theatre, Riverside Theatres, Parramatta. riversideparramatta.com.au 84 Charing Cross Road by Jonathan Biggins. Hunters Hill Theatre. Jun 18 - Jul 4. Club Ryde. huntershilltheatre.com.au Prima Facie by Suzie Miller.

Griffin Theatre Co. Jun 23 - Jul 10. SBW Stables Theatre. griffintheatre.com.au High School Musical Onstage.

St Phillip’s Christian College Senior School. Jun 24 - 26.

Civic Theatre, Newcastle. (02) 4929 1977. civictheatrenewcastle.com.au Tim Minchin - Back (Encore Tour). Live Nation. Jun 28 - 29.

Civic Theatre, Newcastle. (02)

Just $50 a month to reach thousands of theatre goers. Contact Stage Whispers for details.

On Stage

New South Wales & Queensland

George Orwell’s powerfully potent and profoundly popular Animal Farm is currently touring nationally, presented by Shake & Stir. This multi-award-winning theatre production is served fast, furious and full of grunt, with performances in A.C.T., New South Wales and Queensland throughout May and June. shakeandstir.com.au 4929 1977. civictheatrenewcastle.com.au

(07) 3369 2344. artstheatre.com.au

Naked Bunyip Dancing.

Adapted for the stage by Callan Purcell, from Steven Herrick’s novel. Newcastle Young People’s Theatre. Jun 29 - Jul 17. Young People’s Theatre, Hamilton (Newcastle).

(02) 4961 4895. ypt.org.au

Come From Away by Irene Sankoff and David Hein. Lyric Theatre, QPAC. Until May 9.

136 246. qpac.com.au Urzila Carlson - Token African.

Concert Hall, QPAC. May 3 - 5.

136 246. qpac.com.au

Theatre. May 8 - 22. School of Arts, Windsor. growltheatre.org.au Shakespearean Classics. QSO. May 9. Concert Hall, QPAC. 136 246. qpac.com.au Drummer Queens. Lyric Theatre, QPAC. May 11 - 16.

136 246. qpac.com.au

Brisbane. May 18 - 29. (07) 3002 7100. metroarts.com.au Avatar by Mark Lucas and Donahue Sisters by Geraldine Aron. Toowoomba Repertory Group. May 18 - 29. (07) 4632 8058. toowoombarep.com.au

Horizon by Maxine Mellor.

Brisbane Powerhouse. May 19 29. (07) 3358 8622.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Two Weeks With The Queen by Triple X by Glace Chase. Sydney brisbanepowerhouse.org Rupert Holmes. Phoenix Mary Morris, adapted from the Theatre Company / Queensland Ensemble, Beenleigh. May 7 novel by Morris Gleitzman.

Violet Crowned. Brisbane Theatre. Jul 1 - Aug 14. Wharf 29. (07) 3103 1546.

Javeenbah Theatre, Nerang, Powerhouse. May 20 - 22. (07) 1 Theatre. trybooking.com/BORXR Gold Coast. May 14 - 29. (07) 3358 8622. sydneytheatre.com.au 5596 0300. javeenbah.org.au brisbanepowerhouse.org Hancock Comes to the Land Queensland Down Under by Heathcote Beautiful The Carole King Next To Normal by Tom Kitt No Sex Please, We’re British by Williams Ray Galton and Alan Musical. Book by Douglas and Brian Yorkey. Redcliffe Alistair Foot and Anthony Simpson. Centenary Theatre McGrath. Words and music by Musical Theatre. May 21 - 30.

Marriott. Gold Coast Little Group. May 7 - 19. Chelmer Gerry Goffin, Carole King, Barry Redcliffe Cultural Centre. (07) Theatre. Until May 9. (07) 5532 Community Centre. 0435 591 Mann & Cynthia Weil.

3213 0400.

3224. gclt.com.au 720. centenarytheatre.com.au Spotlight Theatre, Benowa. redcliffemusicaltheatre.com May 14 - Jun 5. (07) 5539 Once On This Island by Lynne The Taming Of The Shrew by Beauty And The Beast.

4255. spotlighttheatre.com.au Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty.

William Shakespeare.

Victorian State Ballet. May 22.

Altitude Theatre. Until May 8.

Queensland Theatre. May 8 Musical Theatre Gala Concert Hall, QPAC. 136 246.

La Boite. (07) 3007 8600.

Jun 12. Bille Brown Theatre, Broadway To West End. QSO. qpac.com.au altitudetheatre.com Southbank. 1800 355 528.

Concert Hall, QPAC. May 15.

Three. Australian Dance queenslandtheatre.com.au 136 246. qpac.com.au Death At Bracken Manor by Collective. May 26 - 29.

John Da Cruz. Mousetrap Deathtrap by Ira Levin. Nash Carl Barron - Skating Rink For Playhouse, QPAC. 136 246.

Theatre, Redcliffe. Until May Flies. Lyric Theatre, QPAC. May qpac.com.au Theatre, New Farm. May 8 16. (07) 3888 3493.

30. (07) 3379 4775.

18 - 30. 136 246. qpac.com.au Mozart And Brahms. QSO. May mousetraptheatre.asn.au nashtheatre.com Anatomy Of A Suicide by Alice 28 - 29. Concert Hall. QPAC. Snow White by Sally Daly.

The Importance of Being Birch. Metro Arts, South 136 246. qpac.com.au Brisbane Arts. Until Jun 19.

Earnest by Oscar Wilde. Growl Advertise your show on the front page of stagewhispers.com.au

Stage Whispers 53

On Stage Rueben Kaye. Brisbane Powerhouse. May 27. (07) 3358 8622. brisbanepowerhouse.org Show Guys. Brisbane Powerhouse. May 28. (07) 3358 8622. brisbanepowerhouse.org

Queensland & Victoria

First Things First by Derek Benfield. Sunnybank Theatre, Sunnybank. Jun 4 - 19. (07) 3345 3964. sunnybank2020.com

655 299. empiretheatre.com.au A Red Plaid Shirt by Michael Wilmot. Tweed Heads Theatre Company. Jun 11 - 27. 1800 674 414. tweedtheatre.com.au

Death Becomes Her - Eva Kong and Alex Rainier. Opera Natural Causes by Eric Queensland Studio, Chappell. St Luke’s Theatre Southbank. Jun 4 - 5. 136 246.

Our House by Tim Firth and Society, Tarragindi. Jun 11 oq.com.au Madness. Brisbane Arts. May 19. (07) 3343 1457.

29 - Jul 24. (07) 3369 2344.

Compassion. Camarata, with stlukestheatre.asn.au guest artist Lior. Jun 5. Concert artstheatre.com.au Undertow by Hayden Jones Hall, QPAC. 136 246. and Sam Foster. Shock Beauty And The Beast by Alan qpac.com.au Menken, Tim Rice and Howard Therapy. Jun 16 - 26. Brisbane Ashman. Queensland Musical Animal Farm by George Orwell. Powerhouse. (07) 3358 8622.

Shake & Stir. Jun 7 - 26.

Theatre. Schonell Theatre, St brisbanepowerhouse.org Lucia. Jun 2 - 13. 136 246.

Cremorne Theatre, QPAC. 136 White Pearl by Anchuli Felicia trybooking.com/BOGPG 246. qpac.com.au King. Queensland Theatre. Jun A German Life by Christopher Chess The Musical by Benny 17 - Jul 10. Bille Brown Hampton. Playhouse, QPAC. Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus and Theatre, Southbank. 1800 355 From Jun 2. 136 246.

Tim Rice. Concert Hall, QPAC. 528. qpac.com.au Jun 8 - 10. 136 246. queenslandtheatre.com.au qpac.com.au The Sleeping Beauty.

Metamorphoses by Mary Tchaikovsky. Queensland Ballet. Are You Lonesome Tonight.

Zimmerman. Gold Coast Little Jun 4 - 19. Lyric Theatre, QPAC. Opera Q. Jun 9. Empire Theatre. Jun 18 - Jul 10. (07) 136 246. qpac.com.au Theatre, Toowoomba 1300 5535 3224. gclt.com.au

54 Stage Whispers

Hot Shoe Shuffle by Larry Buttrose and Cathryn Riding.

Savoyards. Jun 19 - Jul 3. Iona Performing Arts Centre, Wynham. (07) 3893 4321. savoyards.com.au Epic Sounds. QSO. Jun 25 - 26.

Concert Hall, QPAC. 136 246. qpac.com.au Quartet by Ronald Harwood.

Villanova Players. Ron Hurley Theatre, Seven Hills. Jun 26 Jul 11. (07) 3395 5168. trybooking.com/648303 Medici Concerts - Piers Lane.

Concert Hall, QPAC. Jun 27.

136 246. qpac.com.au Victoria Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany.

Ongoing. Princess Theatre Melbourne. harrypottertheplay.com/au

Just $50 a month to reach thousands of theatre goers. Contact Stage Whispers for details.

On Stage

Victoria The producers of Harry Potter And The Cursed Child have announced new cast members joining the multi-awardwinning show as it begins its third year of production in Melbourne.

Photo: Jim Lee. harrypottertheplay.com/au

Online extras!

The magic of Harry Potter And The Cursed Child has returned to the stage youtu.be/WT-NTtvBUyM Because The Night. Immersive Theatre Adventure. Malthouse Theatre. Ongoing. malthousetheatre.com.au Berlin by Joanna Murray-Smith.

Melbourne Theatre Company.

Until May 22. Southbank Theatre, The Sumner. (03) 8688 0800. mtc.com.au

Theatre. Until May 22. The National Theatre Melbourne.

1300 362 547. cloc.org.au Educating Rita by Willy Russell.

Malvern Theatre Company.

Until May 8. 1300 131 552. malverntheatre.com.au

Aida by Verdi. Opera Australia.

May 6 - 21. State Theatre, Arts Centre Melbourne. artscentremelbourne.com.au

Mamma Mia! Music and Lyrics

by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus. Book by Catherine Johnson. Bairnsdale Production Fangirls by Yve Blake. Arts Line Theatre Co. May 7 - 23.

Centre Melbourne with Belvoir, Forge Theatre and Arts Hub, Midsumma Festival. Until May Queensland Theatre, and Bairnsdale.

5. midsumma.org.au Brisbane Festival in association bairnsdaleproductionline.org with ATYP. Until May 9.

Things I Know To Be True by Playhouse, Arts Centre Law and Order: PTV. May 10 Andrew Bovell. Mordialloc Melbourne.

15. The Butterfly Club.

Theatre Co. Until May 8. Shirley artscentremelbourne.com.au thebutterflyclub.com Burke Theatre, Parkdale.

The Wedding Singer. Music by The Gospel According to Paul trybooking.com/BPMNB. (03) 9587 5141.

Matthew Sklar, lyrics by Chad

by Jonathan Biggins. Soft Tread Beguelin, and a book by Enterprises. May 11 - 23.

The Gospel According to Jesus, Beguelin and Tim Herlihy.

Playhouse, Arts Centre Queen of Heaven by Jo David Venn Enterprises. Until Melbourne.

Clifford. Theatre Works.

Jun 5. Athenaeum Theatre, artscentremelbourne.com.au Midsumma. Until May 8.

Melbourne.

Theatreworks.

Mara Korper by Jayde Kirchert. weddingsingermusical.com.au theatreworks.org.au Citizen Theatre. May 12 - 22.

Michael Griffiths: Greatest Hits. Theatre Works.

Priscilla Queen of the Desert May 5 - 9. fortyfivedownstairs. theatreworks.org.au The Musical by Allan Scott and fortyfivedownstairs.com Stephan Elliott. CLOC Musical Advertise your show on the front page of stagewhispers.com.au

The Music of the Night - The Songs of Andrew Lloyd Webber. Spears Entertainment.

May 12 - 16. Chapel Off Chapel. (03) 8290 7000. chapeloffchapel.com.au Voyage by Helen Begley. The Good Girl Song Project. May 13 - 23. fortyfivedownstairs. fortyfivedownstairs.com Too Many Crooks by Christiane Rochefort and Jean Nery, adapted from the screenplay by Michael Pertwee. The Mount Players. May 14 - 30. trybooking.com/727628 The Lifespan of a Fact by Jeremy Kareken & David Murrell and Gordon Farrell.

Melbourne Theatre Company.

May 15 - Jul 3. Arts Centre Melbourne, Fairfax Studio. (03) 8688 0800. mtc.com.au Gazpacho by Peter Green and Faye Bendrups. May 18 - 23. La Mama Courthouse. lamama.com.au Stage Whispers 55

On Stage

Victoria & Tasmania

Freak. Mikki Michelle. May 19 - Strangio. Jun 2 - 13. La Mama 22. The Butterfly Club.

Courthouse. lamama.com.au thebutterflyclub.com New York Dialects. The Australian Ballet. Jun 3 - 12.

A Medley of Monologues.

Strathmore Theatrical Arts State Theatre, Arts Centre Group. May 20 - 29.

Melbourne. stagtheatre.org artscentremelbourne.com.au Statera. Statera Circus. May 20 - 23. Chapel Off Chapel. chapeloffchapel.com.au. (03) 8290 7000.

Meow Meow’s Pandemonium.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. May 21 - 22. Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne. artscentremelbourne.com.au Anne & Gilbert The Musical by Bob Johnston, Nancy White and Jeff Hochhauser, based on the novels Anne of Avonlea and Anne of the Island by L.M Montgomery. Beaumaris Theatre. May 21 - Jun 5. beaumaristheatre.com.au Gruesome Playground Injuries

by Rajiv Joseph. May 24 - 29.

The Butterfly Club. thebutterflyclub.com Little Brother Big Sister by Michel Paul Tuomy. May 25 30. La Mama Courthouse. lamama.com.au King Lear by William Shakespeare. Melbourne Shakespeare Company. May 26 - Jun 6. fortyfivedownstairs. fortyfivedownstairs.com Food Court. Back to Back Theatre with The Necks. May 26 - 29. Playhouse, Arts Centre Melbourne. artscentremelbourne.com.au Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose. Avid Theatre / Have You Seen It Productions. May 28 Jun 26. Stageworx Theatre, Bayswater. (03) 9729 8368. stageworxtheatre.com.au Unbridled. May 31 - Jun 6. The Butterfly Club. thebutterflyclub.com Three Sisters. A new version of the play by Anton Chekhov from a translation by Adam Pierzchalski and Laurence 56 Stage Whispers

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. The 1812 Theatre. Jun 17 - Jul 10. (03) 9758 3964.

1812theatre.com.au

Alexander Theatre, Monash University. gsov.org.au

The Witness for the Prosecution by Agatha Christie.

Malvern Theatre Co. Jun 25 Death Of A Salesman by Arthur Jul 10. 1300 131 552.

Miller. Essendon Theatre Co. malverntheatre.com.au Jun 17 - 26. 0406 448 368.

Ganesh Versus The Third Reich.

Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch essendontheatrecompany.com.au Back to Back Theatre. Jun 4 - 6.

Albom & Jeffrey Hatcher.

Playhouse, Arts Centre Bluey’s Big Play. BBC Studios Geelong Repertory Theatre Co. Melbourne. and Andrew Kay in association Jun 25 - Jul 10. The Woodbin artscentremelbourne.com.au with QPAC’s Out of The Box Theatre, Geelong West. 1300 and Windmill Theatre Co. Jun 251 200.

The Truth by Florian Zeller, 18 - Jul 18. Playhouse, Arts geelongartscentre.org.au translated by Christopher Centre Melbourne.

Hampton. Melbourne Theatre The Coal Story. Jun 28 - Jul 3. artscentremelbourne.com.au Company. Jun 5 - Jul 10.

The Butterfly Club.

Southbank Theatre, The Anna Karenina. The Australian thebutterflyclub.com Sumner. (03) 8688 0800.

Ballet. Jun 18 - 29. State Shirley Valentine by Willy mtc.com.au Theatre, Arts Centre Russell. Williamstown Little Melbourne.

Hell Ship: The Journey of the Theatre Inc. Jun 30 - Jul 17. artscentremelbourne.com.au Ticonderoga by Michael Veitch. wlt.org.au Chester Creative. Jun 8 - 13.

Ladies In Retirement by Edward Still by Jen Silverman. fortyfivedownstairs.

Percy & Reginald Denham.

Heartstring Theatre. Jun 30 fortyfivedownstairs.com Mordialloc Theatre Co. Jun 18 Jul 11. fortyfivedownstairs.

Jul 3. Shirley Burke Theatre, Frozen. Music and lyrics by fortyfivedownstairs.com Parkdale. (03) 9587 5141.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Tasmania mordialloctheatre.com Robert Lopez. Book by Jennifer Good With Maps by Noelle Lee. Disney Theatrical Love/Sick by John Cariani.

Productions. From Jun 9. Her Warrandyte Theatre Co. Jun 18 Janaczewska. Siren Theatre Co. May 6 & 7. Earl Arts Centre, Majesty’s Theatre, Melbourne. - Jul 3. frozenthemusical.com.au warrandytehallarts.asn.au/theatre Launceston. (03) 6331 0052. theatrenorth.com.au Betty by Jules Allen. Theatre The Architect by Aiden Works. Jun 9 - 19.

Fennessy. Brighton Theatre Co. Tool Story - Uni Review 2021. theatreworks.org.au Jun 18 - Jul 3. Brighton Arts & Old Nick Company. May 7 - 22, Cultural Centre. 0493 069 479. Theatre Royal, Hobart, Yes, Prime Minister by Antony theatreroyal.com.au. May 27 brightontheatre.com.au Jay and Jonathan Lynn.

29. Princess Theatre, MOARTZ Theatre. Jun 11 - 19. The Voice of Silvie Paladino.

Launceston, (03) 6331 0052, Monash Hall, Yallourn North.

Morning Melodies. Jun 21. theatrenorth.com.au. moartz.com Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Buddy, The Buddy Holly Story Melbourne.

Parrwang Lifts The Sky.

by Alan Janes. Devonport artscentremelbourne.com.au Victorian Opera. Jun 11 - 12.

Choral Society. May 14 - 29.

Playhouse, Arts Centre Singing Swallows by Romi Town Hall Theatre, Devonport.

Melbourne.

Kupfer. Theatre Works. Jun 23 (03) 6420 2900. artscentremelbourne.com.au - Jul 4. theatreworks.org.au devonportchoral.org In The Mirror 2021 by Cactus by Madeleine Nunn. Jun The Australian Musical Theatre Mammad Aidani. Jun 15 - 20. 23 - Jul 4. La Mama Festival. May 19 - 23. Various La Mama Courthouse.

Courthouse. lamama.com.au venues, Launceston. lamama.com.au amtf.org.au This Way Up by Elizabeth Friends! The Musical Parody.

Coleman. Lilydale Athenaeum Foxholes of the Mind by From Jun 15. Comedy Theatre, Theatre Co. Jun 24 - Jul 10.

Bernard Clancy. WHAM. May Melbourne.

(03) 9735 1777.

20 - 22. The Playhouse Theatre friendsmusical.com.au lilydaleatc.com Royal. playhouse.org.au Runt by Patricia Cornelius. Dee The Gondoliers by Gilbert and Mission Songs Project by Jessie & Cornelius & Wlkes. Jun 16 Sullivan. Gilbert and Sullivan Lloyd. May 21 & 22. The Studio 27. fortyfivedownstairs.

Opera Victoria. Jun 24 - 26. fortyfivedownstairs.com Just $50 a month to reach thousands of theatre goers. Contact Stage Whispers for details.

On Stage

Tasmania, South Australia & W.A. Tim Minchin - Back. Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Jun 12 & 13.

Festival Theatre. adelaidecabaretfestival.com.au

State Opera South Australia brings Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s spine-tingling Sweeney Todd to Her Majesty’s Theatre, Adelaide from May 8 to 15. Starring Ben Mingay in the lead role, the production is sure to leave hearts racing long after the curtain has fallen.

Photo: James Rogers. stateopera.com.au

We’ll Always Have Paris by Jill Hyem. Adelaide Rep. Jun 17 26. Arts Theatre. adelaiderep.com Eddie Perfect - Introspective.

Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Jun 18 & 19. Dunstan Playhouse. adelaidecabaretfestival.com.au Clara and the Nutcracker - A Magical Adventure by Zoe Muller. Hills Youth Theatre. Jun 25 - Jul 4. Stirling Community Theatre. hillsyouththeatre.com Western Australia

Theatre, Theatre Royal, Hobart. theatreroyal.com.au Love Song Dedications (Without Richard Mercer) by Tom Hogan and Bonnie LeighDodds. Ten Tonne Sparrow.

May 27 - 29. The Studio Theatre, Theatre Royal, Hobart. theatreroyal.com.au Joan by Leo J. Skilbeck.

Tasmanian Theatre Company.

Jun 2 - 12. The Founders Room. tastheatre.com Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kästner, adapted for the stage by Nicki Bloom. Slingsby Theatre Company. Jun 18 & 19. The Studio Theatre, Theatre Royal, Hobart. theatreroyal.com.au Beauty & The Beast. Victorian State Ballet. Jun 26 & 27.

Theatre Royal, Hobart. theatreroyal.com.au World of Musicals. Rokitz Entertainment. Jun 27, Princess Theatre, Launceston, (03) 6331 0052 theatrenorth.com.au. Jun 28. Theatre Royal, Hobart. theatreroyal.com.au Carmen by Bizet. Opera Australia / Festival of Voices. Jul 1 - 3. Theatre Royal, Hobart. theatreroyal.com.au

South Australia Next Fall by Geoffrey Nauffts.

Boyslikeme. Until May 8.

Holden Street Theatres. holdenstreettheatres.com Rabbit Hole by David LindsayAbaire. Joh Hartog Productions. Until May 8.

Bakehouse Theatre. bakehousetheatre.com Sweeney Todd by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler.

State Opera South Australia.

May 8 - 15. Her Majesty’s Theatre. stateopera.com.au

Rire c’est Guerir (Laughter is the best medicine). Panache Adelaide French Theatre. Jun 3 - 5. Star Theatres. startheatres.com.au The Girl Who Was 100 Girls by Finegan Kruckemeyer. Hills Youth Theatre. Jun 3 - 6.

Stirling Community Theatre. hillsyouththeatre.com Hello Girls by Peter Mills and Clara Reichel. Therry Theatre.

Jun 3 - 12. Arts Theatre. therry.org.au Cabaret Fringe Festival. Jun 3 13. Star Theatres. startheatres.com.au

Everything They Ever Said with Fingers Crossed Behind Their Backs by Finegan Kruckemeyer. The Appleton Ladies’ Potato SAYarts. May 18 - 23. The Lab. Race by Melanie Tait. State dreambigfestival.com.au Theatre Company South Australia. Jun 4 - 19. Royalty DreamBIG Festival. May 19 Theatre.

29. Various venues. statetheatrecompany.com.au dreambigfestival.com.au The Blind Date Project.

Blue Stockings by Jessica Adelaide Cabaret Festival.

Swale. Red Phoenix Theatre.

Artspace. Jun 11 - 25.

May 20 - 29. Holden Street adelaidecabaretfestival.com.au Theatres. holdenstreettheatres.com Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Jun 11 - 26.

Chess the Musical by Benny adelaidecabaretfestival.com.au Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus and Tim Rice. StoreyBoard Club Cumming. Adelaide Entertainment. May 27 - 29.

Cabaret Festival. Jun 11 - 26.

Her Majesty’s Theatre. adelaidecabaretfestival.com.au chessmusical.info

Advertise your show on the front page of stagewhispers.com.au

To Kill a Mockingbird by Christopher Sergel. Stirling Players. Until May 8. Stirling Theatre, Innaloo. trybooking.com/699286 Clue by Sandy Rustin, based on the works by Johnathon Lynn, Hunter Foster, Eric Price and David Abbinati. Garrick Theatre. Until May 15. Garrick Theatre, Guildford. (08) 9378 1990. trybooking.com/703822 An Unspeakable Triumph of Supreme Brilliance by Dan Zolidas. Darlington Theatre Players. Until May 15. Marloo Theatre, Greenmount. trybooking.com/BOUFY Best of Broadway. Tivoli Club of WA. Until May 16. Tivoli Theatre, Applecross. (08) 9364 5463. tivoli.org.au The Summer of Our Lives by Tyler Jacob Jones and Robert Woods. Western Sky Projects.

May 4 - 22. The Blue Room Theatre. blueroom.org.au Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Mark Shaiman, Scott Wittman and David Greig. Stray Cats Theatre Company. May 6 - 9.

Mandurah Performing Arts Centre. manpac.com.au Lady Luck by Anna Habryn.

ARENA Arts and Entertainment. May 7 - 23.

Stage Whispers 57

On Stage

Western Australia & New Zealand

Roxy Lane Theatre, Maylands.

(08) 9255 3336. taztix.com.au

Perth. (08) 6212 9292. ptt.wa.gov.au

Priscilla Queen of the Desert by Stephen Elliot and Allan Scott Platinum Entertainment. May 7 - 20. Crown Theatre, Perth. ticketmaster.com.au

Kinky Boots by Cyndi Lauper and Harvey Fierstein. Arise Productions. May 27 - 30.

Regal Theatre, Subiaco. ticketek.com.au

Incognito by Nick Payne.

Melville Theatre. May 7 - 22.

Melville Theatre. taztix.com.au

Arcadia by Tom Stoppard.

Harbour Theatre. May 28 - Jun 13. Camelot Theatre, Mosman Park. (08) 9255 3336. harbourtheatre.org.au

3rd Year Musical Theatre Students. Jun 11 - 17. His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth. (08) 6212 9292. ptt.wa.gov.au Footloose by Tom Snow, Dean Pitchford and Walter Bobbie.

AIM - Art in Motion. Jun 11 19. Don Russell Performing Arts Centre, Thornlie. ticketsearch.com

One Act Play Season. Irish Theatre Players. Jun 17 - 26.

Townshend Theatre, Subiaco.

Ugly Virgins by Sally Davies and 0466 347 434.

Anna Lindstedt. Davies and irishtheatreplayers.com.au Lindstedt. Jun 1 - 19. The Blue The Children by Lucy Kirkwood.

Room Theatre.

West Side Story by Arthur Theatre 180. May 8 - 29. Burt blueroom.org.au Laurents, Leonard Bernstein Hall, Perth. theatre180.com.au and Stephen Sondheim. Jun 29 The Pirates Of Penzance by Le Dernier Appel / The Last Cry - Jul 17. Crown Theatre, Perth.

Gilbert and Sullivan. The

by Marregeku. Black Swan crownperth.com.au Gilbert and Sullivan Society of State Theatre. May 12 - 15.

WA. Jun 3 - 12. Dolphin New Zealand Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre, University of Western Single Asian Female by Theatre Centre of WA. Australia, Nedlands. bsstc.com.au Michelle Law. Auckland gilbertandsullivanwa.org.au Theatre Company. Until May The Last Resort by Noel O’Neill.

The I’s Have It by Sally 15. ASB Waterfront Theatre.

KADS. May 14 - 29. KADS Tunnicliffe and Jenny Davis. atc.co.nz Town Square Theatre, Theatre 180. Jun 3. Burt Hall, Kalamunda.

Jersey Boys. Book by Marshall Perth. theatre180.com.au kadstheatre.com.au Brickman and Rick Elice. Music The Odd Couple by Neil Simon. and lyrics by Bob Gaudio and Back To The 80s by Neil Old Mill Theatre. Jun 4 - 19.

Bob Crewe. G&T Productions.

Gooding. The Murray Music Old Mill Theatre, South Perth.

Until May 16, Civic Theatre, and Drama Club. May 14 - 29. trybooking.com/BNRGR Auckland & May 21 - Jun 6, Pinjarra Civic Centre. 0458 056 Opera House, Wellington.

414. mmdc.com.au The Very Hungry Caterpillar gntproductions.co.nz Show by Eric Carle. CDP. Jun 5 The Vicar of Dibley by Ian - 8, Heath Ledger Theatre, Things I Know To Be True by Gower and Paul Carpenter.

State Theatre Centre of WA, Andrew Bovell. Circa Theatre, Laughing Horse Inc. May 14 Northbridge & Jun 12, Albany Wellington. Until May 29. Circa 21. Koorliny Arts Centre, Entertainment Centre. (08) One. circa.co.nz Kwinana. koorliny.com.au 6212 9292. cdp.com.au The Phantom Of The Opera by Elijah by Mendelssohn. WA Dinner by Moira Buffini.

Andrew Lloyd Webber, Charles Opera. May 14 - 16. Winthrop Bunbury Repertory. Jun 10 Hart and Richard Stilgoe.

Hall, University of Western 26. Little Theatre, Eaton.

Theatre Whakatane. Until May Australia, Nedlands. bunburyrepertory.org.au 15. Whakatane Little Theatre. waopera.asn.au theatrewhakatane.org.nz One Act At A Time. Wanneroo Holding The Man by Tommy Repertory. Jun 10 - 26.

Ladies Night by Stephen Murphy. PAANDA. May 18 Limelight Theatre, Wanneroo.

Sinclair & Anthony McCarten.

29. University of Notre Dame, limelighttheatre.com.au Court Theatre, Christchurch.

Fremantle.

May 1 - Jun 5.

Gloria by Brandon Jacobstrybooking.com/748516 courttheatre.org.nz Jenkins. WAAPA 3rd Year MoR by Dureshawar Khan.

Acting Students. Jun 10 - 16.

2021 NZ International Comedy Third Culture Kids. May 18 Roundhouse Theatre, WAAPA, Festival. Wellington and Jun 5. The Blue Room Theatre.

Mt Lawley. (08) 9304 6895.

Auckland. May 4 - 23. blueroom.org.au waapa.ecu.edu.au comedyfestival.co.nz Murders at the Maj - Murders Crazy For You by George Menopause Made Me Do It by at the Oscars. Cluedunnit. May Gershwin, Ira Gershwin and Devon Williamson. Morrinsville 20 - 22. His Majesty’s Theatre, Ken Ludwig. WAAPA 2nd and I and You by Lauren Gunderson. Theatre 180. May 8 - 29. Burt Hall, Perth. theatre180.com.au

58 Stage Whispers

Theatre. May 6 - 15. morrinsvilletheatre.co.nz Another Mammal by Jo Randerson. Circa Theatre, Wellington. May 8 - 29. Circa Two. circa.co.nz The Last Resort by Judith Prior.

Matamata Musical Theatre.

May 13 - 22. matamatamusicaltheatre.co.nz Heathers The Musical. Book, Music and Lyrics by Kevin Murphey and Laurence O’Keefe. South Canterbury Drama League. May 14 - 29.

Playhouse, Timaru. dramaleague.org.nz Mamma Mia! Music and Lyrics

by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus. Book by Catherine Johnson. Papakura Theatre Company. May 22 - Jun 5. Off Broadway Theatre, Papakura. ptc.org.nz Kia Mau Festival. Māori + Pasifika + Indigenous. Live Performance. Jun 4 - 19. kiamaufestival.org Wicked. Music and Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz. Book by Winnie Holzman. New Plymouth Operatic Society. Jun 18 - Jul 3. TSB Showplace. npos.co.nz Mamma Mia! Music and Lyrics

by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus. Book by Catherine Johnson. Centre Stage Taupo.

Jun 19 - 26. Great Lake Centre. centrestagetaupo.co.nz Once. Book by Edna Walsh.

Music and Lyrics by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová.

Court Theatre, Christchurch.

Jun 19 - Jul 24. courttheatre.org.nz The Life of Galileo by Bertolt Brecht, translated by David Hare. Auckland Theatre Company. Jun 22 - Jul 10. ASB Waterfront Theatre. atc.co.nz Elling by Simon Bent based on the novel by Ingvar Ambjørnsen. Circa Theatre, Wellington. Jun 26 - Jul 4.

Circa One. circa.co.nz

Just $50 a month to reach thousands of theatre goers. Contact Stage Whispers for details.

STC’s Playing Beatie Bow. Photo: Daniel Boud.

Reviews

Online extras!

Watch a trailer for STC’s Playing Beatie Bow. Scan the QR code or visit youtu.be/A15GShQHSeg Playing Beatie Bow

By Ruth Park, adapted for the stage by Kate Mulvany.

Sydney Theatre Company. Wharf 1 Theatre. Feb 22 - May 1.

A TROUBLED teenage girl of today finds meaning and connection by following the ghostly Beatie Bow back through the lanes and lives of the Rocks in 1873. It’s a perfect opener for the STC’s newly renovated Wharf Ruth Park’s popular novel happens right there on its doorstep.

Kate Mulvany’s updated adaptation plays deliciously with the time-travelling history and shifts between different Sydneyscapes; and she’s heightened the comingof-age feminist awakening of the two girls through their fractured friendship. Sofia Nolan is spirited as the pugnacious young Beatie and Catharine Van-Davies is authentic and appealing as Abigail, if arguably a less interesting role, now stripped of being our narrator.

Alienated from her separated parents and Sydney circa 2021, Abigail is magically transported back to Beatie’s rambunctious, dirt poor Scottish immigrant family, circa 1873. Granny Tallisker (a splendid Heather Mitchell) is the mystical Orkney matriarch; Tony Cogin and Lena Cruz, Beatie’s parents; Ryan Yeates, her funny stubbornly sickly brother; Rory O’Keefe, her handsome sailor brother; and Claire Lovering, her thwarted cousin.

Guy Simon is compelling as Aboriginal laundryman Johnny Whites, bitten by tragedy and created by Mulvany to explore welcome racial themes. Most actors play a host of characters across the deep and open space, using only

minimal props designed by David Fleischer, in the newly renovated theatre.

It’s expressively lit through shadows by Nick Schlieper, Renee Mulder brings fun and authenticity to the costumes, and its inventively directed by Kip Williams. A forceful score too from Clemence Williams.

Occasionally this swirl of picaresque action and characters gets lost in overly fragmented scenes, sacrificing a clarity of storytelling which earlier Mulvany and Williams so brilliantly articulated in her epic adaptation of Ruth Park’s The Harp of the South.

Martin Portus Sexual Misconduct Of The Middle Classes

By Hannah Moscovitch. Melbourne Theatre Company.

Southbank, The Sumner. Mar 6 - Apr 1.

SEXUAL Conduct Of The Middle Classes depicts an ‘affair’ - and its fallout - between Jon (Dan Spielman), a successful novelist and charismatic university lecturer, and Annie (Izabella Yena), his star-struck 19-year-old student.

Much of the play consists of Jon’s amusing, witty, politically incorrect confessional monologues. He’s toiling on his latest novel and beating himself up because he’s in the midst of yet another failed marriage. That’s when he notices Annie. She’s a fan and he’s lonely. As director Petra Kalive comments in her program note, ‘so much of what occurs between [them] exists in the unspoken.’ So, certain assumptions go unquestioned.

Dan Spielman plays Jon as charming and ironic, the perfect chick magnet for a certain kind of intelligent,

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Stage Whispers 59

Izabella Yena and Dan Spielman in MTC’s Sexual Misconduct Of The Middle Classes.

Photo: Jeff Busby.

Online extras!

Check out a preview of MTC’s Sexual Misconduct Of The Middle Classes. youtu.be/cJT8K5HI4lo literary-minded student. Izabella Yena’s Annie is a beautifully modulated detailed performance. Particularly impressive are the clear stages of the way her character grows up.

Marg Horwell’s deliberately unstructured set allows for the considerable time span of the play and includes Jon’s office, his living room, a lecture theatre, his front yard, a down-market hotel, and an up-market hotel foyer - all enhanced by Rachel Burke’s subtle lighting, which segues from sombre mood to happy sunlight.

As Petra Kalive also points out, the play’s subject is one about which many have written, but Hannah Moscovitch brings to it a particular insight of her own which becomes all too clear in the twist of the play’s very last lines.

Michael Brindley

the screenplay Brooks and Gene Wilder wrote for the 1974 comedy film of the same name.

And the Opera Hunter creative team, headed by director Zac Smith, made the show very enjoyable, with the costumes and sets bringing out the nature of the story and its people as the title character tries to offload the large castle in Transylvania he has inherited from his deceased grandfather, Victor Frankenstein.

Frederick Frankenstein, engagingly played by Drew Holmes, is a professor at a New York medical school who never met his grandfather. And, while he resists having to go to Transylvania, people he encounters make it clear that he has to do it. As he is ashamed of his grandfather’s reputation for creating monsters, he repeatedly tells people his name is pronounced as “Fronkensteen” and he is a scientist, not a madman, with their reactions having Young Frankenstein audience members laughing loudly.

By Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan. Opera Hunter.

The show amusingly made good use of white Warners Bay Theatre. Mar 19 - 28. materials, with the Monster the grandfather created A MUSICAL that looks at the life and relationships of a (played by Danny Folpp) looking very much like a ghostly member of the Frankenstein family would seem to be an figure in his white attire, and the people Frederick unlikely candidate for a hit show. But the Opera Hunter encounters in Transylvania, including Americans who followed him there, also having white garb. staging of Young Frankenstein had audiences laughing and smiling throughout its two halves and applauding And, when the white Monster was joined by other loudly at the end. characters of that type in singing and dancing to Irving The musical has a bright range of songs that were put Berlin’s classic song “Puttin’ on the Ritz”, watchers together by Mel Brooks, with the show’s story and certainly swung in their seats. dialogue adapted by Brooks and Thomas Meehan from Ken Longworth 60 Stage Whispers

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The Producers Music & Lyrics: Mel Brooks. Book: Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan. Altitude Theatre production. Director/ Choreographer: Joseph Simons. Musical Director: Jacqui Devereux. Brisbane Powerhouse. Mar 4 - 13.

A great cast, whose professionalism shines through every bead and spangle, brings this flashy version of Mel Brooks’ politically incorrect valentine to Broadway to glorious life, with expert direction and choreography by Joseph Simons.

Mark Hill’s Leo Bloom and Patrick Connoly’s Franz Liebkind were outstanding. Hill, as the nerdish accountant Bloom, is a triple-threat performer who gave one of the best dancing performances of the role I’ve ever seen. He and Rachel Ward’s (Ulla), cloning Astaire and Rogers in ‘That Face’, were a class act. Likewise Connoly’s Franz, also a triple-threat, who ate up the Nazi-sympathiser with storm-trooper relish. ‘Haben Sie Gehort Das Deutsche Band’ was a riot of laughs.

The second act’s showpiece, ‘Springtime for Hitler’, with James Lee as thoroughly inept and ludicrous Roger De Bris was deliciously OTT, especially in his Garland edgeof-the-stage seduction vocal with legs crossed.

Matt Young, who played the blind violinist in the original Australian cast, brought his experience to the crassly immoral Max Bialystock, the ‘king’ of Little Old Lady Land. His number ‘Along Came Bialy’ with the octogenarians was funny, but would have been funnier if

they had ‘zimmer frames’ as well as walking sticks as they did in the original.

Alex Watson was a swishy Carmen Ghia, and Jackson Reed’s lead-tenor Stormtrooper was an asset.

Peter Pinne Dead Skin

By Laneikka Denne. White Box Theatre Company at Kings Cross Theatre, Sydney. Director: Kim Hardwick. Apr 2 - 17.

DEAD Skin is the first post-pandemic production at the King Cross Theatre to be performed to a full house (80 people) and we all nestled behind our masks waiting to see how this play, written by 17-year-old Western Sydney girl Laneikka Denne, winner of the 2019 Flinders University Young Playwrights Award, would go.

The truth is it went like a brilliant, multi-coloured sparkler and I’ve no doubt that Ms Denne has announced herself to Australian stage (and film) in a big way. And she also plays the leading role of Andie outstandingly well.

Andie works in a Quik-E-Mart and she whiles away the hours chatting with her mother, Andrea (played by Sarah Jane Kelly, who is also 17). How she does this so convincingly is part of the wonder of the play, but the conversation between these two is bright and beautiful: two intelligent girls chatting naturally about their lives and loves. Sarah Jane Kelly gets Andrea exactly and the air is punctured by more ‘fucks’ than have ever been heard round these parts - and it’s King Cross, right?

Ruby Maishman in Dead Skin.

Photo: Jasmin Simmons.

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Stage Whispers 61

Online extras!

Storyteller Oliver Twist elaborates on the development of Jali. Scan or visit youtu.be/icQj1h1JAF4

Also in the cast is Abe Mitchell as the only male, Andie’s father, and Camila Ponte-Alvares as the girl/ woman he’s currently with, not many years older than Andie. Ms Denne goes easy on her substitute mother who is constantly interrupting her attempted fantasies, sexual or otherwise. The cast is completed by Ruby Maishman, and a more powerful bunch of unknown performers, directed to perfection by Kim Hardwick, I haven’t seen for many a year.

Frank Hatherley Jali

By Oliver Twist. Griffin Theatre Company. SBW Stables Theatre. Mar 16 - 27.

YOUNG Oliver Twist is a very accomplished jali, or as that means in West Africa, historian or storyteller.

Alone on Griffin’s suitably intimate and newly reopened stage, Twist shares his confronting refugee journey from Rwanda through war and hardship - before landing in Sydney as a stand-up comedian.

His life starts with the sparks igniting his parent’s passion, just as fires of tribal genocide break out in Rwanda, and so dangerously for his parents, one a Hutu, the other a Tutsi. Still a toddler, Twist with his family trudge to Malawi where he spends a childhood dealing with endless officials scanning their threadbare IDs. There are more violent, ghastly stories experienced by other African refugees now living in Australia, but Twist’s 62 Stage Whispers

Jali.

Photo: Estelle Yoon.

are sharply described and warmly delivered, his youngster fears highly tangible yet his tale alleviated with great humour.

His Dickensian name was invented by the 18-year-old after he finally made it here, first to the foreign streets of Ipswich.

Director Erin Taylor effectively moves Twist through the many short chapters of his story, around a simple rostrum stage backed by dark gravel-textured walls, designed and tightly lit by Kelsey Lee. Twist it seems is no trained actor which surely heightens his fresh charm and empathy. He’s yet though to move with full physical and vocal ease through the ranges of his storytelling. But that will come. He’s a jali to watch.

Martin Portus Shaun The Sheep’s Circus Show

By Yaron Lifschitz (based on the TV series by Richard Starzak and Nick Park). Circa and Aardman. Lyric Theatre, QPAC, Brisbane. Mar 6 - 21.

MUCH-loved star of Aardman’s animated stable of talent, Shaun the Sheep has had his first world premiere, starring in a new live stage show at the Lyric Theatre, QPAC. Shaun the Sheep’s Circus Show features a clever mix of live action acrobatics and on-screen animation that is sure to please the whole family. Giant on-stage screens are used to introduce the characters and the setting at

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Mossy Bottom Farm. And then it’s over to Brisbane’s Circa stars to bring the farmhouse shenanigans to life on a huge, lawn-green stage, with a space designed by scenic designer Dan Potra to allow for circus skills, movement and mime, slapstick comedy and animation.

Director and writer Yaron Lifschitz has worked up a simple storyline that will delight fans of the on-screen show and theatre enthusiasts alike as the usual farm animal antics underline a subtle theme about making our own entertainment and throwing away the remote controls.

This show’s animal characters highlight the human talent underneath the costumes, with a solution by costume designer Libby McDonnell that identifies the farmyard characters while ensuring the performers are unencumbered.

Composer and sound designer Jethro Woodward and lighting designer Jason Organ have added their own touches to sharpen the animated effect of the show and keep it crisp. There is the added fun of live video relays via sheep steady-cam - brilliant work by video director Craig Wilkinson (Optikal Bloc) that gives the energy of animation to the stage setting.

It is wonderful to see this collaboration: Aardman’s first-ever circus show and Circa’s first partnering with a branded entity. Hopefully it is a foundation to kick-start other projects for the future.

Beth Keehn

Caucasian Chalk Circle

By Bertolt Brecht, translated by Alistair Beaton. WAAPA. Directed by Emily McLean. The Enright Studio, WAAPA, Edith Cowan University, Mt Lawley, WA. Mar 25 - 31.

PERFORMED by WAAPA’s Third Year Performance Making students, this is a dynamic, beautifully cohesive and sensitively performed incarnation - simply the best version of this play I have ever seen.

Very much an ensemble production, and consciously theatrical, performers play many roles, with the central role Grusha shared between actresses. Characters are wonderfully distinct and quickly established. The pace is swift, with excellent physicality and moving musical moments.

Jacob Sgouros anchored the show nicely as the Singer - moving the action and drawing attention to things unsaid. He has a lovely stage presence, while singing and playing guitar well.

Lovely work from the three women playing Grusha Clea Purkis, Beth Wilkinson and Phoebe Eames - giving our heroine a strong sense of duty and commitment to goodness. The other consistent character was the child Michael - played by a puppet manipulated by Leah Sellwood, her facial expressions giving us insight into the baby’s emotions.

This show was full of strong, brief appearances, but it was worth waiting for the fourth act appearance of Azdeck, cleverly portrayed with good humour by Lucy Wong.

Online extras!

Take a sneak peek of Shaun The Sheep’s Circus Show. Scan or visit youtu.be/YMG7DKowo9k Shaun The Sheep’s Circus Show.

Photo: Prudence Upton.

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Stage Whispers 63

Queensland Theatre’s Triple X. Photo: Brett Boardman.

Online extras!

Learn more about Triple X from playwright and performer Glace Chase. youtu.be/luFxUeRU_2g

Looking great, the show played on a complex multilevel set and featured a myriad of costumes with great use of colour - both well designed by Charli Strickland.

Lighting design was well tailored to the mood by Jolene Whibley and there was effective sound design by Rory Niven. Performance making students made strong contributions to the show in offstage areas, including assistant directors Lily Murrell and Jefferson Nguyen and the compositions and writing work of Jacob Sgouros, Lindsay McDonald and Clea Purkis.

Performance Making is a sometimes overlooked WAAPA course, but this production is testament both to the strengths of the course and the quality of performers it is producing. A very impressive production.

Kimberley Shaw

The underlying theme of ‘love is love’ is pertinent and, while New York City is a powerful entity - brilliantly brought to life by designer, Renée Mulder, and lighting designer, Ben Hughes - this is a story that transcends place and time.

Director Paige Rattray shows her obvious enthusiasm for this close-to-her-heart piece. Her deft direction balances out the humour and pathos, tackling delicate subject matter as both lead characters recount their struggles with identity and family expectations. The danger of not being your authentic self is very real on both sides of the story. Dexie is a beautiful character - a survivor who refuses to tick anyone else’s boxes and Glace Chase gives a career-defining performance as her own creation, with a brashness and finesse that is uplifting.

Josh McConville’s Scotty, a Wall Street banker caught in a Triple X world of self-absorption is a strong foil for Dexie. The pair

By Glace Chase. Queensland Theatre. Directed by Paige share an ease of presence together, the same sense of Rattray. Bille Brown Theatre, Brisbane. Mar 6 - Apr 1 humour, and love of sex - be prepared for one of the AWARD-winning writer/performer Glace Chase is most laugh-out-loud sex scenes to appear on any stage! unforgettable in her ground-shifting new Australian play The characters are complex and skilfully written, with a Triple X. It is a testament to Chase’s talents as a writer superb supporting cast: Christen O’Leary as Deb, the that there are just not enough adjectives to capture how diminutive yet controlling mother; Contessa Treffoneas as Scotty’s gay sister Claire; Elijah Williams as Jase, Scotty’s unique Triple X’s combination of characters is in a story about two star-crossed lovers who come from very arrogant, hard-partying flatmate.

Triple X is a brilliantly executed, balanced play of rich different worlds - drag act Dexie from the Kandy Kane bar meets Scotty, the Wall Street banker, who just happens to tones and refreshing perspectives. be engaged to be married.

Beth Keehn 64 Stage Whispers

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Hamilton Book, Music and Lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Inspired by the book Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow.

Produced by Michael Cassel. Sydney Lyric. From March 17.

WHEN Disney+ broadcast Hamilton, one school of thought was that many people would have had enough.

But the sale of 250,000 tickets before the show opened in Sydney has demonstrated that, on the contrary, the TV version has been terrific advertising. Seeing it live, you also appreciate how much better the experience is of seeing it in the flesh.

For a production that has never been seen live in this country, it felt like there was tremendous awareness of the songs and story in the audience. No-one did sing along out loud in the 100 percent capacity venue, but maybe there were a few hums of “The Room Where it Happens”, “You’ll be Back”, “My Shot”, or the ubiquitous “Alexander Hamilton” beneath our masks.

I was lucky enough to see the musical in New York with the original cast. Still, seeing the musical again years later I was struck by the freshness of the score. The combination of Broadway melodies, hip-hop and screechy drop-the-microphone rock is delicious.

The big question was - would the local cast match it with the best of the best we’ve seen on the television? In the big shoes of Alexander Hamilton was Jason Arrow.

Whilst he could never match the charisma of Lin-Manuel Miranda - who originated the role - word around the

foyer was that he sang sweeter than Miranda and made a top-class fist of the acting.

Chloé Zuel as Eliza Hamilton put her own stamp on the final song of the musical. Lyndon Watts as Aaron Burr was a little subdued in the opening song but warmed to his role as Hamilton’s nemesis. Carving up the stage was Victory Ndukwe as Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson. He looked like a fearsome winger in the NRL but performed like a concert violinist.

Brent Hill as King George milked every syllable to perfection.

Hamilton is above all an ensemble show. The crisp chorus led front and centre by Daniel Assetta was impeccable. The choreography of this musical is very special and helps convey a general sense of what is going on, when the rapid fire of facts about politics can drown members of the audience.

Indeed, this is the type of musical which you appreciate the more you know about American history and it is impossible to fully digest on the first viewing.

Even though the audience is told what happens to Hamilton in the opening song, the ending is no less powerful or poignant - thanks to the extraordinary staging of the final scene, which winds between slow motion and double time.

It is a cliché but in this case it is true. For musical theatre lovers Hamilton is a must see.

David Spicer

Chloé Zuel and Jason Arrow in Hamilton.

Photo: Daniel Boud.

Online extras!

Watch a powerful performance from the Australian premiere of Hamilton. fb.watch/53wVMIPM49 Longer versions of many reviews can now be found at stagewhispers.com.au

Stage Whispers 65

Online extras!

Director Matthew Lutton discusses the development of Because The Night. vimeo.com/525896486

Malthouse Theatre’s Because The Night.

Photos: Pia Johnson.

66 Stage Whispers

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Because The Night

By Matthew Luton, Kamarra Bell-Wykes & Ra Chapman.

Malthouse Theatre. From Mar 23, and booking through Jun. BECAUSE the Night takes Hamlet, removes all Shakespeare’s language, tweaks the story, reduces the cast to six, changes a gender, relocates it to a 1980s timber town called ‘Elsinore’ where the timber workers and the forest itself resist the old regime, and, boldest of all, locates the production in a thirty-three-room set through which the audience wanders at will, witnessing (but sometimes missing) the key confrontations of the drama.

Malthouse Theatre claim with some justice that this is ‘Australia’s first fully realised immersive play’. It takes over the Beckett and Merlyn theatres, dressing rooms, storage areas, and even the staff car park, making all of these spaces the key rooms of a royal regime in decline - all linked by dim-lit lime-green and red plush corridors.

Director Matthew Lutton has recruited two contrasting casts who alternate between shows.

The audience is restricted to sixty and asked to don black cloaks and masks, which suggest either a Donnie Darko rabbit or a devil, making the audience into spirits or ghosts, and enhancing the atmosphere of incipient evil and dread. The idea is to ‘follow’ one character or another and to construct their story. My Scene 1 is in a surveillance centre, and has an agitated but trying-to-bedecisive Claudia (Maria Theodorakis on my night) confronting a paranoid Polonius (Rodney Afif). Claudia is the new ruler of ‘Elsinore’, so we assume she has murdered Hamlet senior and usurped the throne.

Down a corridor and I am immediately distracted by the numerous highly imaginative rooms, designed by Dale Ferguson, Marg Horwell and Matilda Woodroofe. As you try to construct or follow the story, you naturally attempt to integrate these rooms into it. Is this room important to the story - or, more precisely, the plot? No: the cast will never enter many of these rooms; they are atmospherics, spooky and sad in being empty - or abandoned - allusive, suggestive, and tangentially supporting the mood or ambiance of the story.

I follow Gertrude (Belinda McClory), but Gertrude spends a lot of time alone, grieving or thinking, and then she suddenly takes off at speed - to go to another room to cajole Claudia, who is Gertrude’s lover, say - but the corridor is choked with cloaked and masked spectators following some other character - and Gertrude disappears. Sometime later, and by chance, I find her in a gymnasium, berating angry Hamlet and warning him against Ophelia - whom I have yet to see at this point, but, in this iteration, of course, no maddened shrinking violet…

Perhaps the most interesting and contemporary aspect of Because the Night is the ecological strand, that of the resurgent forest. The trees, exploited as the source of this ‘royal’ family’s wealth and power, have had enough. And yet, this strand of the show feels like a gesture (like the

‘crosscutters’) provided only by exposition, lighting and ominous sound (J David Franske) and comes into full power only in the final moments. Across the ninetyminute running time, it is very easy to miss scenes - so that in the final scene bits of the jigsaw are missing, and it does feel, after so much intrigue and set-up, somewhat anticlimactic and uninvolving.

Here is a creation in which the concept takes priority over story, and over character and emotion. I remained curious but had no emotional connection. For Because the Night to be truly immersive, it needs less distractions, more focus, more poetry, and wit, and more pay-off for what is set-up.

Michael Brindley The Cherry Orchard Adapted by Adriane Daff and Katherine Tonkin after Anton Chekhov. Black Swan State Theatre Company.

Directed by Clare Watson. The Sunset Heritage Precinct, Dalkeith, WA. Feb 20 - Mar 20.

FOR every theatre student who has ever suffered through studying Anton Chekhov’s comic masterpiece The Cherry Orchard, finding it tedious and very unfunny, came salvation in this local adaptation by Adriane Daff and Katherine Tonkin. Black Swan’s Perth Festival production was set in South West WA, during the late 1980s, and this fresh and interesting adaptation found humour in its examination of humanity in the midst of a terrible situation.

Postponement and search for a COVID-safe performance solution led to this promenade style production, in and around buildings constructed in 1904, the year that The Cherry Orchard was first performed. Act One, entitled ‘A Homecoming’, is set in Ranyevskaya’s country home, under threat of a mortgagee auction.

Performed with traverse staging, in the Sunset Precinct’s theatre space, the audience were very close to the action.

Acts Two and Three, ‘A Family BBQ’ and ‘A Party’, were played in two very different outdoor locations, while the final act, ‘A Farewell’, saw the audience return to a vastly transformed home. While the choice to play in this style may have been serendipitous, the format worked extremely well, connecting the audience to the space - an important theme within the show.

Excellent performances throughout, from a large and strong cast, working well together.

Dr Clint Bracknell gave us dynamic, in your face composition and sound design, with strong nods to the 1980s, Lucy Birkinshaw’s lighting design was thoughtful and emotive in both indoor and outdoor locations. Zoë Atkinson’s costumes were a joy, including a wonderful sense of time, expert character crafting, and a costume party scene where every costume shone for a myriad of reasons.

A production that is a wonderfully immersive experience as well as a show, that brought new perspective to a classic text.

Kimberley Shaw

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Stage Whispers 67

Nancye Hayes and the cast of Half Time.

Photo: David Hooley.

Half Time Book by Chad Beguelin & Bob Martin. Music by Matthew Sklar. Lyrics by Nell Benjamin. Additional music by Marvin Hamlisch. Nineteen 98 Productions in association with Hayes Theatre Co. Directed by Helen Dallimore. Musical Director: Jessica Manning. Choreographer/Asst. Director: Madison Lee. Apr 1 - May 2.

NANCYE Hayes only needed to walk onto the stage of the Hayes Theatre to score a rousing ovation, but being the professional she is, was undistracted by the adulation.

Her character is Dorothy/Dotte, the Queen Bee of the seniors’ dance troupe nicknamed Nifty Shades of Grey.

Based on a true story, the nine women and one man were selected to perform at half-time during a basketball match and go through the rigours of being trained in hip hop.

Fresh from its first try-out in 2018 in the United States, the musical - by the team who wrote The Prom - is a joyous and uplifting work, which seems destined to be a popular production on the community theatre circuit.

After all, which suburb or town doesn’t have a group of grey dancing ‘girls’ who would love to return to the spotlight?

Almost everyone gets one good solo.

Zoe Carides as Camilla shows that seniors can have a healthy sexual appetite. Deni Gordon as Bea tries to guide her daughter Kendra (Chaska Halliday) through a relationship with a married man.

Five “youngsters” play the trainers, amongst them Tom 68 Stage Whispers

Sharah oozed charisma as Fernando and Coby Njoroge (Anthony) produced some eye-popping hip hop.

The musical has some nice tunes - crisply played by the live band - and there are plenty of gags to keep the narrative flowing. You could not say, however, that the audience was sitting on the edge of their seats in suspense about what might happen next. “Sondheim it ain’t” noted an audience member at Half Time’s half time.

As for the hoofing - from my perspective (as a nondancer) the hip hop and other routines looked seamless.

My only critique was that perhaps the dancing during their rehearsal routines was a little too good to be true.

David Spicer Fag/Stag

By Jeffrey Jay Fowler and Chris Isaacs. Lambert House Enterprises and Mardi Gras Festival. Director Les Solomon, El Rocco Theatre, Potts Point. Feb 17 - Mar 7.

FAG/STAG is a wicked - sometimes raunchy - comedy that introduces Corgan and Jimmy, “two twentysomething guys - one gay, one straight - as they navigate their sex lives, friendship and ongoing first world problems.”

This is the first time the play has been performed by actors other than the playwrights themselves, and director Les Solomon’s production is an incredibly taut tribute to the playwrights and their crisp, bold script.

Samson Alston and Ryan Panizza play Corgan and

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Jimmy. Biting lines deftly, they set the moment: their exgirlfriend is getting married, and they are both invited.

Each sees a different predicament. But rather than discuss it, they play Donkey Kong!

Corgan is rich, straight, a little down, but in control.

Alston shows this in a self-assurance that is a just a bit brittle. He is up-front with the audience, eager to share his feelings, even his vulnerability Jimmy is a little older, confidently gay, but missing the lover he has recently dumped. Panizza gives Jimmy a poised, confident buoyancy, and an openness that is eloquently persuasive.

Solomon sets them a fast pace. They break tensions with cleverly directed changes of delivery. They challenge the audience with a compelling, intimate directness.

With these two dynamic performers Solomon, has achieved a production “that is funny, bold, yet in keeping with the brilliant original script”.

Carol Wimmer Stop Girl

By Sally Sara. Directed by Anne-Louise Sarks. Belvoir.

Upstairs Theatre. Mar 20 - Apr 25.

HEARING the lead character - Suzie - recite the catalogue of events which she covered in Afghanistan to her psychologist, it was striking that the job of being a war correspondent can be ghastly.

The writer penned the play in part based on her own experiences with the ABC.

Whilst some overseas reporters get to cover royal weddings and Olympic Games, the lead character Suzie turns up to one suicide bombing after another.

The raw intensity of this experience was brought to the stage when the drama opens. A bomb has gone off in a supermarket. Suzie (Sheridan Harbridge) brings along her friend Bec (Amber McMahon). There they meet her local Afghan fixer and camera operator Atal (Mansoor Noor).

The calm process and rituals of reporting contrast sharply with the scene before them. We hear that the situation must be sanitised for public consumption.

Suzie returns home and the chaos of Afghanistan is juxtaposed with the affluence of Sydney’s eastern suburbs. Atal is now in Australia attempting to become a permanent resident. He can’t believe what people leave on the kerbside to throw away.

Flashbacks to Afghanistan take Suzie to the brink particularly a visit to a hospital. Suzie has intense sessions with a psychologist (Deborah Galanos) and resists help from her salt of the earth mother (Toni Scanlan).

The skills of the actors, particularly Sheridan Harbridge - and the authenticity of the emotional journey which Sally Sara wrote about - made this a gripping night in the theatre which drew me in.

It is not all serious - there are plenty of good jokes.

Tongues are still wagging about one gag. A journalist at the Walkley Awards is described as “a piece of work who has never broken a story”. Now who could that be?

David Spicer

Sheridan Harbridge and Amber McMahon in Belvoir’s Stop Girl.

Photo: Brett Boardman.

Online extras!

The creatives behind Stop Girl discuss making the play a reality. Scan or visit youtu.be/Sg6NyWe31I8

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Stage Whispers 69

The Boy Who Talked To Dogs.

Photo: Andy Rasheed.

Adelaide’s Arts and Fringe Festivals 2021 Staging not one, but two massive arts festivals whilst the rest of the world remained closed by the pandemic was a huge challenge - but one that paid off for Adelaide, which hosted successful Arts and Fringe festivals in February and March 2021. For the Adelaide Festival, more than 160,800 attended events at an average of 70% capacity (with many selling out completely). For the Fringe, a total audience of 2.7 million will make it the largest arts festival in the world this year. Nearly five thousand artists created 925 events across 322 venues there were over 21,000 individual performances in 31 days and nights. Total ticket sales for both festivals were more than $20m.

Adelaide Fringe Director and CEO Heather Croall was delighted by the significant opportunity the festivals created after an extraordinary year. “All eyes were on us,” she said. “We collaborated widely and were committed to putting this Adelaide Fringe on for the people of South Australia and creating a platform for artists to perform once again.”

Audiences were kept COVID-safe through extensive use of QR code scanning to manage event tickets and venue capacities, and the reduction in those capacities were offset in part by schemes such as ‘Double Your Applause’, which raised $52,000 for artists when audiences purchased a seat for themselves and paid for the empty seat beside them.

Stage Whispers reviewers were out in force, with a 70 Stage Whispers

team of eight reviewing 52 performances across all genres of live performance; here are our highlights from those few weeks: The Boy Who Talked to Dogs Adapted by Amy Conroy from the book by Martin McKenna. Adelaide Festival 2021.

‘WHAT’S wrong with you?’ screams almost everyone in Marty’s life, but there’s little wrong with this wonderful play from South Australia’s Slingsby and State Theatre Company.

Marty McKenna (Bryan Burroughs) struggles in his childhood with compulsive behaviours and abusive role models, finding solace only with dogs. When he runs away from home, he befriends a pack of strays, becoming one of them to survive.

Alternating between the scared schoolboy and scarred adult, Burroughs commands the play from his first words; the emotional range he displays as he runs around the room is tremendous. Marty is encouraged by a muso (Victoria Falconer) to tell his story, framed with Lisa O’Neill’s songs, expertly played live by the small band and beautifully sung by Falconer. The music knows when to underline the story and when to take charge of it.

The brilliant set (designed by Wendy Todd) spans the entire room as a pub - the audience sits around tables decorated only with a lamp, turning in response to a sound behind, or to follow the effervescent Burroughs as

Longer versions of many reviews can now be found at stagewhispers.com.au

he navigates a path amongst them.

The lighting (by Chris Petridis) is another star - the table lamps flicker and change colour to reflect the action and mood. Torches cast shadows of puppet animals onto the walls, and to Burroughs himself - the interactions between him and these shadows are wonderfully believable.

Director Andy Packer has brought this together so precisely - everything has earned its place, yet nothing dominates sufficiently to rival the tremendous story-telling and outstanding theatre.

Mark Wickett

The opera is set in a forest of translucent drapes, painted with trees and insects, with a central panel that moves up and down seeming to ‘breathe’ and give the forest life.

Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen’s Oberon is counter-tenor perfection, floating over the stage for most of the opera.

Rachelle Durkin’s Tytania commands the stage with a soaring coloratura. Mark Coles Smith’s Puck is the spoken voice narrator of the opera. Amazingly athletic, he runs, jumps, dives and uses the scenery to swing from and climb.

The lovers (Lysander - Andrew Goodwin, Hermia - Sally -Anne Russell, Demetrius - James Clayton and Helena A Midsummer Night’s Dream Leanne Kenneally) each give us a different version of the

By William Shakespeare, adapted for opera by Benjamin definition of love, and their quartet after waking is Britten and Peter Pears. Adelaide Festival 2021. superb.

A MIDSUMMER Night’s Dream is literally a The mechanicals (Bottom - Warwick Fyfe, Quince masterpiece. This production heralds a return to full scale Douglas McNicol, Flute - Louis Hurley, Snug - Pelham opera after a long COVID-19 hiatus.

Andrews, Snout - Norbert Hohl and Starveling - Jeremy Neil Armfield’s direction ensures that the text, adapted Tatchell) provide the majority of the humour and their

by Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, with music by production of ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’ is one of the standBritten, is given new life. His direction takes us to an out moments of the night. ethereal faeryland and reminds us “What fools these The royalty (Theseus - Teddy Tahu Rhodes and mortals be!”

Hippolyta - Fiona Campbell) top off a stellar cast, adding The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of dignity and social comment to act three.

Paul Kildea, tackles Britten’s tricky score with ease.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a delight in every Dale Ferguson’s costumes are lush, stylish, period and sense. stately, coupled with Damien Cooper’s lighting to Barry Hill complete the illusion of enchantment.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Photo: Tony Lewis.

Longer versions of many reviews can now be found at stagewhispers.com.au

Stage Whispers 71

Call Of The Malleefowl

By Charlie Kay. Adelaide Fringe 2021.

IN THIS mystery, Evelyn (Millie Montgomery), a young Autistic woman, is being interviewed by a therapist, Dr. Fields (Allison Scharber), about a suspicious death. Evelyn prefers the company of birds to people - finds them easier to understand - and it is into her solitude with nature that the outside world crashes through, with a gunshot, and an uncomfortable couple, Frankie (Genvieve Venning) and Noah (Robert Baulderstone).

Montgomery gives a brilliant, nuanced performance her English-accented diction is fabulous enough, but she can tell a story with just her facial expressions. The chemistry between Montgomery and Venning is convincing, their developing relationship a magnificent depiction of nervous firsts. Directors Lani Gerbi and Charlie Kay (also the playwright) guide their cast with delicacy and purpose. There is not a wasted movement.

The story-telling shifts effectively from the interview to a memory, with lighting and sound nudging us between an office and outside. Every component of this play shares the same simplicity, and it works so well.

The narrative leaves enough markers to work out the ‘whodunnit’ and signals the twists, but this play’s strength is in its honest, believable characters and how they develop. This reminds us that love doesn’t care who (or what) you are, and its purity is powerful enough for one to sacrifice themselves for the other.

Mark Wickett

The Reichstag Is Burning

By Joanne Hartstone. Adelaide Fringe 2021.

IN THIS musical journey through the fall of the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazi Party, Hartstone has cleverly interwoven songs from the period such as Hollander’s “Chuck Out the Men” (Raus mit den Männern), and Spoliansky and Schwabach’s “Lavender Nights” (Das Lila Lied) with many, sometimes unexpected, contemporary pieces.

The selection of popular modern music brings home to the audience the reality that what happened in the 1930s in Germany could too easily be repeated today. It comes as no surprise that Hartstone effortlessly incorporates songs such as Chris Issak’s “Wicked Games” as a commentary on the narcissistic appeal that leaders can wreak over their populations.

Tom Kitney’s production design is sublime, from the stage and video design to the lighting. The audience are taken to the smoky, dimly lit cabaret halls of the 1930s.

He has incorporated the clever use of scrim and curtains to project a chronology of events, which accentuates the horror that such a series of events could ever have occurred.

In a time when our arts and culture are under threat and we are witnessing the rise of the far right, The Reichstag is Burning is a welcome reminder that ‘art is the lens through which we hold our leaders accountable’.

Hartstone’s big ending number, Propellerhead’s “History Repeating” drives home the point that we must ensure

Call Of The Malleefowl.

72 Stage Whispers

Longer versions of many reviews can now be found at stagewhispers.com.au

The Reichstag Is Burning.

that history does not repeat - that we are all, in some way The direction, by David Mealor, is tight and uses the responsible and that ‘tolerance becomes a crime when space, lighting and shadow, and minimal set to great applied to evil’. effect, mirroring how Alex’s life has been stripped bare.

Jenny Fewster The lighting by Chris Petridis is clever, using full houselights when Alex is directing his thoughts through Sea Wall the fourth wall, but brilliantly using intimate shadow and spotlight to isolate Alex and focus on his pain.

By Simon Stephens. Adelaide Fringe 2021.

A STUNNINGLY moving piece of modern tragedy, Sea Musolino is a tour-de-force, injecting style and Wall was written for Andrew Scott in 2008. This physicality into what could be a static monologue. The production stars Renato Musolino as Alex, the storyteller, background music and sound effects by Quincy Grant who opens up to us with a tale so poignantly beautiful were also apt and added immensely to the mood. and harshly difficult, that we can truly see the hole he This is a beautiful, albeit hard to watch at times, piece of theatre. It takes us right to the precipice of the ‘sea describes, which runs ‘through the middle of him’.

This hole is clearly a metaphor for his excruciating pain wall’ where we teeter every day, knowing that all it takes is just a moment for what we believe in, and know to be and Alex guides us gently through it, initially with smiles important in our lives, to be swept away into the depths. and joy, as he relays his love for his wife Helen and his daughter Lucy, and later at warp speed as we experience Shelley Hampton his world implode.

Longer versions of many reviews can now be found at stagewhispers.com.au

Stage Whispers 73

Dirt.

Online extras!

Get a taste of Reuben Kaye’s cabaret.

Scan the QR code or visit youtu.be/Q0GZIAsGENk

Reuben Kaye.

Photo: Aaron Walker.

Reuben Kaye Adelaide Fringe Festival 2021.

REUBEN Kaye is a celebration of everything that is LGBTQ+ (or ‘queer’ in simpler language).

The seventy minute extravaganza is the journey of one man’s childhood, culminating in his ‘coming out’ at the tender age of 14.

The show has it all - glamour, glitz, a wonderful band (The Kaye Holes), comedy, raunchiness, pathos - but most of all it has the luminous Reuben Kaye!

Strutting the stage like a gaudy peacock (or in his first number, a flamingo), he works the audience with camp humour, bawdy jokes, and sexual references aplenty, but behind the makeup, lipstick and luscious lashes lies cutting satire and an incredible intellect.

Kaye is mercurial. He can change the entire mood of the audience with a single look or word. One minute we are laughing and the next we are empathising with the struggle of a teenager who just wants to be accepted in a society where stereotyping is still rife.

He is multi-talented, with a voice to die for. He can belt out a lyric or pull right back and reveal the vulnerability of the man behind the glitter. Kaye paces the show beautifully, particularly the section concerning his father’s death and its effect on his career.

74 Stage Whispers

The finale (in a gold embroidered bolero style jacket) is an explosion of energy which lifts our spirits and leaves us wanting more.

Reuben Kaye is a cabaret ‘experience’ that will amuse, educate, shock (maybe), delight, but most of all entertain - and isn’t that what the Fringe and life is all about?

Barry Hill Dirt

By Angus Cameron. Adelaide Fringe 2021.

OCCASIONALLY sixty minutes can change your life, and for me, Patrick Livesey’s production of Dirt is an example of how fine theatre can showcase and educate about human rights issues in a subtle, compelling way.

A world premiere, Dirt is set over two nights in Moscow. Its purpose is to highlight LGBT issues in Russia, yet Dirt does not posture or lecture. The real issue unfolds as a somewhat naïve Australian inveigles his way into the home of a dismissive, barely interested Russian tour guide.

Or is he a tour guide? And why is the Australian really there?

Livesey, as the Russian, is pushy, charismatic and almost balletic in stalking and maneuvering around Wil King. These two performers have been so tightly directed

by Bronwen Coleman that a number of times they move as one. There is a beautiful choreographed sequence that made graphic sex unnecessary.

Longer versions of many reviews can now be found at stagewhispers.com.au

Every single move is planned; every gesture and pause has meaning. The staging is simple - the furniture is sparse and utilitarian. Lighting and sound are both cleverly and meaningfully executed.

Angus Cameron’s story is a masterful piece of writing.

Just when I thought I had the twists and turns ironed out, I was wrong. And I still do not know for sure, so I may just have to see it again.

Dirt is seductive, enlightening and challenging. Most significantly it is a masterclass in capturing the elements of highly professional, relevant theatre.

Jude Hines The Deep North

By Matt Hawkins, with music by James Bannah Jr. Adelaide Fringe 2021.

“WHERE are you going? / Where do you come from” is the opening ensemble number, which encapsulates what this wonderful ‘coming-of-age-musical’ is all about.

Originally from Uganda, Jasmine Mutesa (Pontsha Nthupi) is a young girl living with her Uncle Ebby (Stephen Tongun) and brother Ben (Tumela Nthupi) in Port Augusta.

Through her ‘white’ teacher, Ms. Taylor (Samantha Riley), Jasmine has been given the opportunity to gain a singing scholarship to an illustrious college, yet she is full of self-doubt and concerns about her family battling to exist in rural South Australia. Reminders of an entrenched and dominant ‘white’ culture are reinforced throughout the college’s headmaster (Matt Hawkins) tells Jasmine the students study Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill A Mocking Bird’, whilst she reads ‘Things Fall Apart’ by Chinua Achebe, and that for her audition, Jasmine must learn and present a song by Bach, in German.

The subjects of this extraordinary new (and first) African-Australian musical are issues of identity, cultural and personal, dreams and hope, and what exactly is ‘home’ for these relative ‘strangers in a strange land’.

The music and songs by James Bannah Jr (in collaboration with others, including DyspOra and Pontsha Nthupi) are truly thrilling, covering a range of African styles, as well as more conventional musical theatre numbers. Two highlights were the duet “She Can Do This/ I Can Do This” by Nthupi and Reilly, and the spoken lament by Tongun about his lost son, Moses, reminding us that many in these communities carry horrific scars from their respective African homelands, even when brought together with hope that “Where” they may be going will be a better future.

Tony Knight

Looking for more reviews? stagewhispers.com.au is jam-packed with coverage from the 2021 instalments of both the Adelaide Festival of Arts (bit.ly/3tQbnxj) and the Adelaide Fringe Festival (bit.ly/32MfpuM).

PERFORMING ARTS MAGAZINE MAY/JUN 2021. VOLUME 30, NUMBER 2 ABN 71 129 358 710 ISSN 1321 5965

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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 Layout, design & production: Phillip Tyson 0414 781 008 Contributors: Cathy Bannister, Anne Blythe-Cooper, Mel Bobbermien, Michael Brindley, Rose Cooper, Kerry Cooper, Ken Cotterill, Bill Davies, Coral Drouyn, Jenny Fewster, Graham Ford, Peter Gotting, Frank Hatherley, Jude Hines, John P. Harvey, Barry Hill, Tony Knight, Neil Litchfield, Ken Longworth, Kiesten Mcauley, Rachel McGrath-Kerr, Roger McKenzie, Peter Novakovich, Peter Pinne, Martin Portus, Sally Putnam, Suzanne Sandow, Kimberley Shaw, David Spicer, Anthony Vawser, Carol Wimmer, Mark Wickett and Beth Keehn.

Longer versions of many reviews can now be found at stagewhispers.com.au

Stage Whispers 75

The Cabaret Club Hobart’s Shane Warne The Musical.

Photo: Zara Maree.

Musical Spice

Tasmania is my favourite state (at least for the month of May) with local chef and impresario Dylan Wells producing a season of Shane Warne The Musical - at the Wrest Point Casino, no less.

Aged 25, Dylan and his choreographer partner Kristy have produced two beautiful little babies an 18-month-old girl Lola and sixweek-old girl Elton - and a kick ass theatre company.

Dylan’s company, The Cabaret Club, was founded on his skills as a chef and a producer. Before COVID19 he ran a series of theatre restaurant events where he was both M.C. and cook.

Whilst doing a shift in the kitchen, he heard Eddie Perfect’s Shane Warne The Musical on Spotify, and felt he had to stage it.

This musical from the DSP catalogue has been slow to start spinning, owing to the unpopularity of the controversial cricketer in music theatre circles.

Some thespians in recent productions have needed education about how to play the game.

Speaking for myself, I enjoy music theatre and cricket.

The musical itself is a hoot and has had professional seasons in Melbourne (twice), Adelaide and Sydney. Eddie Perfect’s Tony nomination for Best Musical for

Beetlejuice in 2019 has also increased interest in his earlier work.

Young Dylan ran a sensational social media campaign. It included a video of a prank birth of Shane Warne - in which his mother delivered a cricket ball, then a cricket bat and finally a beautiful boy (bearing a close resemblance to Dylan and Kristy’s bundle of joy).

The company bowled up a large production, with 17 in the orchestra and featuring 123 costumes (the most spectacular of these were for the Bollywood song that channelled Warnie’s infamous betting scandal.)

Australian Musical Theatre Festival My second trip to Tasmania within a month will be to the Australian Musical Theatre Festival in Launceston from May 19 to 23.

I was lucky enough to attend the inaugural event in 2019, where I enjoyed the high standard of entertainment and first-rate training seminars.

The stars this year include Simon Gleeson, Natalie O’Donnell and Callum Francis, whilst the creatives include Director Roger Hodgman, Music Director Michael Tyack and Tyran Parke.

The first festival was mainly attended by Tasmanians but this event deserves a big turnout from music theatre doers across the country.

See you in Launceston. amtf.org.au 76 Stage Whispers May 2021 - June 2021

My impression of opening night was how the rap style of some of the songs reminded me of Hamilton (even though it was written well before the Broadway hit) and how clever the lyrics were.

The musical ends with Warnie’s relationship with movie star Liz Hurley. When I last spoke to Eddie Perfect he was talking about composing a sequel, as so much has happened to the cricketer since then.

It will be as long as a Test match if that ever eventuates.

David Spicer

Read scripts, listen to music and order free catalogue at: davidspicer.com.au david@davidspicer.com (02) 9371 8458

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