4 Stage Whispers September November 2022 Get the most out of our magazine’s online interactions on your mobile device with a QR code scanner. In This Issue Caught In The Trap 6 Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap celebrates 70 years with Australian tour New Joseph, New Dreamcoat 10 Euan Fistrovic Doidge to star in Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat Shakespeare Goes Pop! 12 New Australian musical based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream Come From Away Originals 14 Brian and Oz Newfoundlanders who helped inspire the musical From Lucy With Love 18 Lucy Durack’s passion for rom coms and her Rom Comcert tour Here’s To The Teachers 20 Chalkface: a zany new Australian comedy paying tribute to teachers Spotlight On Riverside Theatres Parramatta 22 Big plans as Riverside looks toward the future in Sydney’s west Two Strong Hearts.......................................................................................... 25 Adelaide and Brisbane productions of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart Atomic Launch In Germany ............................................................................ 28 Aussie musical’s German premiere, in German Lets Put On A Show 39 Staging ideas for your next production Regular Features Book Extract: Life At The Bottom Of The Blender Aussie Naomi Hart’s Broadway audition experiences 30 Broadway Buzz............................................................................................... 32 London Calling 34 Book Extract: An Eye For Talent A Life At NIDA Behind the scenes at NIDA with John Clark 36 Behind The Scenes With Debora Krizak: Re staging A Masterpiece Costuming Opera Australia’s La Traviata 40 Script Extract: Mother And Son From the hit ABC comedy, now available for community theatres ................... 52 What’s On 58 Reviews 69 Musical Spice: On The Market......................................................................... 76 apple.co/2FKh0cJ bit.ly/2NcB9r575752020 1872721810106464 THE FOCUS OF OUR NEXT ISSUE IS 2023 PROFESSIONAL AND COMMUNITY SEASONS PLACE YOUR AD BY NOVEMBER 12 CONTACT (03) 9758 4522 stagews@stagewhispers.com.auOR 3939 4848
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Stage Whispers TV
The Jagged Little Pill cast sing ‘You Learn’ ahead of Sydney’s return season. youtu.be/A6XNJh9x K0 Stage Whispers TV Cruel Intentions: The 90s Musical has kicked off it’s tour of Australia and NZ. youtu.be/o0StWLAvlgw
Cover image: Anna O’Byrne has been announced as Mollie Ralston in the upcoming production of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap. Read our interview with Anna on page 6, as part of Coral Drouyn’s exploration of this murder mystery, now celebrating its 70th year.
New Australian works (a musical and a play); a rom com concert; a theatre re invigoration; an Aussie musical’s German debut; great theatrical book and script excerpts; Broadway and West End updates; plus a timely revival, fill the coming pages, leading up to our annual Let’s Put on a Show supplement.Articlesfrom that supplement will be integrated into our continually evolving free online publication, also called Let’s Put on a Show, full of tips, resources and articles for anyone involved in community theatre or school productions.
Yours in Theatre, NeilLitchfield Editor
stagewhispers.com.au
Check out Let’s Put on a Show at stagewhispers.com.au/stageresources
Photo: Daniel Boud. Brian Mosher, Neil Litchfield and Oz Fudge. Read Neil’s interview with two real life Come From Away characters on page 14.
Stage Whispers 5
CONNECT Dear theatre goers and theatre doers, Rarely do you get the chance to speak to the characters in a favourite play or musical. I’m not talking about the actors, but rather the real life people on whom the show was based. Recently, I spent nearly an hour with Brian Mosher and Oz Fudge, two of the Ganderites whose stories helped inspire Come From Away. Their first hand accounts of 38 jets landing in quick succession on 9/11, with 7000 passengers descending on their small Newfoundland town of Gander, and the events of the following days, inspired me, just as they did the cast members currently playing Brian and Oz. Sadly, I’d need a time machine to chat with the Tudor Queens who feature in my other favourite musical of the moment, Six, which, like Come From Away, has resumed its Australasian tour.
Our next edition, to be published in December, will showcase our guide to theatre, professional and community, in 2023.
6 Stage Whispers September November 2022
I confess! Guilty as charged. I did it and it’s criminal! And I am a serial offender, so lock me up and throw away the key. Yes, for over twenty years in my youth, I looked at the last two pages of every Agatha Christie murder mystery BEFORE I read the book. Then, knowing in advance who the killer was, I would read the book and try to figure out if the story had any loopholes. I was always more interested in the journey than the destination; in the “why?” and “how?” rather than the “who?” and “what?” In other words, I was a wowser from a very youngButage.now, my crimes have come back to haunt me.
Agatha Christie’s iconic play The Mousetrap is opening in Australia next month and...I haven’t read the book! I have no idea who the murderer is and, since the audience is sworn to secrecy not to reveal the ending, I must sit in a darkened theatre for over two hours trying to figure out ‘whodunnit’. It’s a suitable punishment for my sins, but an absolute delight for the rest of us theatregoers that the world’s longest running play is gracing our stages again, opening at Sydney’s Theatre Royal on October 8th
Photo: Daniel Boud.
Agatha Christie originally wrote the story as a short radio play entitled Three Blind Mice, which was broadcast in 1947 as a birthday present for Queen Mary. She eventually adapted the work into a short story before again rewriting it for the stage as The Mousetrap. The plot was typical Christie, described thus: “After a local woman is murdered, the guests and staff at Monkswell Manor (a guest house…or B&B as we would call it) find themselves stranded during a snowstorm. It soon becomes clear that the killer is among them, and the seven strangers grow increasingly Coral Drouyn explores the ‘whodunnit’ of The Mousetrap and talks to Anna O’Byrne, one of the suspects, prior to the opening of its Australian national tour in October. Anna O’Byrne.
But if the West End has Royal connections with the play, the Australian production is just as impressive. Our “Queen of Drama”, the multi award winning Robyn Nevin, is directing. Since 1959, when she was part of the very first intake at NIDA at the age of only 16, Robyn has had a profound effect on both stage and screen, and surely has earned the title of Theatre Royalty. She has certainly cast the play with some very special actors. We have our own beloved Queen in the form of Gerry Connolly, best known to TV viewers for his uncanny impersonations of Her Majesty. Though Connolly is best known in some quarters for his comedy, he’s also a gifted actor and a sheer delight on stage. Then there is our “Dowager Duchess” of Musical Theatre, the amazing Geraldine Turner, one of Stephen Sondheim’s favourite leading ladies, who has graced our stages for more than 30 years. Making her professional stage debut is Charlotte Friels. If the name sounds familiar, it should be. Charlotte is the daughter of the revered Judy Davis and our favourite leading man, Colin Friels. To date, Charlotte has been seen in NITRAM, a film starring her iconic mother, but watch out. She has a theatre pedigree to die for. At the head of the cast is the Crown Princess of Musical Theatre, Anna O’Byrne. O’Byrne’s singing voice has made her an international star and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s choice for the lead in both the Australian stage production and the film of Love Never Dies. I was lucky enough to catch up with her for a quick chat and asked her about the differences between West End and Australian audiences.
The London cast of The Mousetrap Photo: Matt Crockett.
It seems unimaginable that the play, which opened in the West End on October 6, 1952 (the year Elizabeth II became Queen) has racked up over 28,500 performances so far. The current West End cast were not even born when the curtain rose on the first performance. And though Christie was (and still is) the best selling novelist of all time, the producers weren’t certain that Christie’s play would excite theatre goers, so they loaded the cast with theatre royalty in the form of Richard Attenborough and his wife Sheila Sim who had successful film careers on British screens and were householdAttenboroughnames.was contracted to the famous Boulting Brothers, who had their own film studios, and quite by chance (ahem!) the original production was directed by their older brother Peter Cotes.
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8)
It seems the Boulting Brothers hoped to make the film with Attenborough repeating his stage role. So certain was Christie that the play wouldn’t have longevity that she insisted the play not be made into a film until six months after the West End run had finished, in order to maximise theatre audiences which means that somewhere in that great film studio in the sky, an entire crew is still sitting around waiting for Roy Boulting to call “lights, camera, action.”
Cover Story
Online extras! After 70 years, The Mousetrap is the genre defining murder mystery. youtu.be/aYB2_ aAnk8
suspicious of one another. A police detective, arriving on skis, interrogates the suspects: the newlyweds running the house; a spinster with a curious background; an architect who seems better equipped to be a chef; a retired Army major; a strange little man who claims his car has overturned in a drift; and a jurist who makes life miserable for everyone. When a second murder takes place, tensions and fears escalate. This record breaking murder mystery features a brilliant surprise finish from the foremost mystery writer of all time.” It was an instant smash hit. For 70 years, Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap has kept millions of people from every part of the world entertained, and tourists queue to be photographed at the moving calendar which denotes each performance…making that audience part of the history of the world’s longest running show.But not everyone was a fan. One cheeky London cabbie, when dropping people who did not give him a tip at the theatre, would yell out “The Butler did it” as a spoiler. Bewildered audience members would wait all night for the mythical butler to appear. But that didn’t deter audiences. At one stage the play was the Number 2 tourist attraction in London right behind The Royal Family. In fact, in 2002 the Queen attended the 50th Anniversary performance (where she cut the birthday cake with a ceremonial sword), so tourists could have killed two birds with one stone. Christie would have liked that.
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“No!” she adamantly breaks in. “We didn’t get the complete script at first, and I had no idea who the murderer was. I mean, what if it turned out to be me?” Anna will be joined by Alex Rathgeber another of our favourite leading men, the versatile Adam Murphy, Laurence Boxhall, and the current Prince of Belvoir, Tom Conroy. It’s a cast worthy of any production. And it opens almost 70 years to the day since the curtain first rose on this classic thriller. from
(Continued
8 Stage Whispers September November 2022
Once again Anna is playing a lead in a period piece rather than a contemporary one, but she doesn’t mind one bit.
“It’s wonderfully escapist and, in its own way, it pokes fun at the idea of tea and cucumber sandwiches in a country where there was still food rationing and the aftermath of war. The British ‘keeping up appearances’.”
“You know, I have never actually read an Agatha Christie novel,” she confesses. “I’ve seen films and TV shows of course, but never read a book. I’m about to start with The Murder of Roger Akroyd.”
page 7) Cover Story
The Mousetrap opens at Sydney’s Theatre Royal in October, followed by a season at QPAC’s Playhouse in November, then Melbourne’s Comedy Theatre in February. themousetrap.com.au Richard Attenborough with his wife Sheila Sim on the opening night of The Mousetrap in 1952
So, did she turn to the last pages of the script for The Mousetrap to find out who did it?
“It’s very different doing a non singing role. Actors have to take care of their voices, but it’s a different routine, different muscles, for singers, and I just hope I’m up to eight performances a week,” she says. Given my own sins reading Agatha Christie, I ask about her own experiences with the books, and she seems a little embarrassed.
“English audiences are perhaps a little more reserved,” Anna tells me, “but the difference is most notable at the stage door so many accents and dialects. The audience is so diverse, so multicultural, in London which is odd because we have such a multi cultural community in Australia, but not so much when it comes to going to the theatre.”
“I think perhaps I have ‘the look’ for period pieces,” she explains. “I have loved exploring the Edwardian and Victorian eras, but the1950s is something totally different,”
Anna has left the West End behind for a safer post pandemic location in Geelong, where she and partner Andy Conaghan (currently on stage in Harry Potter in Melbourne) are raising their two year old son, while Anna has been keeping her voice in shape by giving singing lessons.
And the whole setting of a Victorian guest house, and the unlikely premise of being trapped inside with a killer? Anna laughs.
she continues, “with Britain finding itself after World War II, which is almost inconceivable to my generation. It really was the dawn of the Modern Age, and I don’t think that humanity has quite got its head around that yet. It feels like so long ago, but actually it’s less than a lifespan.”
stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 9 Subscribe now! Subscription Form SUBSCRIBE NOW! SUBSCRIBE AT stagewhispers.com.au Name: Email:Phone:Address:................................................................................................................................................................................................................ Please nominate your 1st, 2nd and 3rd free gift choices below: ............................................................................................. Send your money order, cheque, credit card details, or request for invoice to: Stage Whispers, PO Box 2274, Rose Bay North, NSW, 2030. ABN 71 129 358 710 Visa MasterCard American Express Expiry:......./........ Credit Card Number: CCV Signature:Number.............................................................................................................................................................. Sign me up for (tick applicable box): 6 issues Print and e mag for $39.50AUD / $49NZ OR E mag only for $24.95AUD 12 issues Print and e mag for $70AUD / $90NZ OR E mag only for $39AUD 18 issues Print and e mag for $95AUD / $120NZ OR E mag only for $55AUD (GST inclusive where applicable) Subscribe to our print edition and receive one of the following gifts. Visit stagewhispers.com.au/subscribe Please nominate three choices, as supplies of some gifts are limited. Come From Away 2 double passes on Sunday 6 November 2pm at Theatre Royal, Sydney. The United Ukranian Ballet Double passes in Sydney (Oct 28), Melbourne (Oct 20) and Adelaide (Nov 10) I Am Alfred Hitchcock Documentary DVD Into the West: The Mini Series Blu ray set Epic DVD Collection One DVD set Out of this World Sci Fi Collection One DVD set The Michael Caine Collection DVD set Broadway Cast and Musical Theatre CD Lucky Dip More choices at stagewhispers.com.au/subscribe DVDs Courtesy of ViaVision
Long before Jesus Christ Superstar appeared, when Phantom of the Opera wasn’t even a figment of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s imagination, two young Brits wrote a pop/rock school musical, one that has gone on to be performed by more than 40,000 schools and amateur theatres in the ensuing fifty Reworkedyears.intoa full length musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat has since notched up numerous major professional productions over five continents.
10 Stage Whispers September November 2022
Now it’s back with a new production and a new Joseph, Euan Fistrovic Doidge, who is no stranger to some of the trials and tribulations faced by the Old Testament’s favourite son “As a young boy growing up in a small country town, being the only dancer, I definitely felt moments of being an outcast. I guess it’s going to be the whole journey of exploring Joseph in my version of what fits me once we get into the room, and, from the audition process, I think they are very open to allowing that, which is exciting.” Joseph, that lad from the book of Genesis, is a real time warp from Euan’s latest role as Blaine in Cruel Intentions: the ‘90s Musical, a contemporary spin on Les Liaisons Dangereuses
“Cruel Intentions is a scandalous story based on a classic ‘90s cult film but it’s so enjoyable for me. I get to sing some incredible iconic ‘90s songs and it’s always fun being that mysterious person and getting to explore that. I never compare any role When the Andrew Lloyd Webber / Tim Rice musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat opens at Melbourne’s Regent Theatre in November, it will be the newly reimagined production’s first staging outside the West End. Featuring a dazzling new Dreamcoat, it will star Euan Fistrovic Doidge as Joseph. Euan spoke to Neil Litchfield. Online extras!
The humour and heart of this biblical epic is awoken in the new production youtu.be/jxqGGiUSbb0
The Andrew Lloyd Webber (sorry, Baron Lloyd Webber), and (Sir) Tim Rice songs are variously dubbed ‘iconic’ or ‘classic’, but Euan is looking forward to the challenge.
stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 11 to the next one because it’s all about the character. That’s just the joy of what we get to do as performers exploring those themes and emotions that whatever character may bring so I’m having an absolute ball.
Euan has starred as Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever, Felicia in Priscilla Queen of the Desert, and as Marius in Les Misérables, and was the youngest ever ‘Helpmann Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Musical’ nominee for A Chorus Line He’s also appeared in Fun Home, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Pippin, Kinky Boots, Legally Blonde and Grease But does he have a favourite career role or show to date?
How will ‘Close Every Door’ challenge Euan?
“It’s not in a super high register for me but it requires so much emotion. Doing that eight times a week, and going to that place every day is difficult in itself, but it comes a little bit later in the show so the build up is what will help me actually get through it as well.”
“It’s going to be a rude shock stepping out of Blaine’s shoes and into Joseph’s coat, but again that’s the most exciting part. There’s never a dull moment in the theatre.”
“The whole show is entirely sung. I haven’t done a show like that since Les Mis, so that is going to be difficult, but I do love a challenge.
Joseph’s Dreamcoat has taken a dazzling trip to the tailor, too, for the show’s latest reboot, and Euan is impressed. His response? “Wow! I get to wear that iconic piece of clothing that people know and love. Even for the photo shoot that we did a few weeks ago, while the coat that I wore was not the coat I’m going to be wearing in the show, just putting it on kind of transforms you into a feeling of knowing what it’s going to be like getting to wear that every night.”
“It varies based on the production that I’m doing and how comfortable I feel with the role. I’ll definitely have my opinions on it, or my ideas of how he should be portrayed, but sometimes that’s not always the right way, so it’s always good going in there with some sort of idea and then building on that together creatively; my favourite part of the creative process is doing that collaboratively and that’s what makes it unique to whoever it is that’s getting to play any role.
“It’s been 30 years since a production has been here in Australia and this new version is super exciting because it’s going have all the elements that people know from the original but have a new take on things, which is always fun and enjoyable to play it can be new to people who know it well, but for those that don’t know it, I’m sure it’ll be an absolute joy for them to come and see this production.
While he’ll go into rehearsals with a fresh mind, how does Euan prepare himself for the first day of rehearsals?
“Also, I like being super familiar with the music before I go in. I like to be prepared, knowing what I’m singing, what the words are, so that when I’m in the room it’s purely based on the story and the journey that I’m going to go on throughout the piece.”
“A lot of people ask, ‘Have you done research? Have you watched this, and have you watched the old production?’ I will watch clips, maybe once, just to get a gauge of previous productions, but I’d like to go in there with a fresh mind. ‘Close Every Door’ is a beautiful song, it’s known by so many people, and it’s his big song his moment of stepping into his adult side and taking charge. I’m super excited to be singing that song; it’s the one I got to do in the audition, so I’ve got a feel and a gauge of what that’s going entail for me.”
The love and support Euan has received since the casting was announced has been incredible, he tells me far more than he ever imagined.
Euan Fistrovic Doidge as Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat Photo: Chris Pavlich. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat will play at Melbourne’s Regent Theatre from November 11, with a Sydney season at the Capitol Theatre to follow from February 11, josephthemusical.com.au2023.
“Definitely Priscilla and playing the role of Felicia. I absolutely loved that role, what the production meant and the themes that were involved and getting to share that well known Australian story eight times a week. I was so proud of that production and what the show represented. Also, my husband and I first got together on that show, so it definitely has a special place in my heart.”
“And having Paulini as the Narrator is going to be incredible.”
What makes Shakespeare so ripe for musical theatre? The passion of Romeo and Juliet became the immortal West Side Story, The Taming of the Shrew was the vehicle for the play within a play Kiss Me, Kate, and more recently four of The Bard’s plays were set to Elvis Presley music in All Shook Up.
The Bell Shakespeare Company is diving into the musical theatre genre with the world premiere of The Lovers a pop music adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It’s penned by prolific actress/composer/ writer Laura Murphy. One of the stars of the production, Brittanie Shipway, discusses her excitement about the work, and the rise of female writers. David Spicer reports.
Laura Photo:Murphy.DanielBoud.
“Something like A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which is such a playful fantastical escapist story, is perfect for a musical.
The actor, singer and writer plays one of four roles in the ‘love square’ in The Lovers, who spend a night in a forest having their hearts torn in different directions.
“We hear so often that the themes of Shakespearean stories are universal. That’s certainly the case for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It discusses young love and all the hormones that go with it. Laura has adapted it for a modern audience, as we have learnt a lot about young love in the last couple of hundred years.”
“I have workshopped 20 musicals since I left NIDA in 2016. This is the most exciting new Australian musical I have ever worked on. There was a bubble of excitement in the [workshop] room.”
“For this production, I wanted to take Shakespeare’s text and look at how it relates to us now, by reinventing it with a contemporary voice through original lyrics and a modern pop score,” Laura said.
“I have never seen a young Brittanie being in love on stage in such an honest way. Watching my young cousins grow up and hitting the awkward teen phase of falling in love for the first tune, I want them to see the show to learn the hard lessons before they have to live them.”
12 Stage Whispers September November 2022
Brittanie has had a bird’s eye view of the musical as it has been developed in recent years.
The story has not been updated to modern times as Romeo and Juliet was transplanted into 1950s New York for West Side Story. Whilst much of the dialogue is Shakespeare’s original verse, the song lyrics have a 2022 sensibility.
“Laura takes the best bits of pop music and pop genres and splices them together. There is a bit of an acoustic ‘90s sound in one of the songs and there is also a fantastic rap number.
“Our infatuation with romantic love began long before Shakespeare was writing about it 400 years ago, and The Lovers explores how those narratives have either evolved or remain the same today.”
“It does not sound like average musical; you could listen to the album and follow the story with lyrics, still singing along and have a great time. Young people are going to love this musical; it is going to speak to them.”
“It is heightened theatre; the story line is unapologetically dramatic. You need that in a musical, where you don’t sing unless there is nothing else you could do to express yourself,” says Brittanie Shipway.
Laura Murphy, a singer/actor who has turned her talents to writing and composing, describes it as her passion project. She started working on the idea twelve years ago and says it is an “absolute dream” to see it finally come to life.
Online extras! Meet Laura Murphy, writer and composer of The Lovers youtu.be/YYLX4W5gYV4
Brittanie says Laura Murphy has tapped into the confusion and jealousy of young lovers, which she can relate to in her own life.
“By some miracle, a reputable company picked it up.” Her next outing as a playwright is Senser, a 60 minute play with songs, being staged during September at Melbourne’s Theatre Works.
It feels like Laura Murphy is on the cusp of something big. The daughter of Jennifer Murphy, Australia’s first Evita, and musical director Stephen “Spud” Murphy, she was born into theAsbusiness.anactress she toured Australia in the role of Tania in Muriel’s Wedding The Musical
The Lovers plays at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House from October 23 until November 30. bellshakespeare.com.au Senser plays at Theatre Works from September 7 to 17. theatreworks.org.au Brittanie Shipway.
Brittanie also reckons that the ending of the musical is better than the original, which she describes as very wordy.
Brittanie has been working to promote indigenous and female writers from her own perspective as a proud a Gumbaynggirr and Turkish woman.
“I am part of the love square. I call my corner the apex of the love square,” says Brittanie. And, while lots of characters from the original play have been pruned, the vivacious fairy Puck (Monique Sallé) and the King of the Fairies Oberon (Stellar Perry) are still in the mix.And of course there is a band or fairy band to be precise making the whole production compact enough for Bell Shakespeare to take around the country.
“Without giving it away, the ending is realistic. It is heightened and playful but incredibly realistic in what it says about young love.”
“I hope that my works are irrelevant or considered immoral in 20 years. I would love to see what the zeitgeist does to them, just as we have to reimagine Shakespeare in 2022 to make an accurate reflection of who we are.”
The number of new musicals she has on the go is mind spinning. First there is The Dismissal, set amidst the constitutional crisis of 1975, which has been postponed due to COVID 19 but is expected to see the light of day next year. The Hayes Theatre is scheduled to open her latest new work, Zombie the Musical, in 2023. Plus, Garry McQuinn, the producer behind Priscilla Queen of the Desert The Musical, has commissioned her to write a musical treatment of the novel Puberty Blues When I bumped into Laura earlier this year, she told me she was working on five musicals, so I must have missed one! The Lovers has something in common with the musical Six, and that is the half dozen size of the cast. They include the four lovers Lysander played by Jerrod Smith, Demetrius (Blake Appelqvist) Helena (Natalie Abbott) and Brittanie as Hermia.
“Senser is my absolute worst nightmare. Cancel culture has gone so far that music has been wiped out. I think cancel culture will be the death of artists.”
“Puck is one of the funniest and most whimsical, playful characters in literature. It is a recipe for fun. The lyrics are so funny and the modern references will keep you on your toes.”
Stage Whispers’ reviewer Frank Hatherley wrote that “Shipway leaves the best possible mark in her own play, making the most of the comic highlights and sheer emotional force in this examination of mother daughter relationships.”
As an example she points to shows being pumped out by Netflix, which she describes as having poor plots and only one perspective.
“Artists are very afraid of being criticised or having their works cancelled.
stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 13
“As a writer myself, it takes time for us to figure out that we are the only people who can give ourselves permission to tell the stories we want to see. When something is missing from stage, we are the only ones who have the imagination to tell the story.
So, whilst it is sounds like The Lovers will be a musical and romantic romp, will there be any laughs in it?
In May her play A Letter for Molly, which traverses the issues of First Nations autonomy and abortion, premiered at Sydney’s Ensemble Theatre. The experience left her utterly spent, as she was the playwright and lead actor. “It used every part of my brain, and it was emotionally draining as it was partly biographical.”
A Letter for Molly was written during lockdown and a colleague to whom she showed the script suggested she apply for funding.
“Laura Murphy held onto her story for the right time.”
Whilst it took Laura Murphy 12 years to get her musical staged, Brittanie by contrast had a meteoric rise to her own career as a playwright.
“We are encouraged by our wonderful director Sean Rennie to ham it up and have a play with our characters. We are stereotypical teens,” says Brittanie.
How did Brian and Oz first become aware of the 9/11 terrorist attacks? “In 2001 we had full closed circuit throughout the school. There was a bad audio cable I had to fix. To test it I ran live Cable TV through it. When I flicked it on, it was the North Tower, with smoke coming out the window. I thought it was just a wing clip from some guy flying a plane, so I turned the channel, but it wouldn’t go away. Then the plane hit the South Tower, and that will stick with me. “But Gander and New York were very far away from each other actually they’re not but until that moment Gander and New York were very far apart.”
Suddenly there was a change in the air in Gander. Literally! “You could smell jet fuel. Like cheap kerosene,” said Brian. “A lot of wide bodied jets were coming, but they were also blowing the tanks at a high altitude to get rid of the fuel.”
The Jet Age had bypassed Newfoundland’s Gander Airport, so all was quiet on the morning of September 11, 2001. It was a normal day for Gander police officer Oz Fudge, and Brian Mosher, reporter for Gander’s community TV station and media teacher at a local high school, except that it was the first day of school, and there was a bus strike. “Gander was a small town of 9,300 people. The ultimate small town living,” says Brian, “Everybody knew everybody. No one’s more than 7 minutes from anyone else. I dropped in for a visit in 1983, and I’m still there. “If you didn’t lock your door, it was no big deal.” “I’ve never locked my door,” Oz retorted.Gander is very much an aviation town only three streets aren’t named after aviators, or somebody to do with the aviation business, which they’ve extended to astronauts and the shuttle program.
The bus strike on September 11 meant that parents had to drop their kids off at the town’s two schools. Oz was doing the policing.
“It was on the inside of your cheeks,” Brian said. “But then you see all these lights. We don’t see massive landings, let alone 38 wide bodied jets in a row.”
The Australian cast of Come From Away Photo: Jeff Busby.
14 Stage Whispers September November 2022
“In the afternoon I got a call to go to the airport, and the first thing I see As the Australasian tour of Come From Away resumed in July, Neil Litchfield spoke to two actual Ganderites, Brian Mosher and Oz Fudge. They’re among the interviewees whose accounts of 38 jets descending on their small Newfoundland town on 9/11, and the days that followed, inspired the verbatim musical. He also chatted with the actors who now portray them.
“I wanted to slow the traffic down, so I was just running the radar to try and protect the kids,” says Oz. “In the play it shows Bonnie Harris waving to me, and that is exactly how it went. She said, ‘Oz, turn on your radio.’ I thought, ‘What does she want me to turn on my police radio for.’ ‘No you fool turn on your radio listen to CBC.’ Just like Brian, I thought it was only a small plane clipping the building, or a disc jockey in New York had looked at War of the Worlds and come up with this. Then I went home, turned on the TV, and there it was. Holy Shit!”
“You couldn’t just smell it, you could taste it,” they both said.
stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 15 is Brian,” said Oz. “up on top of the cable TV van, on top of a milk carton, with a camera, filming.”
Brian and Oz love the accuracy with which Come From Away captures them and their community.
When the characters in Come From Away stand for a moment of
“People from big city New York aren’t used to getting into strangers’ cars,” Brian said. “It’s like, ‘There’s these people inviting me to get into their car, or putting me in their house, and insisting they feed me.’ But within 48 hours they came to know who we were.”
“There were people walking across the street from behind the school. Car headlights were coming from all directions,” said Oz. “Sleeping bags, phones, mattresses, beds out of people’s houses, clothing,” Brian added. “It was unusually warm that week, so people were bringing in coolers, fans, bags of ice, bottled water, boxes of granola bars stuff we hadn’t even had time to fathom.”
“We had to shoot over the barbed wire fence,” added Brian. “The whole town was out to see all these planes,” Oz added. “So, I’m on the runway and I see a Jumbo Jet coming, and then an L1011, which is just a little bit smaller. Then you could see the lights of the aircraft as they were circling and the smell of the fuel unbelievable.”
“The mayor best summed it up,” Oz said. “When they came they were strangers, mid week they were friends, end of the week they were family.”“And we cried when they boarded the planes,” Brian added.
And the experience of having so many strangers in town?
“You plan for fire, you plan for floods,” said Oz, “but where do you plan for 7,000 people to drop into your town for a bucket of tea and a bickie.”
“They nail it,” said Oz. “I had a lot of reservations about how they were going to portray us, but I was gobsmacked. They got us! They got who we are; they got what we are. They got everything about us our language, our style. Everything was done to the tee.”
“We had to take all the chairs and desks into the hallway, and stack them to the ceiling,” said Brian,” and put all the teachers’ confidential records, files and computers in a secure location.
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Gander mobilised. An emergency school staff meeting was told that they had two, maybe three, hours to turn the high school into a hotel.
“At about 5.30 we’d hit a stall pattern,” said Brian. ‘The information feed in 2001 was terrible. A few of us had cell phones, but that was only to make phone calls. I called my producer at the TV station, who changed the colour on the community scrolling, which you had on screen when there was no programming. He said, ‘You dictate what you want.’ And we got the announcements up. Within 45 minutes I saw a response like I’ve never seen before.”
“That sentiment is carried throughout the show,” said Joe. “I stayed at the school all night, the first night, not knowing that I would have duties at the cable station starting the next morning, and I’d be doing three shows a day for the next four days,” Brian told me.
Oz shared another anecdote about a visitor’s confusion at an act of kindness, which is reflected in the show.
16 Stage Whispers September November 2022 silence during the show, it reflects an experience of Oz’s, which he shared.
In Come From Away Joe Kosky plays the town cop, and hearing that story from Oz has reshaped his perspective.
“The first thing he said to me was ‘a proper policeman doesn’t have a full beard moustache only’. After he saw the performance, he was genuinely appreciative of the way that we portrayed characters from his town. It was really reaffirming. He was so generous, and he was every bit the character that I that I had heard he was. We got to spend a good amount of time together on opening night. We holed ourselves up in a corner, drank some beers and just swapped stories.”
“I was at the gas station picking up a bottle of Pepsi, because I wouldn’t take any of the food for the passengers,” Oz related. “I saw two cars pull over on the Trans Canada Highway, then more pulled over on the other side, and I wondered, ‘What are they doing?’ Doors opened, and the guys stood on the side of the road, with their hands on their chests. And at the gas pumps, the fella stopped pumping gas. Inside the restaurant, people were standing up at the tables, hands on chests, and then I realised holy shit! This was when Bush had called for a moment of national silence.”
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“I used to think it was similar to attending country town Anzac Day services as a child. But Oz’s first hand account was truly profound and something that will stay with me.” When Joe met Oz for the first time, he discovered that Oz is a straight shooter.
“I’m in the Community Centre and a guy looks at me and says, ‘You guys are nuts.’ I said ‘Why?’ He says, ‘I was at Walmart and the girl at Walmart said, Are you one of the plane people? Yes, I am. Would you like to come home with me for a shower?’ He kind of laughed and said, ‘Yes I would. Anybody with you? Yes, my three friends.’ She goes to her manager, comes back and says, ‘OK, let’s go.’ They go to the house. She said, ‘The towels are there, the bathroom is there, the kitchen loaded with food get whatever you want. Living room just turn on the TV and watch whatever you want to watch. See you later, I’m going back to work.’ And he looked at her and said, ‘Are you crazy? We could steal everything.’ And he said she stopped and turned around and looked at them and said, ‘So, it can be replaced. Enjoy the house’.”
Brian Mosher and Oz Fudge.
How has Come From Away changed Brian’s and Oz’s lives? Oz: It’s the notoriety. I’m in Walmart now and someone will say, are you Oz Fudge? Brian: People ask us for autographs. Now what is the chance of a small town volunteer being asked for an Oz:autograph?Onetrouble with being a town cop most people didn’t want my autograph.Brian:Yeah, because it was usually at the bottom of a ticket. And, of course, there’s travelling all around the world to share their experiences, and to see productions of Come From Away
“I was the information feed for the town myself and Janice (local newspaper reporter Janice Gaudy). On Thursday Oz came in, as he did three times a day before every show to drop off pieces of paper with messages on them. I got all my town information from him. My producer had recognised my fatigue and he said, ‘Oz is here for an announcement he’s being legit, don’t tell hm off.’ Oz had this ongoing gag. The message simply said, ‘Gander Academy is running low on toilet paper.’ So I just put it on the 3.30 show ‘… and Gander Academy is running a bit low on toilet paper, so if you have a couple of extra rolls would you mind bringing it to Gander Academy.’ “Soon after that I was getting ready for the 5.30 show. Oz is back and he’s got this sheepish grin on his face. My producer is back between us again, saying, ‘OK, he’s still being legit.’ He had a typewritten piece of paper, with a handwritten note at the top that said, ‘For the love of God, stop bringing toilet paper to Gander Academy’. Apparently in an hour and 15 minutes they had filled a classroom with toilet paper.”
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Photo: Jeff Busby.
Zoe Gertz and Manon Gunderson Briggs.
Janice Mosher, currently played by Manon Gunderson Briggs, combines elements of Brian and Janice Gaudy. “When the show came back after COVID 19 that line got a huge reaction because of all the bulk buying of toilet paper during the pandemic. It took on a whole new meaning,” says Manon. “When I saw it for the first time, I laughed my head off.”“It’s part of a number called ‘Blankets and Bedding’. Gander is getting ready for this arrival of 7000 people. As it starts my character is very together, telling everyone the facts of the situation, getting everyone ready. Then throughout the number everyone gradually becomes a little bit more stressed … It finishes with this lovely little interjection punchline of ‘For the love of God, stop bringing toilet paper to the Lions Club.’“It always gets a great reaction. The writers have been able to keep so much of what was really said in the script and make it work dramaturgically.Thefirsttime Brian and Manon met, he gave her a big hug, and said you’re a “ThatMosher.wasaremarkable moment. You don’t normally get the actual person that the role is based on telling you that you’re doing a good job. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to have them sitting out there and it’s their lived experience; it really puts a whole new perspective on the “Seeingcharacter.”Manon and Brian together, they were like two peas in a pod,” Joe told me. “They were exactly the same in personality, they had this same sort of cheeky sense of humour.”
Who doesn’t love a good rom com? Musical theatre leading lady Lucy Durack is taking her passion for the genre around Australia in a concert tour called Lucy Durack’s Rom Comcert. She shared some secrets about romance, music and dating with David Spicer.
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Lucy Durack. Photo: Abbie Davis.
I think there have been workshops of some of the following, which haven’t been made into major Broadway shows yet as far as I know, but I would love to see any of my favourites: Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally, Clueless... I would love to see Clueless as a musical. I think that could be super fun and could really lend itself to it. What is your next big project?
What’s your favourite rom com? Sleepless in Seattle, followed very closely by When Harry Met Sally These are also my two favourite films of any genre. What’s a rom com you dislike? Anything that’s not rooted in reality, or where the acting is not convincing. I need to believe the love. What’s your favourite rom com theme song to listen to and to sing? I do love belting out “All By Myself” from Bridget Jones’s Diary, and I love listening to all the When Harry Met Sally Harry Connick Jnr songs.Can we take it that you will be singing “All By Myself” at the concert?Youcan :)
How will your male leads assist you in the concert?
Bert La Bonte, Lucy Durack and Rob Mills.
I like it all variety is the spice of life! Often the character parts do get to do the more comedic stuff, which I love.What rom com movie that hasn’t been made into a musical do you think would make a good one?
I have spent a lot of the last 18 months working on a pep talk app called Hey Lemonade with my friend, fellow performer Elise McCann, and we will launch that later in the year, which I am really excited about!
Rob Mills and Bert LaBonté are two great friends of mine and, as a bonus, two of my favourite leading men. There will be unashamed fun and jokes, some great singing and as my husband is directing and choreographing, likely some dance moves.Tellus a favourite rom com moment from your own life. My husband Chris and I had a long story of twists and turns and misunderstandings before we finally got together. It was a bit of When Harry Met Sally storyline; we knew each other over about 2 to 3 years of crossed wires, until we finally got together the day after we finished a production of 42nd Street that we were both in, in 2007, and we have been together ever since! Have you watched a rom com which has reminded you of something which happened to you? Yes, I think the best rom coms lean on real life stories, but I also think, for me, the reverse was also true. Especially from when I first watched Sleepless in Seattle as a 10 year old until I was in my early 20s. I tried to make my life a rom com, which more often than not didn’t work out, as I was expecting ‘Tom Hanks’ from my young suitors and they rarely matched up. I was a kid with a big romantic imagination. Tell us about how you like to watch a rom com. These days, as I have two young kids, I mostly watch a rom com if it happens upon my TV late at night and then I sort of forget time exists and drop everything to watch it. On my birthday and Valentine’s Day, Chris usually puts one of my favourite ones on our TV for me as a treat during the day. And I make it a priority to watch Love Actually at least once a December; it usually is accompanied by festive baking (usually gingerbread) and/or wrapping of presents.Istherea good food for a first date and what should you avoid from yourMessyexperience?tomato saucy pasta can be dangerous if you’re wearing a light colour and I would say a burger can also be messy, but then again burgers and hot dogs feature quite heavily in rom coms, where one of them gets sauce on their face and it is an opportunity for the other love interest to come in close and help them with it, so, messy food could also be strategy?Howdo you keep romance going these days, with your two gorgeous children Polly and Ted to distract you? Fortunately, Chris and I still make it a priority to go to the theatre together, and just sitting holding hands in a dark theatre is so romantic to me. Funnily enough, now with kids, a lot of what I think is romantic has changed for me to be things like a knowing look to each other about something cute or funny one of our kids has said or done, or when Chris and I are having to work together to tackle some stressful kid related situation. In that moment, if we manage to see the funny side or appreciate each other in the moment, that for me is more romantic than the stuff I used to think was romantic as a younger woman. You recently appeared in the Netflix rom com A Perfect Pairing. How did that come about? I just auditioned a couple of times and got the part! It was a real treat to be involved in; they were a lovely team of people. Working on an actual rom com with some funny business to do was a complete dream come true! Your character was not the romantic lead, but rather a bit of a villain (at least at first). Do you enjoy playing more diverse characters?
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Lucy Durack’s Rom Comcert Australian Tour 2022 Visiting ten venues around Australia. livenation.com.au/artist lucy durack 1375576
Photo: Abbie Davis.
“Teachers’ black humour comes through; it’s the ‘if you don’t laugh, you cry’ way of looking at their immensely challenging work,” said Angela. Home schooling during the bleak COVID 19 pandemic days made her appreciate teachers’ skills.
The hot water heater on the wall is already broken at the start of the term and the battle with cockroaches in the kettle and an uncatchable rat provides rib tickling laughs to break the tension.
Whilst it is a space for what Director Jess Arthur describes as a ‘playground for teachers’ that constantly delivers surprises, there is a sense that the aftermath of Chernobyl looked ‘well heeled’ by comparison. The mood is deliberatelyCatherinebleak.McClements, as jaded, cynical Pat Novitsky, a 50 something career teacher, is relishing a gift of a role. She comments that Pat “can’t stop caring about these kids, no matter how many wisecracks or cold water she pours on the profession.” It is these lightning fast barbs that have the audience understanding, captivated, on side and chortling.
New to writing pure comedy, Angela is clear that this witty, biting, ‘laugh out loud’ play represents the humour of so many of the teachers who she spoke to whilst developing the script.
Angela is passionate that this play is written for the teachers, who, as caretakers of the future, face burnout but are still committed to teaching children how to think critically, accept and care about their peers, and how to discern and act upon the truth. She loves looking at ‘communities’, and this school community gave her the opportunity to create a unique, zany and somewhat representative group at West Vale Primary. The design elements of Chalkface vividly reflect the themes. Set and Costume Designer Ailsa Paterson created the staffroom, a naturalistic room that is drab, grubby and clichéd. An array of strategically chosen, mismatched furniture and equipment, that was old in the 1990’s, recreates a desperately under resourced government school. Bereft of modern technology, the blackboard from decades ago is prominent in sharing messages.
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“It reminded me that the miracle of teachers teaching my child to read was so, so special”.
Multi award winning Australian writer Angela Betzien, now a parent herself, grew up as a child of two teachers. They shared stories of notorious students like one who the family referred to as Screwdriver, because he brought one to school to use as a weapon.
The other teacher, Anna Park, played by Stephanie Somerville, a proud Martu woman and graduate of Chalkface, a zany new comedy about teaching in a primary school, has debuted in Adelaide ahead of seasons in Sydney, Parramatta and Canberra. Jude Hines speaks to the writer and creatives of the play, described as a tribute to teachers dealing with a screwdriver and a hurricane.
Stephanie said, “The comedy in this play comes from the truth of it,” and we see it subtly and patently woven in through the dialogue and the production elements.
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Schools are arguably controlled by their Office Manager, who balances the budget, opens and shuts the collective school ‘purse’, and manages the resources. Not able to resist a great pun, Angela has created Cheryl Filch (Michelle Ny), a failed banker who doesn’t like students, teachers or parents, and guards the ultimate power in the school as holder of the Stationery Cupboard key, from which the coloured paper is rationed and grudgingly doled out.
WAAPA’s Indigenous Program, reminds us of the energy and optimism of early career teachers who currently, on average, abandon teaching after just a few years.
Stephanie described two teachers who she drew upon to create Anna. She fondly acknowledges the dedication of her Mum and best friend, who are teachers, and commented that, “My young new Year 7 teacher made me feel special. She was a teacher who really believed in me and helped me to believe that I was good enough. She saw my potential and helped me to realise it.”
“These are kids who need properly funded specialist education to flourish,” she says.
Susan Prior as Denise Hart in Chalkface Matt Byrne.
Composer and Sound Designer Jess Dunn has helped her by cleverly including both the sounds that we hear in the world of play and the much loved or hated sounds of primary school instruments, including the ubiquitous recorders, glockenspiels, ukuleles and toy percussion that create many of our memories of early schooling.
Angela Betzein believes “Education is at a ‘where to now’ juncture.” Lost children are a well known theme in her work and she is passionate about kids like Hurricane, and other kids like him, who are ‘square pegs in round holes’.
This testing and measuring obsession is personified in the character of Douglas Houston, played ingratiatingly by State Theatre SA regular performer Nathan O’Keefe. He is a classroom avoiding, slogan spewing Principal, driven by Education Department KPI’s and corporate regulations, who cares about his image rather than the students who he refers to as ‘human capital’. For Douglas, the dollar is king.
Chalkface Sydney Theatre Company September 16 to October 29. canberratheatrecentre.com.auParramattasydneytheatre.com.auRiversideTheatreNovember3to5.riversideparramatta.com.auCanberraTheatreNovember9to12.
For anyone who needed therapy to survive primary school music lessons, so did the character of unassertive, softly spoken, Kindy music teacher Denise Hart. Fresh from summer in a psychiatric ward, she’s portrayed by Susan Prior, recently seen as Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, who revels in outrageous physical comedy.
Angela is interested in the kids who may be wild, may be rebels, and believes that it is them who are often our future leaders. She is clear that it is the great teachers who really teach, that take students to a place where dreams reside.Angela, like many of the Chalkface team, had teachers who, with their words of wisdom, have awoken the spirit within us and led us down many paths of life. This play is a poignant, funny, nuanced new Australian comedy. It is also a plea to support the teachers who, despite it all, believe in Hurricane and Screwdriver.
To everyone’s surprise, Anna volunteers to work with, and turn around the life of, the school’s most feared and famous ‘lost cause’, Hurricane. OK, so encouraging him to build a small nuclear reactor may have been a little extreme. Stephanie said, “I love that she believes that one person can make a Stephanie,difference.”asAnna, who has the post it ‘Every child has incalculable value’ on her bathroom mirror, comes to Book Week, resplendent as Dr Seuss’s Lorax, brandishing the quote “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot nothing is going to get better, it’s NOT!” Unsurprisingly, Pat comes as the venomous Ms Trunchball, the anti hero from Roald Dahl’s novel Matilda Angela immersed herself in research about the Australian education system, the underfunding of the public system and what she calls ‘the global obsession with testing and measuring’. She chuckled and said, “I love the line that a teacher gave me, that I included in the play, that says ‘you don’t fatten a pig by measuring it’.”
Photo:
We meet Anna as a newly minted graduate, earnest and energetic, having a master’s degree in Neuroscience that results in others referring to as a ‘child whisperer’.
The complex of theatres on the Parramatta River in Sydney’s west is a thriving hub of culture, hosting 1,200 performances a year. Now momentum is growing for its redevelopment, including a new 1,350 seat theatre. Carol Wimmer reports.
The iconic Western Sydney theatre complex has been the hub of the performing arts in Parramatta, especially over the last 20 years when Robert Love, the well known former Director, made it his mission to bring all genres of theatre to Western Sydney.McMaster, too, has wide experience across many areas of arts administration and his vision for Riverside is to ensure a “broad, welcoming and diverse program” that answers the needs of the talented writers, poets, musicians, actors, dancers, circus performers, stand up comics, directors, designers and technicians who make Western Sydney their home and the increasing number of patrons who come to see their work. This includes a host of new Australian citizens and their families who have a special affinity with Riverside, as it is here that the City of Parramatta holds its Citizenship Ceremonies. Making its home at Riverside since its inception 10 years ago is the National Theatre of Parramatta (NTofP), which has been “investing in the future” of the arts by “creating and presenting transformative and inspirational professional theatre experiences that reflect the world around us and the diversity that is contemporary Australia”. This year it has delighted audiences already with three very different productions. Guards at the Taj by Rajiv Joseph mixed humour and the brutal practices of Mughhal Emperor Shah Jahan in a stunning, beautifully directed piece of theatre.
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From his office beside the Parramatta River, Craig McMaster, Director of Riverside Theatres, is watching the city of Parramatta change and grow. The extraordinary development of the city is an example of “if you build it, they will come,” he says, citing the example of the busy restaurants that line “Eat Street” on either side of the new Parramatta Light Rail pedestrian plaza that used to be just noisy Church Street. And he’s right! The hoardings, wire fencing and heavy machinery that dominated the area have gone. So too have the loud, “hotted up” cars that used to cruise the precinct! In this enlivened environment, cafes and restaurants have moved out onto the footpaths, and patrons sit amidst pot plants and coloured lights.
Orange Thrower was a diverse coming of age story set in Perth, but seen through a differently coloured lens. White Pearl, Anchuli Felicia King’s fiercely modern play about “the irrefutable complexities of PC culture”, returned to its original home at Riverside after successful seasons in Brisbane and at Sydney Theatre Company. Neil Gooding’s Packemin Productions has brought lively, tightly directed musical theatre to Riverside and a huge following that books
Spotlight On Riverside Theatres Parramatta
In February the National Theatre of Parramatta will present the Australian premiere of Choir Boys by Tarell Alvin McCraney. The Tony nominated play, with soul stirring a cappella gospel hymns, is the story of a young gay black man and his battle between identity and community. Ahead of that, highlights include performances of the play Chalkface and the cabaret Christmas Actually.
Photo: James Horan.
Another dimension is Beyond the Square, Riverside’s program for people with disability. One of the longest running programs of this kind
Photo: George Fetting.
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studios where hundreds of girls and, happily, an increasing number of boys study across the dance genres and musical theatre, so productions such as this give them an insight into new things that are happening in the world of Theatredance.companies such as Outhouse, shake & stir, The Street Theatre, Flying Fruit Fly Circus and Sport for Jove have all brought productions to Riverside this year. Many of these play during the day for school audiences. In May the foyer buzzed at midday as crowds of secondary English and Drama students arrived to see Sport for Jove’s production of Macbeth. School holidays at Riverside are just as lively with children’s theatre. The Spot On Children’s Festival will feature during September.Musicfrom local orchestral and choral groups, and ballets on tour from companies such as the Victorian State Ballet, add to the diversity that is Riverside and realise the management team’s continuing aim to share the joy and variety of live performance and to make it as affordable and accessible as possible.
Even more changes are planned, changes that include establishing Riverside as part of the City of Parramatta’s commitment to the development of a cultural precinct a “destination hub” if you will that stretches from the new Powerhouse Museum, along “Eat Street”, across the river to the theatres and on to the stadium.Recently and with appropriate fanfare the ‘next step’ towards approval of the “Redevelopment Phase” of The Riverside was announced. This involves Council (Continued on page 24) out the mainstage theatre well prior to opening night. We Will Rock You and Mamma Mia! thrilled audiences over the past 12 months, and Kinky Boots opens in September. Gooding Productions’ Leap, created and choreographed by Amy Campbell, was among the many and varied dance performances that Riverside brought to the west earlier this year. Surrounding suburbs abound in dance
in Sydney, it offers personal and social creative opportunities in drama workshops that give people with disability the chance to develop theatre skills and artistic works. The program for 2023 promises many high points.
The proposal is for a new 1,350 seat proscenium arch commercial theatre that can stage international productions. There will be a new 430 seat “black box” multi mode drama studio theatre, an upgrade of the present 760 seat Riverside Playhouse Theatre, and a new 75 seat digital and development studio/screening space. But, as the saying goes, that’s not all! There will be two full scale rehearsal spaces and refurbished back of house technical and performance spaces. All venues will have state of the art technical fittings and equipment.
“Thousands of performers, students, local companies and new citizens have walked the Riverside stage, creating life long memories that on many occasions change their lives, and our plan will enable even greater access for our community to come together and tell its stories. We believe the redeveloped Riverside, when fully realised, will be an extraordinary new home for the arts, offering the best in live entertainment and a community and cultural centre that welcomes all in Western Sydney and beyond.”
24 Stage Whispers September November 2022 support for the new Concept Proposal and a “guidance plan” for funding.
It is indeed a bold project, one that will service the rapidly growing ‘global city’ that Parramatta will become, especially with the completion of the light rail, and the newCurrentlyairport.
“Our vison is for a new, larger scale performing arts centre which will become the centrepiece of a cultural precinct with the new Powerhouse and PHIVE Council’s new civic and community building.
Photo: Grant Leslie.
As Parramatta emerges as the truly global central river city, it is both reassuring and inspiring to know that amongst the fast pace of development and building, there is also an exciting cultural landscape emerging that connects and inspires the diversity and creativity of the region’s people and creates even greater opportunities for their stories to be told.
The audience will find a ‘refreshed’ entry forecourt and riverfront café, new foyers with food and drink services and three corporate function areas.The Lord Mayor of Parramatta Cr Donna Davis said, “Riverside Theatres has been the heart of arts and entertainment in Western Sydney for over 30 years. “Parramatta has changed significantly since Riverside Theatres was built, and we need our cultural facilities to grow alongside our rapidly evolving city. “Council’s plans to redevelop Riverside Theatres will create a state of the art performing arts centre, the first of its kind outside the Sydney CBD.
Riverside stages around 1,200 performances a year that are seen by approximately 160,000 patrons. The new concept plan sets the ambitious target of more than doubling attendances in the coming years.What will not change however, is the venue’s commitment to the community it serves.
“One of the main reasons our new plan seeks to retain the much loved Riverside theatre at its heart, is to connect the venue’s history and past with its exciting future,” Craig McMasters explains.
While including greater commercial content, Riverside is also committed to providing additional access to the venue for use by local and community organisations and presenters.
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“We have a significant portion of the funds already, however, to make it happen we need the state and federal government to tip in.”
Larry Kramer’s autobiographical play
The Normal Heart explores how Kramer and his friends attempt to expose the truth about the mystery illness that is rapidly killing their friends and lovers. The play is receiving two local productions this year. The State Theatre Company South Australia will stage their production in Adelaide’s 600 seat Dunstan Playhouse, while indie co op Ad Astra brings the action up close and personal in their small office sized performance space in Brisbane. I spoke to actors Mitchell Butel (also Artistic Director at STCSA) and Gregory J Wilken (also Executive Producer at Ad Astra), who will both be playing Larry Kramer’s opinionated activist alter ego, Ned Weeks. I started by asking why both companies were so keen to produce a play about a pandemic during a pandemic.
Mitchell: Our Director, Dean Bryant, and I have talked for years about producing The Normal Heart. With the impact of COVID 19, I thought there are so many resonances between the kind of fear that we’ve been through and the need for knowledge and information, and also the need for government support and advocacy when a pandemic starts. I thought in a way they’re such similar times, but also such different times. The worldwide response to COVID 19 was incredibly different to the beginning of the AIDS crisis because AIDS was seen by many to be a purely homosexual disease, and therefore not as important. Through the current pandemic, we’ve all desired information and certainty and leadership those things were absent from the beginning of the AIDS crisis. I thought it would be interesting for modern audiences to celebrate the survival of all those incredible AIDS activists and also to question whether there would be a different response if the AIDS crisis was just beginning now: one would hope so.
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This year, as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Gay Pride in the UK, and 44 years since Sydney’s first Mardi Gras, we must also remember that it is just over 40 years since the HIV/AIDS epidemic began.
Gregory: I’ve wanted to do The Normal Heart for many years, having lived through the worst of AIDS in Australia.
Two very different theatre companies in Adelaide and Brisbane will mount productions this year of The Normal Heart Larry Kramer’s powerful play set in 1980s New York at Ground Zero of the AIDS crisis. Beth Keehn explores why the play still resonates today.
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Two Strong Hearts
Brad Davis and Phillip Richard Allen in The Normal Heart (1985) at The Public Theater, New York.
Gregory: In many ways I am Ned Weeks everything he stands for is me! The majority of gay people are like me they just live a normal life. But also, the line that got me was, “I belong to a culture that includes Proust, Henry James...Cole Porter, Plato, Socrates...Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci...James Baldwin...these are not invisible men.” Why can’t we celebrate that?
Mitchell: I think that good plays like this one, that are so culturally and contemporarily specific, gain even more weight as pieces of theatre the longer they remain part of the canon. Think of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, a play that was very powerful in its time, written for a particular
When I asked Mitchell and Gregory what attracted them to the character of Ned Weeks, intriguingly, both actors cited the same speech as a crucial moment.
I lost my best friend around my 30th birthday. I remember sitting in a pub in Sydney with my friends after we’d been to four funerals in one day. Another friend walked in and told us that Dave had just died. And that was how we lived. There’s a line in the play: ‘I’m trying to understand why nobody wants to hear we’re dying, why nobody wants to help.’’ I thought now is the perfect time to see this play because people didn’t understand at the time, but now when they see what happened, people might question what they think about that situation. Also, we need to talk about our history. Sadly Larry Kramer passed away last year many of his friends who feature in The Normal Heart have died, and four of the original cast members from the first production in New York in 1985 died from AIDS related complications.
Mitchell: The dialogue is very witty, very intelligent, and crackingly passionate. I know it’s going to be a joy and a thrill to perform. There’s one particular speech I love where Ned is talking to his friend Bruce Bruce is closeted, Ned is not and he talks about belonging to a culture that includes so many great thinkers and artists like Proust and Henry James, Leonardo Da Vinci and more, including Alan Turing, who cracked the Enigma code during World War Two and the notion that, until we are proud to name who we are to the world, until we can accept ourselves for our own value, then it’s hard to promote that value to other people.
reason (to highlight McCarthyism). For The Normal Heart, the issues of fear and homophobia, activism and advocacy remain, and you realise that the thread of humanity goes through all these periods. But also, it’s very important to see what happens in history and how we can ensure that similar things don’t happen again. What can we do to ensure that these kinds of voices will be listened to in a way that they weren’t before? Also, another big part of this play is celebrating the value of our medical staff. That’s done through the character of Dr Emma Brookner who immortalises the real life Dr Linda Laubenstein, one of the first medical researchers and practitioners to sound a warning about the AIDS epidemic.
26 Stage Whispers September November 2022
I wondered if younger audiences will have a better understanding of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, having lived through our current pandemic.
Photo: Richard Farland.
Mitchell: I really hope so. I was in my teens when information about the AIDS crisis was filtering through. I was at Uni, and in 1990 a couple of my friends passed
(Continued from page 25) Stage Whispers DirectoryStage Whispers Directory premium listing: $20premium listing: $20 Get noticed on the Stage Whispers website with a premium listing at a great price stagewhispers.com.au/directory central Gregory Wilken.
Photo: Kurt Sneddon.
The Normal Heart State Theatre Company SA: September 30 to October 15 statetheatrecompany.com.au/shows/the normal heart Ad Astra Brisbane: November 3 to 27, plus a performance for World AIDS Day on December 1 adastracreativity.com/productions/the normal heart Mitchell Butel.
Mitchell: Our Director, Dean Bryant, was very keen to see a wide group of people. Our cast includes Michael Griffiths, Matt Hyde, Anthony Nicola, Evan Lever, Ainsley Melham, AJ Pate, and Mark Saturno. We didn’t design it to be this way, but what’s ended up happening is that all the gay characters in the show will be played by gay actors. I don’t think that you have to cast that way, but I think at this point in our cultural history, it’s interesting that all the people who connected most with the material happened to be gay actors themselves. Plus the actress playing Dr Emma Brookner is the wonderful Emma Jones, who herself has a lived experience of disability. We all have different history and associations, but I think there’ll be a lot of great mileage to be gained from people’s own very special connections to this material. I think it will be interesting to see what audiences think, having lived through COVID 19. I think the play will be a draw for audiences and will really keep them talking in the car on the way home and the next day at work.
During the AIDS pandemic, we still lived and loved and partied, but we had this deep fear all the time. I think young people will relate to that today. Also, people are still having trouble coming out. Why in 2022 are we still seeing so much heartache? In the play, the media has a vital role in raising awareness of the disease. Has that changed?
Gregory: Our co directors Michelle Carey and Anna Loren had a clear picture of these characters and who Larry Kramer based them on, and some of our actors are so similar it has blown us away. While it’s important that we allow gay people to perform gay roles, we have not asked our actors if they are gay or straight. For Dr Emma Brookner, we found the fabulous Maddie Little (who will be sharing the role with Janelle Bailey). Maddie works with Indelability Arts and Access Arts as an actor with a disability. Ad Astra is serious about diversity and I’m so grateful to Maddie for agreeing to come on board. We are also very excited to announce that the role of Felix will be played by Hugh Sheridan. Hugh’s generosity of spirit is so unbelievable he called me and said that he’d heard we were doing The Normal Heart and he wanted to be in the play! Our wonderful cast also includes Felix Jarvis, who will take over from Hugh for two performances, Sam Hocking, Mathew Costin, Rad Valance, Mark Edwards, Connor Clarke, Troy Bullock and Liam Wallis.
Gregory: Ned is very outspoken in the play about the fact that he considers Mayor Koch and The New York Times to be responsible for the death of millions of gay men because they wouldn’t talk about it. There’s a line in the first scene: “The Times won’t even use the word ‘gay’ unless it’s in a direct quote.” But today I think it’s worse because I just don’t think anyone trusts the media right now. And with right wing groups and use of social media, we don’t listen any more to understand; we talk to get our point across. It’s so important that we change that.Mitchell:
stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 27 away, and you’d see the impact of people who were HIV positive. As a teenager, with all the Grim Reaper fear based TV advertising, the fear of coming out was amplified.Gregory:
There were very powerful forces at work in the early days of the AIDS crisis; information was being suppressed and voices were being shut down. I think the press has done a much better job on COVID 19 than they did in the early days of AIDS. I think there’s been a real desire to educate people with as much information as possible about COVID 19, so much so that we are all probably exhausted by it. Ned has another line that resonates with our current situation: “Nobody listens for very long anyway. There’s a new disease of the month every day.”
I wanted to find out about the casting process. All of the characters in The Normal Heart are gay, except Ned’s brother, Ben, and Dr Emma Brookner, a polio survivor who uses a wheelchair. Was it important to cast performers with lived experience?
28 Stage Whispers September November 2022
Atomic Launch In Germany
After four years preparation, including two cancellations due to COVID 19, Atomic the Musical has just enjoyed its European premiere in Wetzlar, Germany. In German. So, what does the story of the first Atomic Bomb have to do with Germany? Quite a lot, it turns out. In the 1930s, Germany led the world in atomic physics. When Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, many of Germany’s leading scientists, being Jewish, were forced to leave. Among them Leo Szilard, the protagonist of Atomic Szilard was the physicist who first conceived, and patented, the concept of an atomic chain reaction in 1934. In 1939 he also penned the letter, signed by Albert Einstein, that alerted the US Government to the real threat of a Nazi atom bomb. As a founding scientist on the subsequent Manhattan Project, Szilard led America’s effort to beat Germany to the bomb, co designing the first nuclear reactor in the process. Once Hitler had been defeated, Szilard rallied his fellow scientists to stop the bomb’s use against Japan, an action that cost him his career in nuclear physics, and his place in the history books. The fact that most people have never heard of Leo Szilard was the reason I began writing Atomic in the firstWhileplace.events portrayed in Atomic are ‘ancient’ history, their ramifications have never been more present, with António Guterres, Secretary General of the U.N., recently warning that humanity is “just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation, away from nuclear annihilation”. Wetzlar, where Atomic was staged, is very close to the Fulda Gap the front line of the Cold War. Since its Off Broadway Premiere in 2014, Philip Foxman and I have visited every one of Atomic’s productions in Sydney, New York, Detroit, St Louis, Denver, Perth and Adelaide. With each production we’ve learned something new, and those learnings have been incorporated into the libretto and score. Because the Wetzlar production was in German, we didn’t expect to learn much this time, and I went on my own. How wrong we were. You never stop learning.Withfour years to hone the work, the German production team, Musicalgruppe Der Goetheschule Wetzlar (The Goethe School Musical Group Wetzlar), did a remarkable job. The attention to detail was phenomenal. For example, the tempo of the opening song, ‘The Atom Bomb is Here’, was changed to 119.5bpm. 119.5 is half of 239, the atomic weight of Plutonium. Video projection was also included for the first time, with great effect. The falling bomb’s eye view of Hiroshima was chilling. But the real highlight, for me anyway, was the language. Atomic is full of heated
Australian creator and librettist Danny Ginges had the thrill of watching his musical, Atomic, performed in a picturesque German town.
Online extras! Watch the cast of Atomic perform their musical encore. Scan or visit youtu.be/L4of5hm8fIU
Musicalgruppe der Goetheschule Wetzlar’s Atomic (2022) Photo: Svenja Kugler.
stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 29 dialogue, and no language does that better than German. It took the drama to another level, even if I didn’t understand a word. I saw the first three shows. All full houses. All with prolonged standing ovations. And I hear subsequent performances did just as well. But the show almost didn’t happen. The pandemic that had delayed the opening took its toll on the cast and band. Most roles were played by two actors in rotation. But both of the actors playing Robert Oppenheimer were ill, so a new actor was asked. At two in the morning. The day before opening night. Then the second keyboard was ill, so the piano/ conductor played both keyboards. By closing night, half the cast had been ill. But watching the performances, you wouldn’t guess there had been any difficulties at all. They just rolled up their sleeves and got on with it. There’s a lesson in that for everyone.
Musicalgruppe der Goetheschule Wetzlar’s Atomic (2022) Photo: Svenja Kugler.
Life At The Bottom Of The Blender
Auditioning days were pretty much the same. Every morning at 6am I packed my bag with several copies of my resume stapled to my headshot (remember, it should look like you on a blind date, groomed but realistic), leotard, tights, tap, jazz, ballet and theatre shoes, repertoire book (all my pieces neatly cut to sixteen bars and highlighted clearly for the ease of the accompanist), something to read, snacks and my standard audition dress made of an emerald green jersey fabric that I could pull out of my bag and over my head without any need for an iron. I would head out to the studios in the cold dark February mornings, follow the audition sign to a small stuffy holding room and add my name to the list that, by 9am, was already at two hundred and fifty six. I’d usually wedge myself against a wall and thank the gods of the subway I hadn’t been any later. A girl on one side of me would be doing splits up the wall and loudly talking to a girl on the other side of me saying that her manager didn’t want her to audition for this and she was only there because the casting director called her in. Someone else would be doing vocal warm ups right next to the sign saying ‘No vocalising permitted’, and yet someone else would be curling her hair because ‘that’s how the girl in the original cast had it’. I would sip on the ninety cent coffee I got from my mate at the porn shop on 8th Avenue and ignored the girlthewith
As a 23 year old, Naomi Hart flew from Australia to New York to make it in musical theatre on Broadway. Planning to be away for only two years, which eventually turned into eight, she worked as a performer, choreographer and director, while also writing and performing two sell out cabarets. In the process she ended up working in a New York Mafia owned restaurant and performed as a dancing plate in the musical Beauty and the Beast. In this extract from her book, Life at the Bottom of the Blender, Naomi shares her Broadway audition experiences.
30 Stage Whispers September November 2022
I knew I was good enough to be on some stage and get paid for it and I was determined to get there. So I listened to everyone who had ever trained me and did absolutely everything they told me to do. I sent mail outs of my headshot and bio to agents all over the city, sent thank you postcards to producers after I’d auditioned for them, and kept an audition book filled with notes on the auditions I had done, who was in the room, what I sang, what I wore, how I did. I was great at that side of it. The diligence part of it. But friends of mine, savvier, braver, more self confident friends, were heading to piano bars on the lower east side of Manhattan where Jason Robert Brown or John Bucchino were testing out new material late on a Monday evening. There they’d meet Broadway performers, hear the gossip, make connections, offer to monitor an audition for free, then slip in and audition themselves at the end of the day. I was never that savvy or smart. Backstage, the weekly audition paper, would come out every Thursday. I’d read through it, highlight the auditions I was right for, and plan my week to hit as many auditions as possible.
stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 31 manager who told me that I shouldn’t drink coffee because it ‘dehydrates your vocal chords’. When my number would finally come up, the audition monitor would take my headshot and bio, march me into the hallway and line me up with nine others along the wall outside the audition room. One by one the monitor would usher us through the door and close it quickly so no one got a chance to take a peak. Going through the audition room door is like going through the wardrobe to Narnia. Everyone visits the same place but has a totally different experience. The panel is lovely. The accompanist is terrible. They ask me to sing four songs. They’re all eating hamburgers. I should have sung the McDonald’s commercial.Onceinside there is an awkward silence as the panel literally checks you out while you walk over to the accompanist and explain your piece without trying to offend their delicate sensibilities. (Don’t click your fingers, and never, ever tap the tempo of the piece on the top of the piano. And don’t bring a song by Sondheim lest you risk the wrath of the accompanist forced to sight read his sophisticated melodies.) You head to the centre of the room, sometimes stopping on the gaffer taped X on the floor that makes you feel you’re facing a firing squad and not a bunch of musical theatre queens. You sing your first piece, chosen deliberately to best suit the show and role you’re auditioning for and, if you’re lucky the panel will ask to hear a contrasting one. If you’re even luckier, they’ll ask if you can dance which means you can return for the afternoon dance audition. A couple of minutes later you’re back on the other side of the wardrobe, now with two hours to kill before you return for the afternoon dance call. Often you wouldn’t be given that sort of immediate feedback and you’d have to loiter in the holding room and wait until the monitor announced loudly (and with a hint of schadenfreude): ‘If you don’t hear your name, you can go ahead and leave. The producers and directors thank you for coming.’ Often for musicals, a dance audition is where a panel will put singers who dance with dancers who sing and see what balance they might need for their particular show. They are a horrid mix of diva dancers (the ones who when their tights rip, cut out the crotch and wear them as tops), sopranos who aren’t used to doing much other than standing on stage and singing really high, and the rest of us who fall somewhere in between. It’s like riding a bike. You have to share the road with wide loads spilling out of their lanes, riders who took their training wheels off a little too early, and the cycling elites who put the rest of us to shame. Either way, you still end up with a soreAuditionsgroin. were a war of attrition. Odds were, if you could just hang in there long enough, you’d eventually land a gig. But the process was merciless and the shots fired from the other side wounded more often than they bounced. I had a cold when auditioning for A Chorus Line and got cut after I did a double turn and landed with my face covered in snot. It was between me and another girl for Sally Bowles in Cabaret until the male character they cast to play opposite was shorter than me, so I was out. I was too tall for most roles but wasn’t a good enough dancer for the Bob Fosse musicals. I spent four and a half hours at a call back one Saturday, getting progressively more nervous as they cut more and more people until I was one of only two girls left for a role in Honky Tonk Angels. The role based on … drum roll please … Dolly Parton. Go on, laugh. I did. Needless to say they went with the other girl, but my padded, pushed up, squeezed in, chicken fillet filled bra and I put up a good fight. I almost landed the role of Grizabella in the Cats tour until the woman I was meant to replace decided to re sign her contract. If the role advertised is for a replacement in a current show, they’ll include the measurements of the girl and tell you not to show up unless you match.
Producers don’t want to spend money redoing costumes if they don’t have to. And they didn’t have to there were always too many of us. And most often, that was the reason you would lose the gig. Not because you couldn’t do the role or you weren’t good enough or pretty enough, but simply because there were so many people to choose from. By the time you removed positions for people with a profile, those who’d done the show before or fitted the costumes, not to mention good old fashioned nepotism, there weren’t many places for the rest of us.
The audition season rolled on with the same relentlessness as the weather outside and I continued to come close, but not close enough, to landing a gig. My acting teacher used to say, ‘If you want a job, buy a plane ticket,’ so towards the end of the audition season, knowing I only had a few weeks left to get a job, I used all my savings to book a ticket home to visit people I was really starting to miss. Sure enough, I landed a summer stock gig that very week. Next stop, North Conway, New Hampshire. I was finally on my way.
Published by Bad Apple Press. Purchase your copy for $32.99 from booknook.com.au/product/life at the bottom of the blender
Book Extract
Lea Michelle takes over the role of Fanny Brice in Funny Girl in the current Broadway revival from September 6, having delved deep into the score in her role as Streisand tragic Rachel Berry on Glee an unconventional audition. She replaces Beanie Feldstein, whose performance has taken a critical and social media drubbing, beginning even before the revival opened, with widespread criticism of the casting choice.
Some less harsh reviews, though, suggested that there was a show in there to be salvaged.
Considering the mind numbing movie properties that have been cynically schlepped to Broadway the past few seasons, that’s an achievement worthy of the Guinness Book. … Every song is lousy, and there is nothing here worth fixing.’ The review concludes, ‘What should’ve been a haute couture musical is hopelessly ready to wear.’
Almost Famous The Musical has its Broadway opening on November 3 at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, with previews from October 3. With a book and lyrics by Cameron Crowe, adapting his Oscar winning screenplay, and original music by Tom Kitt, the 1970s coming of age musical is directed by Jeremy Herrin, with choreography by Sarah O’Gleby. The musical had its premiere at the Old Globe, San Diego in 2019. Multi award winning hit Off Broadway musical Kimberly Akimbo, based on the play by David Lindsay Abaire (2001) about a young girl with a medical condition that causes rapid aging, previews at the Booth Theatre from October 12, opening on November 10, with a book and lyrics by the playwright, and music by Jeanine Tesori. Jessica Stone directs, with choreography by Danny Mefford. The Broadway production will feature the full Off Broadway cast, including Victoria Clark in the title role.
The Devil Wears Prada Photo: Joan Marcus.
A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical is headed to the Broadhurst Theatre, with previews from November 2, ahead of a December 4 opening. Featuring a score full of Diamond hits, and a book by Anthony McCarten, direction by Michael Mayer and choreography by Steven Hoggett, the bio musical premiered at the Emmerson Colonial Theatre, Boston on June 21 to positive reviews. There’s two Neil Diamonds. Will Swenson plays Diamond (then) while Mark Jacoby portrays Diamond (now).
OUCH! ‘Devil Wears Prada musical is a haute mess’ announces the skewering headline of the New York Post’s 1 star review for the twice postponed Broadway bound Chicago tryout. Acidic barbs from Johnny Oleksinski’s review include ‘Call the Fashion Police. The alarmingly un fun and sluggish show with a score by Elton John and Shaina Taub is a dud about duds, and the worst screen to stage move in recent memory. …
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KPOP The Broadway Musical begins Broadway previews at Circle in the Square Theatre on October 13, ahead of its long delayed November 20 opening night. With a book by Jason Kim, and music and lyrics by Helen Park and Max Vernon, the show had its World Premiere Off Broadway in September 2017. South Korean singer Luna will make her Broadway debut. Delving into the world of K pop, the musical follows the successes and struggles of a fictional company and its K pop talent. & Juliet, the 2019 West End musical hit, with a score by Swedish pop songwriter Max Martin, and a book by David West Read, commences previews at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre on October 28, ahead of a November 17 opening, following its North American premiere season in Toronto. The coming of age musical centres on a what if scenario what if Juliet didn’t die at the end of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet Opening in November 2019, the show resumed its West End run in September 2021 after an 18 month COVID 19 enforced hiatus. The show’s Australian premiere follows hot on the heels of Broadway, opening in February 2023 at Melbourne’s Regent Theatre. Into The Woods’ return to Broadway, transferred to the St James Theatre after its New York City Center Encores! season, which was originally set to play a limited an 8 week engagement, has now extended into mid October. Its path back to Broadway mirrors that of the minimalist international hit revival of Chicago Before Hamilton hit Broadway, there was 1776, the story of America’s Founding Fathers as they penned the Declaration of Independence. The 1969 Tony Award Broadway Buzz Online extras! Elton John, the cast, and director discuss The Devil Wears Prada musical. youtu.be/FTfVXzYS97s
Stage Whispers 33 winning musical, with a score by Sherman Edwards, and a book by Peter Stone, begins previews at the Roundabout Theatre on September 16, ahead of an October 6 opening. Dianne Paulus and Jeffrey L. Page co direct a cast of women, trans, and non binary actors in an intriguing new approach to this American Revolution musical.Anew musical adaptation of the Billy Wilder film Some Like it Hot begins previews at the Shubert Theatre on November 1, for a December 11 opening. Featuring a score by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (Hairspray), with a book by Mark López and Amber Ruffin, it’s not the film’s first stage musical incarnation. Sugar, which opened on Broadway in 1972 with a score by Jule Styne, lyrics by Bob Merrill, a book by Peter Stone, and direction and choreography by Gower Champion, played 14 previews and 505 performances. The 1972 cast, led by Robert Morse, Tony Roberts and Elaine Joyce, also starred Australian stage and screen legend Cyril Ritchard. In the new version, Christian Borle and J. Harrison Ghee will play the two jazz musicians trying to avoid a mob hit by disguising themselves as members of a female band. Adrianna Hicks will star as Sugar, Marilyn Monroe’s role from the film.
Lori Parks’ 2002 Pulitzer winner Top Dog/Underdog returns to Broadway for its 20th anniversary, beginning a 16 week limited engagement on September 27 at the John Golden Theatre, ahead an October 20 opening night. Directed by Kenny Leon, the play follows brothers Lincoln (Corey Hawkins) and Booth (Yahya Abdul Mateen II) names given by their father as a joke. Haunted by the past and obsessed with three card monte, the brothers come to learn the true nature of their history.2015 Pulitzer winner Between Riverside and Crazy by Stephen Adly Guirgis will have its Broadway premiere at the Helen Hayes Theatre, with previews beginning in November. The dark comedy tells the story of Walter “Pops” Washington, an ex cop and recent widower, who, with his recently paroled son Junior, struggle to hold on to one of the last rent stabilised apartments on Riverside Drive.
The Broadway premiere of Martina Majok’s 2018 Pulitzer winner Cost of Living begins previews on September 13, ahead of its October 3 premiere at the Samuel J. Freidman Theatre, following its pre COVID 19 premiere at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Stage 1. The play follows two pairs: Ani (Katy Sullivan) and Eddie (David Zayas), and John (Gregg Mozgala) and Jess (Kara Young). Ani and Eddie are estranged spouses who come together after Ani has a double above the knee amputation leaving Eddie to care for her. At the same time, cerebral palsy sufferer John hires Jess to assist him.
Anthony McCarten’s The Collaboration travels from London’s Young Vic to New York’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, previewing from November 29, for a December 20 opening. In 1984, Andy Warhol (Paul Bettany) and the art scene’s newest wunderkind, Jean Michel Basquiat (Jeremy Pope), agree to work together on what may be the most talked about exhibition in the history of modern art. But can these two creative giants co exist, or even thrive? Young Vic Artistic Director Kwame Kwei Armah will direct.
Despite previous reports, the current Broadway cast of The Music Man, including Hugh Jackman, are in fact headed for the recording studio. It’s reported that the album will feature a significant amount of previously unrecorded dance music. We eagerly anticipate Sutton Foster’s “My White Knight”. Once upon a time Off Broadway hits would transfer to larger houses on Broadway, but the trend has been bucked by recent hit musicals. Closing after 12 years on Broadway in 2017, Jersey Boys re opened Off Broadway just months later with a smaller cast, in a smaller venue. That COVID 19 disrupted run ended in May this year.
stagewhispers.com.au
Now Kinky Boots, which ended its six year Broadway run in 2019, is playing at Off Broadway’s Stage 46, where it began previews on July 26. Callum Francis again plays Lola, a role which he has played in Australia, on Broadway and in the West End, Three plays will make their way from the West End to Broadway over the next few months.
A West End revival of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman begins performances on September 17 at the Hudson Theatre, re imagining the story of salesman Willy Loman from the perspective of an African American family. Olivier winner Sharon D Clarke and Olivier nominated Wendell Pierce will reprise their roles as Linda and Willy Loman on Broadway, with London co director Miranda Cromwell directing. In 2023, the West End production of Australian playwright Suzie Miller’s Prima Facie is set to transfer to Broadway for a limited engagement, with London star Jodie Cromer (Killing Eve) making her Broadway debut. Four Pulitzer Prize winning plays will take a bow on Broadway in coming months.
Jo Bonney Winnerdirects.ofthe1990 Pulitzer, a revival of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson begins previews on September 19 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Set in Pittsburgh’s Hill District in 1936, the show follows a brother and sister embroiled in a battle over a family heirloom piano carved with the faces of their ancestors. Directed by LaTanya Richardson Jackson, the production will star Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington and DanielleSuzanBrooks.
When Tom Stoppard’s 2020 Olivier Award winning play Leopoldstadt arrives at the Longacre Theatre on September 14, it will be the British dramatist’s 19th Broadway entry in 55 years. Directed by Patrick Marber, with a cast of 38, the play takes its title from Vienna’s Jewish quarter. Beginning in Vienna in the last days of 1899, it follows one extended family deep into the heart of the 20th century, spanning 50 years over two hours. Stoppard has won 4 Tony Awards, the most by any playwright.
34 Stage Whispers September November 2022
Jersey Boys, which closed in 2017 after seven years, returned at the smaller, newly refurbished Trafalgar Theatre during July.
The Tim Rice and Stuart Brayson musical adaptation of From Here To Eternity returns to the West End in a new production at London’s Charing Cross Theatre from October 29. It premiered at London’s Shaftesbury Theatre in 2013, playing for six and a half months to mixed reviews. I, Joan, written by Charlie Josephine, who identifies as non binary, and directed by Ilinca Radulian, opened at Shakespeare’s Globe on August 25, re imaging Joan of Arc as a gender non conforming hero who uses they/them
Audiences are back, but tentatively. I was able to get tickets to any show on the day of the performance: not at much (if any) of a discount, but not terrible seats either. We managed a pair of seats to Hamilton and then the multi award winning Life of Pi, a visual feast of projection and animal puppets that move much more realistically than The Lion King or Warhorse. You don’t see the three or four people moving the head, body, legs and tail; you see a real life tiger prowling around a boat at sea. Two visits to a packed Globe Theatre: first for a wonderful, accessible version of Much Ado About Nothing, the joy in the performers spreading amongst the matinee tourists in the warm sun. Then back as a GBP5 ‘groundling’ for a COVID 19 hit King Lear, where three of the major roles (including the King) were read by other actors though aside from the paper held in front of them, you wouldn’t know, such was the emotional energy each performer expelled into every word and movement. The Globe knows how to engage an interested audience with Shakespeare.Theother play I saw was 2:22 A Ghost Story, a thrilling, twisting tale of a young family hosting another couple for dinner though so ‘West End’ to have ex Harry Potter and ex Dr Who actors in the lead roles (actually, they were good!) I enjoyed the play so much I’m exploring how to produce it for an Adelaide season in 2024 amateur rights will be available. The only concern we Australians had was the complete absence of masks in every nook and cranny of the rabbit warren theatres, now that England has abandoned all restrictions and mandates. It’s initially confronting to be the only people wearing a face covering in the auditorium! In other West End and British theatrical news: two years later than planned, Identical The Musical had its premiere at the Nottingham Playhouse from July 26. Based on the novel The Parent Trap by Erich Kästner, it has a book by Stuart Patterson, music by George Styles, lyrics by Anthony Drewe and is directed by Sir Trevor Nunn. My Neighbour Totoro, based on the Japanese animated fantasy film, will be bought to the stage by the Royal Shakespeare Company in a new adaptation by its original composer Joe Hisaishi and playwright Tom Morton Smith at London’s Barbicon from October 8.
pronouns. The lead role will be played by Isobel Thom, who also uses they/ themDavidpronouns.Tennant (the 10th Doctor Who) appears in Good by CP Taylor at Harold Pinter Theatre from October 6. Good, which tells the story of a German professor who progresses through the ranks of the SS, is considered to be a seminal World War Two play. Moira Buffini’s comedy Handbagged, based on the weekly meetings between Queen Elizabeth II and Margaret Thatcher between 1979 and 1990, returns to London for a limited engagement at the Kiln Theatre from September 9. Initially seen online, and broadcast on Sky Arts in 2021, Martin Sherman’s 1999 Olivier nominated Rose, starring Dame Maureen Lipmann as an 80 year old Holocaust survivor, will play at London’s Park Theatre from September 13 to October 15. A Single Man, adapted by Simon Reade from the Christopher Isherwood novel about grief, love, and loneliness, plays at the Park Theatre from October 19.The English National Opera presents Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Yeomen of the Guard at London Coliseum from November 3 until December 2, directed by Jo Davies, with design by Anthony Ward. And with Christmas coming, there’s quite a mix of traditional pantos and Christmas themed musicals just around the corner. Elf The Musical, based on the film starring Will Ferrell, returns to London’s Dominion Theatre for an 8 week season from November 14 Dolly Parton’s Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol Charles Dickens’ classic tale with a Tennessee Twist from December 8 at Southbank Centre, has a book by David H. Bell with music and lyrics by Dolly Parton. This year’s pantos include two different versions of Jack and the Beanstalk at London Palladium with Dawn French and Julian Clary, and at Lyric Hammersmith. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs plays at the New Wimbledon Theatre, Goldilocks and the Three Bears sit down to porridge at Richmond Theatre, while Cinderella heads to the ball at the New Victoria Theatre Woking. London Calling The Life Of Pi Photo: John Persson. Stage Whispers’ Adelaide writer Mark Wickett, who was in London during June, shares his West End experiences.
By 1901, Mrs Fred England, with past impressive experience on the J.C. Williamson stage, embarked on a new career as a tutor, stage manager and producer for amateur musical societies in Sydney and regional NSW. An early mention in the newspapers is for a production of The Mikado at the Railway Institute in Surry Hills, Sydney. “A special feature of the production is the manner in which the ladies of the chorus acquit themselves, and credit for their tuition is due to Mrs. Fred England.”
But on the stage, not everything always goes to plan. A columnist (‘Q’) in Punch newspaper, 9 May 1907, tells the humorous story of a performance of The Lily of Killarney by the Mosman Musical Society. The reviewer noted that Mrs Fred England recognised the importance of making believable the fall into water by Eily, the ‘Colleen Bawn’ (meaning ‘the fair maid’ in Gaelic), as she is drowned in one of the Lakes of Killarney by the boatman Danny Mann, and so it was to be accompanied by a spray of water. William Mogford Hamlet was the stagehand in charge of throwing a bucket of water upwards. ‘Q’ reports, “But occasionally something goes wrong even with the artistic achievements of genius. On the night that we were there, Danny Mann, who was in splendid voice, pushed the Colleen Bawn into the dark and gloomy depths of blue gauze with most convincing savagery. Miss Geraldine Rivers disappeared with her golden hair in ‘most admired disorder’. But there was absolutely no splash. She might have been Annette Kellerman doing her graceful dive for all the indications that were presented of a heavy body tumbling backwards into the water. Where, oh, where was Mr. Hamlet with his bucket? […] But after the lapse of about a minute, and when the other characters were hurriedly falling over the chromatic scale, the bucket of water suddenly shot out from the wings.” Mrs Fred England continued her successful career as an in demand stage manager and producer for amateur productions well into the 1940s, while after Mr Fred England’s retirement from the stage, he continued his career with J.C. Williamson from the 1920s as a ‘stage door keeper’ for Sydney’s Theatre Royal.
In the performing arts archives of the Seaborn, Broughton & Walford Foundation, an autograph book provides a glimpse into amateur musicals in the first half of the 20th Century, reports archivist Susan Mills.
For more information
“Take life as you find it, but don’t leave it so,” wrote Gwenyth Dawe, Bathurst in 1944. “Tis better to smile and forget, than to remember and be sad,” scribed Florence Hogan in 1912. “A kettle sings when its full of water, but who the h l wants to be a kettle,” jibed Harry Kantor in 1913. Then there are terms of endearment, such as “In your golden chain of friendship, regard me as a link” (Janet Bargwanna, Bathurst, 1944) and simply “Bravo Dear Mrs England” (H.M.S. Pinafore, Hordernian Musical Society, c.1933).
Hidden World Of Musical Society Memories
stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 35 Stage Heritage
A small, beautiful book with royal blue satin like endpapers belonging to stage manager and producer Mrs Fred England (c.1870 1950) gives us a glimpse into the lives and personalities of those involved in amateur musical productions in Sydney and regional NSW from the 1900s to the 1940s. It contains not only autographs, but also wise proverbs, sketches and even paintings by those directed by Mrs England.
Born Bertha Peaty, during the 1880s and 1890s she was a Sydney dancer and chorus girl for J.C. Williamson’s Royal Comic Opera Company, before moving on to named roles in productions, mostly operettas in the same vein as Gilbert & Sullivan.From the 1900s onwards, Bertha Peaty was always known as ‘Mrs Fred England’, the wife of baritone and actor Mr Fred England (1860 1940), who also performed in productions by J.C. Williamson’s Royal Comic Opera Company, among others. Performing in many similar productions, it’s no wonder their paths crossed. In fact, the pair had graced the stage together in the 1899 Royal Comic Opera Company’s production of The Geisha in Melbourne and Perth.
sbwfoundation.com/sbwfoundationvisit archives
From a ramshackle collection of buildings repurposed from the Kensington Racecourse sixty four years ago to a powerhouse theatre school with a glittering alumni of actors, writers, directors, producers and theatre craftspeople, veteran former Director John Clark takes us behind the scenes at NIDA.
The Audition
This is an edited extract from John Clark’s An Eye for Talent: A Life at NIDA recently published by Coach House Books and available from Book Nook for $40 booknook.com.au/product/an eye for talent a life at nida
36 Stage Whispers September November 2022
I was often asked, ‘What do you look for in auditions?’ The simple answer was, ‘Exceptional talent’. There was never a fixed NIDA view of what an actor should look like or sound like, what theatre work they should have done or what academic qualifications they required. Talent comes in all shapes and sizes, from every kind of background, literate or dyslectic, large or small, beautiful or plain.When a person walks out on stage and starts to walk, talk and think some other person’s words convincingly, you pay attention. If you are compelled to watch, to listen, to be drawn into their story, to share their experiences, you become aware of good acting. When somebody can repeat this magic with a different story and then with another, you know you have exceptional talent. I was also asked, ‘Did the great actors stand out when they auditioned?’ Maybe a few but, generally, no. The system was not foolproof. We failed to detect the exceptional talent of Rachel Griffiths, who auditioned in Melbourne with Cate Blanchett. Rachel has made an impressive international career and talks about her audition with grace and good humour. The press have often pointed to Anthony La Paglia as a powerful actor who slipped through the net. In fact, we admired his audition, but he was too young at the time so we suggested he re audition the following year. In the event he did not require NIDA’s assistance. My predecessor, Tom Brown, offered a place to Gai Waterhouse but she declined, preferring to become a successful racehorse trainer. I still meet people in the profession and in my social life who tell me, ‘I auditioned for you many years ago, but … !’ Even by the end of the course it was not possible to predict who would become ‘stars’. Some of our in house predictions were right, others completely wrong. One 1991 review of a production of Twelfth Night declared, ‘There are no stars among this year’s graduates’. The cast included Essie Davis and Cate Blanchett. There are too many fine graduates who have not managed to create their own luck in the industry and some we thought indifferent students have come into their own as soon as they escaped from NIDA. Every November as the teaching year ended, I was asked, ‘What are this year’s graduates like?’ The answer was always the same: ‘I’ll tell you in five years’. We were content to leave the cultivation of stars to hard work, good fortune and time. Despite our best efforts, auditions were not always trouble free. Some of the mishaps were surprising. In Sydney there was a girl who asked if she could use a couple of props in one speech. We replied, ‘Of course’, so she moved to the centre of the room with a large bag, opened it and extracted a brick, a hammer and a large cat with a dog’s lead around its neck. She placed the lead beneath one foot to secure the cat while she arranged the brick on the floor and took up the hammer. There was an appalled silence in the room that was finally broken when the terrified animal jerked free and, with the lead still attached, hissed and fizzed around the room and leapt out the window probably to be scraped off the tyre of a passing motor vehicle in High Street. I must have seen more than 20,000 auditions but sadly it is the worst, not the best, that stay in the memory. There were auditionees who could scarcely get the words out, while others were supremely confident. I asked one young lad which Shakespeare speech he was going to do. ‘Hamlet, Prince of Venice’, he said. ‘Denmark’, I corrected him. ‘Yeah, that’s the one … “To be or not to be” ’ Sometimes the problems were more serious. One girl made a good attempt at a speech from Romeo and Juliet in which Juliet eagerly awaits Romeo’s arrival so he can ‘leap into these arms’ and consummate their marriage, but she could not reveal Juliet’s excitement and impatience. A staff member asked her to relate the speech to her own experience, perhaps waiting for a boyfriend running late for a promised meeting. She did not respond either to this direction or to several others and ultimately was not offered a place. Some months later we were advised by the South Australian Anti Discrimination Commissioner that a complaint had been lodged on the
An Eye For Talent: A Life At NIDA
When I told the school at the first meeting of the year there was a burst of laughter. I explained I was not a devout royalist, but we were all part of the entertainment industry, so why would we ever deny anyone a visit to the theatre? I told them to treat the occasion as an observation exercise to not only watch how the Queen behaved, but how people around her behaved. The actors might well find themselves playing kings or queens or courtiers attending a royal personage in Shakespeare, and this was a unique opportunity to see the real thing. Anyone with strong anti royalist convictions would be excused attendance. We need not have worried. As Ken Healey said, everybody wanted to meet a real one. We decided not to impress Her Majesty with a special show, but to demonstrate what happens on a normal day at NIDA. Starting with a Voice class in the outside courtyard we would move the royal party up a small flight of stairs to see Movement and Acting classes, onto the stage of (Continued on Book Extract 1966 conversion of a church hall into Jane Street Theatre, Randwick.
Eventually the Commissioner came to Sydney, with her solicitor, and demanded a private meeting with the offending staff member. Anticipating this, I had the UNSW solicitor and the entire Acting staff standing by. When the Commissioner arrived, I advised her that, as we all conducted auditions, if something untoward had occurred we wanted to learn from it. The Commissioner reluctantly agreed.
A Queen in the House ‘Why is the Queen coming to NIDA?’ a Sydney radio interviewer asked Ken Healey, NIDA’s man of many parts, ‘I thought you were all Republicans.’Kenreplied, ‘Oh no, we deal with Kings and Queens every day at NIDA: King Agamemnon, King Henry V, King Richard III, Queen Margaret. We thought it would be good for the students to meet a real one.’ The Premier of NSW, Bob Carr, asked if NIDA would be prepared to receive Her Majesty when she visited Sydney in 2000? Of course, we agreed. It would be good publicity but I was concerned how the students would react, knowing their response to the failed Australian Republic Referendum earlier that year.
stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 37 grounds that a young actor had been asked questions about her personal life that were not required of other applicants.Theproblem stemmed from a fundamental misunderstanding about our work in the theatre. An actor’s personal life is the raw material from which they fashion their performance it cannot be left out of the process.
page 38)
2000.
The day after the show opened I had to write letters of apology to the Prime Minister and to our wealthiest television magnate, both of whom Barrie had caricatured. In one scene ‘John and Janette’ puppets were placed on top of Barrie’s piano and their movements manipulated from behind by two actors. The puppets proceeded to undress each other and, when they had succeeded, another actor took hold of ‘John’s’ very elastic willy and stretched it the entire width of the stage before releasing it back to its owner with a loud twang. It was not as offensive as it may sound and certainly the audience took it in good humour, but I thought it needed a letter of Moreexplanation.seriously,at a dress rehearsal of the show I failed to pick up a line about Kerry Packer spoken in the course of a bingo game. Audience members were aghast and there was a suggestion we might be guilty of libel. When I was told what the actor had actually said the lines were amended and a letter of apology posted off. The offending words are not recorded. Extract Queen Elizabeth II at NIDA in
the new NIDA Theatre where a technical rehearsal was taking place, through the wardrobe where the crafts students were putting the finishing touches to twenty odd costumes and finally into the foyer for a cup of tea with the staff. Nothing special. A day in the life of NIDA.Not long before the appointed hour it pelted with rain. NIDA was swarming with police, security men and sniffer dogs checking every inch of the building. A security crisis was averted when the sniffer dogs identified a suspicious bag in one of the staff offices, but it only contained yesterday’s undies. We were told by the chief security officer that Queens do not climb stairs, nor do they go up in lifts in case the machinery breaks. Nor, for that matter, do they like walking in the rain. That was the end of our planned royal progress. We decided to wing it in the hope Her Majesty would enjoy chatting with the students instead of watching classes. Her Majesty’s motorcade arrived at the appointed hour to be met by cheers from thirteen elderly ladies in plastic raincoats waving damp British flags and held back by strong barricades. Inside the building Her Majesty was conducted from the foyer onto the stage of the NIDA Theatre where the only flat floor, ground level activity was taking place: a technical rehearsal with scenery, costumes, properties and a lot of imitation blood. The play was a Canadian comedy called The Ugly Man by Brad Fraser, full of sexually depraved characters, physical violence and realistic depictions of throat cutting, rape and flaying alive which Helmut Bakaitis directed with quantities of discarded butchers’ meat.The royal guest was hurried across the stage into the costume room where the activities were less confronting. Dressed in vivid lime green with a hat to match, Her Majesty spent a long time chatting with the theatre craft costume students much to our relief. They spoke so confidently about their work, completely unabashed by the person they were chatting with. When the entourage moved back into the foyer for a cup of tea Board members jostled and fought for the best positions in the queue to shake the royalThehand.final event of the century was both an honour and nearly a public relations disaster. NIDA received an invitation to present a production in the Sydney Opera House Playhouse for the 2000 Olympic Games Arts Festival. I invited Barrie Kosky to do the production, which he called There’s No Need To Wake Up. It turned out to be an exotic but irresistible collection of theatrical images, hard to describe and even harder to understand, but it was the only original Australian theatre production in the entire Festival. It played to full houses, and audiences left the theatre arguing passionately about what they had seen, which was, I suppose, Barrie’s intention.
38 Stage Whispers September November 2022
(Continued from page 37) Book
DK: What are some of the most intricate pieces in the show?HL: There are intricate layers of silk and lace fabrics with trim and fringing, beading and braids. The designer Peter Hall wanted to bring in as many period elements as possible. The challenge for re mounting this production is maintaining this when the fabrics are not always available. It is my responsibility to choose alternatives that visually work with the design, and will last the distance.
HL: There is an important and involved quick change for Violetta from her beautiful black velvet costume,
Opera Australia is famous for its lavish costumes, with those used for La Traviata so revered that the company has been reusing them since they were originally designed by Peter Hall in 1994.
HL: There are always compromises made between the aesthetic of the design and the requirements of the performing artist. Every woman on stage in La Traviata is wearing a boned and laced corset and a long petticoat and padded bustle under her costume. Some singers like the additional support and structure the boning gives their diaphragm, and some don’t. Similarly, all the men are wearing high stiff collars on their shirts, which was common fashion among that class in society in the 19th Century but is tolerated in this modern age of active wear.
DK: How are the costumes designed to help support the singers while remaining true to the period? Are they as heavy and restricting as they appear?
HL:Violetta?Thecolour palette starts off very warm and welcoming and as the story and the tragedy continues, the colours cool, and the production ends visually pared back to show all that has been lost.
DK: La Traviata is a very lavish production. How have the costumes been re used and stored over 30 years.
Re-staging A Masterpiece
Behind the scenes with Debora Krizak, as she speaks to Opera Australia’s Wardrobe Production Co ordinator Hannah Lobelson.
40 Stage Whispers September November 2022
HL: The costumes, accessories and spare fabrics are stored together and when it is remounted the production is refitted, as close as possible to the original intention of theThisdesigner.canbe challenging when you have artists who are different sizes to the original singers so the costumes may be altered, or made new. Another challenge is the age and wear and tear. Silk and lace that was once robust and vibrant, is often now, almost 30 years later, fragile and limp, and can need replacing to keep up the demands of constant performance.
DK: Are there any quick changes? How are these actioned in the show?
Again, some artists like this reminder of their posture and some find it restrictive. And so, it is a conversation and a compromise to give the artist the physical space they need to do their job, while serving the story.
DK: What are the colour palettes of the costumes and are these designed to reflect the various character traits for
Hannah Lobelson: La Traviata is an opera by Verdi, based on the book Lady of the Camelias written in 1848 by Alexandre Dumas. Verdi wanted it to be set in a contemporary setting, and Opera Australia’s production fulfils this by setting it in the opulence of the 19th century. The story hinges around the courtesan Violetta, and her occupation is suggested very beautifully by her red velvet costume worn in Act 1.
Debora Krizak: How do the costumes of La Traviata reflect the period the opera was set in?
DK: Have there been any malfunctions or tricky things to manoeuvre along the way?
HL: I have always been interested in history and storytelling. Combining that with a love of beautiful things, of historical costume, and a fascination with why people wear what they do, gave me a path from studying fashion design in Sydney, to then working in theatre and opera in London.
HL: Of course there have been challenges with costumes not fitting or the designer not being happy. What I enjoy is the search for the balance between the desired aesthetic and the practical application. It is when you find this solution, the designer’s vision is satisfied, the artist confident and the wardrobe team feeling capable, that I can sit back and feel, job well done.
Playing at Sydney Opera House until November 4. opera.org.au/productions/la traviata sydney
DK: What does a typical day look like for the wardrobe department of La Traviata?
stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 41 emeralds, and elaborate wig that she wears for Flora’s party into the final scene wearing a demure nightgown and robe, a change of wig with long unkept hair and the addition of deathly makeup. The wardrobe, wigs and makeup up teams would be standing by backstage for this costume change, and it is rehearsed and perfected just as the action is on stage until it is seamless.
DK: What happens to all the costumes at the conclusion of the opera?
HL: When the curtain closes on the final performance of La Traviata in 2022, everything will come back to The Opera Centre. Things will be laundered and dry cleaned. The costumes are packed up, documentation completed, and sent back to storage to be brought out again in all their beauty another day for a new audience to love it all over again.
Online extras! La Traviata puts a life we couldn’t possibly dream of on stage. Scan or visit youtu.be/rwpbQid0jBI
DK: How did you become interested in working behind the scenes on costuming?
HL: Once the costumes are allocated, fitted, altered, packed and worn on stage for the dress rehearsals, I sit in the auditorium and write notes. Usually by this stage it is only small things to improve, something as simple as a hat being worn on the wrong angle, or as involved as a quick change being too late, or something being damaged and needing repair. After opening night, the responsibility for maintaining them is handed to the performing wardrobe department at the theatre. My role fades away except in the case of replacements or costume emergencies.Theperforming wardrobe department working on La Traviata would have many shirts to iron for each performance, shoes to polish and costumes to repair daily. The costumes are hung in the dressing rooms, in the order they are worn, along with underwear, shoes, accessories.Theartists arrive, are given an hour or so to get ready and the dressers assist them getting into costume, then manage all costume changes through the evening. At the end of the performance, everything is hung up and tidied, any repairs needed written down to do the next day and laundry washed.
La Traviata
Behind The Scenes With Debora Krizak Opera Australia’s La Traviata (2022) Photo: Jeff Busby.
A show stopping backdrop is a great way to set the scene in a stage production.
Backdrops Fantastic supports theatres and schools staging a play, musical or a dance recital. The company has hundreds of unique and exclusively themed backdrop designs for hire, including popular musicals and drapery.
Setting The Scene
The musical and theatre series allows the option of hiring one scenic backdrop or multiple scenes from the story line, that can be interchanged by production crews between scenes. Backdrops Fantastic Australia specialises in transforming venues large and small into fully immersive themed environments. They proudly deliver their unique backdrops across Australia and New Zealand.
stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 43 Let’s Put On A Show Give the team a call on (07) 5520 2311, email sales@backdrops.com.au or visit backdrops.com.au
The available stock is displayed on the company’s website backdrop gallery with new musical and theatre backdrop designs launched in September. Their latest series of scenic hand painted backdrops are inspired by scenes from Aladdin, Shrek, Frozen, Mary Poppins, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Grease, South Pacific and The Nutcracker
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.Shrek. Aladdin. Mary Poppins.
Stage School Australia offers everything from full staging and costume packages for 100+ students, to intimate studio plays, with discounts for government schools. Customers can tour both warehouses in Melbourne, with options for adding small, beautiful props to accentuate costume selection, or go the full kit and kaboodle with packages such as The Addams Family, Les Misérables, Wizard of Oz and Beauty and The Beast
Let’s Put On A Show
44 Stage Whispers September November 2022
An
Ranging from adorable prep aged kids costumes to adult size period dress, the company is a one stop shop for teachers and parents.
The range of sizes, quality and scope of costumes is extensive.
Aladdin’s Cave Of Costumes
Stage School Australia has Disney and animated classics including Beauty and The Beast, Shrek, Aladdin and Madagascar, as well as Broadway favourites such as Les Misérables and Singin’ In the Rain
Managed by a small but passionate team, many of the company’s staff have worked professionally in the performing arts industry, from large scale commercial musicals to The AustralianCostumesBallet.are mostly hired by schools, but they also hire to film & TV productions, independent theatre and corporate events. Clients include The Wiggles, Channel 10 and Theatre Works. One of the company’s most popular sets of props and costumes is from The Addams Family production staged professionally as a Broadway replica in Australia. The attention to details in the spooky historical ancestors and the eccentric Addams Family members is incredible!
The company also has an extensive selection of vintage and period costuming for plays and films, from medieval costuming for VCE Shakespeare to 1920s jazz age costumes for Chicago, plus contemporary shows including Bring It On and Legally Blonde.
Stage School Australia’s Costume Department and Staging Department teams run two large warehouses side by side with props, staging and more than 10,000 costumes and accessories for hire. Get in touch with Stage School Australia’s friendly team today to discuss your options on (03) 8199 8344. stagingdept.com.au
stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 45
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Australian based ticketing platform TryBooking is growing in popularity within the theatre industry and has expanded its services to allow event organisers to sell tickets in person at their Box Office, to complement their online platform.
Contact (03) 9012 3460
Head to TryBooking today and sign up to try out the system.
One venue which switched to TryBooking is the Ararat Performing Arts Centre in Victoria. The Assistant Director Russel Potter said theatre goers love the convenience of the service.
The events page at TryBooking.com receives a significant volume of potential ticket buyers looking for theatre events. Having a theatre event appear on the “Events Near Me” section helps drive additional sales.
Fees remain at 2.5% and a $0.50 fee per ticket. There is no tiered pricing or subscriptions. The option exists to pass all these fees on to patrons or to ‘absorb’ them all within the ticket price.
Jeff McAlister says with 15+ years’ experience working with local theatre groups, performers, and venues “we have the knowledge and expertise to assist your business and take your operations to the next level.”
TryBooking is trusted by 1,500+ local theatres and performers. It supports theatres across Australia and New Zealand like Forge Theatre, La Mama, Signet Theatre, MC Showroom, Camden Civic Centre and the Theatre Guild.
“TryBooking has provided exceptional service and support and a first rate product that improves both our ticketing process and our customer communication.”
“With our online seating plans they tend to purchase earlier to choose the best seats. We have a link on our website, so as soon as a show is listed, people can click the link and book their tickets,” he said.
trybooking.com/info/industryinfo@trybooking.comortheatre
TryBooking recognises that theatres exist through the support of their communities and offers fundraising pages. It provides an option for venues or performers to run registrations, create fundraising campaigns or just take donations. They’re still free for free events.
Theatre Ticketing Made Easy
The play struck a chord with the Darlington Theatre Players, based out of Marloo Theatre in Perth, as a challenging strong ensemble driven piece which had a cult following alongside the novel and 1975 Jack Nicholson film. In the back of my head from the beginning was, just how is this production going to be something unique?Itbecame clear that cultural appropriation and respect would need to be at the forefront of our minds. In the original text, the character of Chief Bromden is an imposing Native American Indian character, and, although deaf and mute, acts as the play’s narrator in an almost spiritual manner, linking his context in the institution to the concept of the ‘Combine’ and its control over humankind. A deep connection to country and the North American landscape ties his story together. We considered reaching out to performers of Native American background, however we realised that with the American Indians (or Cherokee Nation) being the original custodians of much of the land in the United States (including residents in Oregon in the Pacific Northwest, the setting of the original play), this gave us the perfect link to our own heritage and First Nations culture in Australia. The character of Chief Bromden was re imagined as an Aboriginal man, which then gave us the logical progression to adapt the remainder of the play to an Australian setting. Once we had a skeleton concept of the changes we applied for the rights and adaptation permissions, which were granted immediately.
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest Photo: Sean Breadsell.
46 Stage Whispers September November 2022
The concept of adapting something regarded as a classic is often considered either brave or foolish. The pressure to ‘get it right’ is immense as stories, characters and legacy are things held dear to many a heart. Secondly, the reasoning behind adapting a piece of text also comes to the fore. Why adapt a text that has already stood the test of time? All of these questions were prevalent as I took the reins for the first ever Australian adaptation of Dale Wassermann’s stage version of Ken Kesey’s iconic novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
Director Chris McRae explains how he got permission to substitute an indigenous Australian for a native American character.
Director’s Diary
We found many similarities between the cultures. Chief Tee Ah Millatoona (translating to the Pine that Stands Tallest on the Mountain) became Kumba Balga (Big Blackboy) in our own Noongar language. We analysed the script with a fine toothed comb, bringing the language and cultural geography of the Noongar people of the Whadjuk Nation to this already rich script. Over the next couple of months, we trawled through the script for ‘Americanisms’ and this eventually became an organic process. Once the show was cast, members of the creative team, and the eventual cast, picked slang, colloquialisms and fine details which were given the Australian touch.When auditions rolled around, the performers who stepped through the door were excited about the concept. Outside of the decontextualisation,Australianmyvision was always to create an immersive experience in which the performers dived deep into the intricacies of these complex characters to bring a sense of rising tension and unnerving humour to the plight of their characters and theirCastingsituation.iconic characters such as Randle McMurphy (Luke Miller), Nurse Ratched (Kate O’Sullivan) and Chief Bromden (Andre Victor) was something I wanted to get right. However, I really wanted to approach this play as an ensemble piece, and all the pieces of the puzzle fell into perfect place with an incredible array of performers being cast in the show.
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest An Australian Adaptation
In what felt like a very elaborate and rewarding puppet act, I had the absolute privilege of latching onto the strings of all the creative elements of this show. The cast and crew grew so close, with every single member of the team committed to making this the most special experience for all involved. In almost an unseen move for a play rehearsal process, we held a ‘Sitzprobe’ at a Sunday rehearsal day with a five piece musical ensemble.
Playwright:
One Flew East One Flew West And One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
Like all stage performances, music, soundscapes and effects bring the action to life, enhancing character, setting and context. We wanted the soundscape and music to represent the descent into madness, tension, violence. Then came the question, “Why don’t we do it live?”.
Composer
CREDITS Dale Wasserman, based on the Novel by Ken Kesey Samuel Yombich Pilot Kickett, Luke Miller and Chris McRae and Conductor: Kieran Ridgway Gary Wetherilt The Cuckoo’s Nest Sean Breadsell.
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest received over the three week run was exceptional, with audiences raving and Stage Whispers’ Kimberley Shaw describing the production as “a show that leaves its audience stunned” as well as “clever, innovative and superbly performed”. Rarely does an opportunity like this one come along, and as a fitting final act for their director, whose second hobby outside theatre is in fact Lego building, the cast presented me with a Lego model of our incredible set complete with all characters in mini figure form … a truly beautiful gift which demonstrated just how special this cast were and will remain to me. Until next time….
Set Design:
The score was an incredible mix of thematic material, character motifs and brilliantly executed sounds including the breathtaking addition of Didgeridoo, Didgeribone and rare percussive instruments such as the Jaw Harp and Rain Stick. The music embodied every vision I had for this show, giving it a distinctly Australian sound.Ihad several moments of solitude in the weeks leading up to opening night in which I had to take a step back and look at what we had achieved as a team with a sense of awe and pride, the likes of which I hadn’t experienced before. I have done many theatre
Like all productions and industries at the moment, COVID 19 always loomed as a threat and we had several cast in isolation from the first read through. However, even with a hybrid read through, we had absolute confidence that this was going to be the cast that would be able to do justice to, and work in beautiful collaboration on, such an ambitious project.With the play having a one location setting (that of the mental hospital day room), I envisioned something that was both detailed but also symbolic in nature, creating a beautifully constructed day room with cracked and breaking walls to represent the slow breaking and deterioration of the mind. The word ‘distressed’ was used frequently during the set design process, with the eventual wall and floor colours being modelled off the 1960’s photos of Graylands Psychiatric Hospital in Perth. The detailed nurses’ station, external walls and the naming of the ward as ‘Riverton House’, another reference to the original 1960’s Graylands ward, all tied together to create a brilliantly executed environment which was packed with symbolism and authenticity.
stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 47
Script Adaptation:
One Flew Over
shows as both a secondary school Drama teacher and a community theatre participant, but this felt different.Wereached opening weekend, and our first review came out with phrases such as “an exceptional adaptation” and “perfectly rehearsed” as well as stellar audience feedback. It was clear that we had achieved our vision of creating a truly unique and culturally relevant adaptation of this classic. However, the beast that is COVID 19 struck once more. Come the Monday after opening weekend, we had a positive case confirmed within the cast. This number climbed to twelve cast and crew members by the end of Tuesday and the move was made to postpone the season by one week. This did not dampen the spirits of the dedicated cast and creative team, catching up via Zoom, and the administration team at Marloo, conquering the mountain of a job that involved reallocating hundreds of tickets to the new shows. Despite this speed bump, the show came back stronger than ever, and although I found myself onstage for the second week of the run due to cast illness, we had a fully healthy and enthusiastic team back on deck for our closing week.The reception and momentum
Photo:
Wire Brier Limber Lock Three Cockatoos In A Flock
The idea of recording original music was one which I was in love with, but the concept of bringing in a live band took this to the next level.
Let’s Put On A Show
Lighting Up The Stage
School Rock.
Student participation in show production at all levels, where practicable, is encouraged. Professional crew work with staff and students to bump in, focus, program and operate the equipment, providing on site training and supporting “guide to” documents. The crew ensure your venue is safe and compliant. Student crew members complete an online safety induction.StageLight believes that staging a great show can make a positive difference in the lives of the students involved as well as their audience.
48 Stage Whispers September November 2022
The devastating impacts of the COVID 19 pandemic on the performing arts sector, and on the mental health of individuals, makes it more important than ever to get it right, now we are returning to live performances.Togiveback to the community, each year the Stage Light crew collect, assess and repair used stage lighting & audio equipment, before donating them to low SES schools and fire/ flood effected venues throughout NSW. If your performance space has lost, damaged, unsafe or no lighting and sound equipment, reach out to StageTheLight.Stage Light crew also undertake annual volunteering at the REELise Film Festival an initiative to support youth mental health. So, what are the key ingredients to getting it right and supporting a great show?Production design can support the story and evolving moods of the performance. Stage Light provides lighting, audio and staging design, technical drawing and 3D concepts. Once the design is finalised, Stage Light can help with equipment hire. They can supply lighting, audio, projection, LED walls, media servers, special effects machines, lasers, communications, rigging, ground support, scaffold, staging and inflatableAdditionally,decor. their crew provide on site training for staff and students in most aspects of technical production.
So, the job of creating wonderful stage experiences is one that’s taken very seriously. Igniting a love of performance in young people is something they care deeply about.
For over 30 years, the Stage Light crew have been supporting Performing Arts in schools & colleges. Brian Walsh, Senior Production Designer, explains how his company is helping young people shine. For more information callinfo@stagelight.com.auemail,(02)95335152orvisitstagelight.com.au
Of
Involvement in performing arts promotes self communication,confidence,creativity and team skills, as well as emotional wellbeing. Student participation is linked to positive academic, social and emotional outcomes later in life.
Stage Light provides a full range of technical production services to schools for performances of all kinds at generously discounted rates, and currently services more than 300 Schools in New South Wales.
When Melbourne’s CLOC Musical Theatre decided in 2019 to mount what would be a community theatre premiere production of Jersey Boys in October 2020, little did they realise that they were beginning a three year saga fraught with delays, changes, holdups, offstage dramas and yet, ultimately, triumph.
Oh, What A Season…
CLOC’s Jersey Boys.
Photo: Ben Fon.
Online extras! Join Frankie Vallie and The Four Seasons in CLOC’s Jersey Boys. Scan or visit youtu.be/dVM5JQqVR0A
Karen Greenwood reports on the drama faced by Melbourne’s largest community theatre company.
Let’s Put On A Show
After a successful opening weekend with a full cast and crew, which was rapturously received by audiences and critics, COVID 19 found its way into the company. Ultimately five cast members (out of 17) were affected and had to be covered. This was manageable with the professionalism of all remaining cast members, who supported each other and adapted to circumstances that changedCLOCdaily.alsolost many regular crew members, so that backstage was frequently filled with helpers who were brought in at short notice from far and wide. In a twelve performance season, two shows had to be cancelled (when one of the Four Seasons tested positive three hours before the scheduled start of the show), which caused consternation and distress to both CLOC and audiences, and of course was a major headache for CLOC’s ticketing team, which itself had been felled by COVID 19.
50 Stage Whispers September November 2022
The first delay was a twelve month postponement until October 2021, when almost all theatre in Australia closed. In what was a portent of things to come, auditions, scheduled for June, had to be delayed due to yet another lockdown.
It is a testament to the efforts of everyone involved in this saga that the feedback received from CLOC audiences was equally as ecstatic after the COVID 19 losses as before. Despite all the challenges, CLOC still managed a first rate show which did not short change their patrons and gave joy, delight and pleasure to so many. At the end of it all, everyone involved with the production agreed that what made it so difficult and challenging also made it an extraordinary and (hopefully) once in a lifetime experience that they will never forget.
Chicago will play at the National Theatre, St Kilda from October 7 to 22. cloc.org.au
Casting took place and rehearsals began (under COVID 19 rules of masks, QR codes and social distancing) with much excitement and anticipation. After two weeks of rehearsals, lockdown rules changed yet again, and the company continued rehearsals via Zoom. Two weeks later, the company was forced to make the painful decision to postpone the production until 2022. Rehearsals recommenced in February 2022, and the show finally opened on May 13. Policies and protective measures in place throughout the theatre included COVID 19 marshals both backstage and front of house. Despite this, the company was decimated by COVID 19, which ripped through the cast and backstage team.
stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 51
Spectacular School Sets
My first gigs were with regional theatre companies and designing for conferences and dinners. Whilst I got a creative kick out of corporate events, the pressure was immense. I remember one huge corporate event staged over two days at the then Telstra Dome in Melbourne. The venue notified us that all the elements had to be rated for exterior wind loading, even though the roof was to be closed. Suddenly my construction cost blew out by $150,000.Itooka punt, showed my portfolio to a few private schools and got a job staging a season of Two Weeks with the Queen at Shore School in Sydney. The studio theatre where we mounted the show was a brilliant space. Shore’s Creative Arts department was vibrant and motivated to stage professional level productions. I realised there was a market in education for a good designer who could also construct sets. With Christopher Reynolds and his successor David MacSwan we did some fantastic productions and made some brave decisions. You can give concepts a try within schools that would not be attempted in the professional world. One of my favourite designs was our 2002 production of West Side Story, featuring a dynamic six metre metal see saw. The whole production was staged around the set piece as it rotated 360 degrees and tilted up and down, at times with actors riding it as it moved. The production was also fortunate enough to feature a sweeping and almost filmic lighting design by renowned artist John Rayment.Maintaining creative relationships within education has been the foundation that has kept my company, Adam Lindberg Design, going for almost 30 years. I have been fortunate to create productions with passionate and committed drama educators who could easily be professional directors working in the industry, but they have decided to work in schools.
For details please adamlindbergdesign.com.auvisit Into The Woods. Daughters Of Venice.
In 2007 I committed to drama in education and accepted the role as Production Manager at Cranbrook School in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs.
A current challenge is the increase in cost for materials. The base materials such as plywood and pine cost 200% more than last year, and up to 300% if supply shortages force you to use a higher grade than you need.Inresponse to increasing costs, and to inspire teachers to continue to provide their students with amazing sets to perform on, I am promoting a staging product called Multi Set. The package is a modular product that can be assembled in multiple configurations and is suitable for a range of projects. I conceived and constructed Multi Set in response to my most frequently received request over the last 20 years … “Can I have levels?”
Adam Lindberg has designed and built sets for over 150 school productions since he graduated from the NIDA design course in 1996. He explains why he enjoys working in the education sector.
I work full time as a Production Manager on their Creative Arts program, managing venues, logistics and a student production crew, as well as designing and realising lighting, sets and other technical aspects of the productions. In my holidays I design and construct sets for other clients. I am always looking for new challenges within the education sector.
MAGGIE: [into the phone] I’m not hanging up. I’m just putting the phone down for a minute. I’ll be back. [MAGGIE puts the phone down and crosses to look in at ARTHUR.]
ARTHUR: What were you doing that you forgot about this anyway?
MAGGIE: Nothing. ARTHUR: When I came in, you were on the phone.
MAGGIE: Yes, dreadful, go and see what it is. I’m on the phone. [ARTHUR hurries to the kitchen.]
MAGGIE: [into the phone] I think the house might be on fire. Won’t be long. [MAGGIE puts the phone down. From the kitchen, the sounds of Arthur clattering at the stove and then dropping the grill tray.]
MAGGIE: If your father saw you doing ARTHUR:that…You can’t do this, Mum. You can’t start something and then forget all about it. Next time you’ll burn the house down and I don’t want to come home and find you like one of those. [ARTHUR holds up one of the charred fish fingers before dropping it and the others into the bin. MAGGIE looks disapproving.]
Mother And Son
MAGGIE:ARTHUR:unfortunately.Slightly.Nevermind. We can scrape off the burnt bits. ARTHUR: We’re throwing it out. MAGGIE: I’ll have it. I don’t mind a bit of whatsaname. ARTHUR: No, we’re throwing it out. [ARTHUR locates a waste bin.]
MAGGIE: [raising her voice] Hello, Rita, can you hear me? There’s a terrible noise going on here. That’s a shame because I found a very nice postcard. From Robbie. What’s that Rita? Yes I can hear the noise. Dreadful. Some people have no consideration.
ARTHUR:signals.[off] Dear me, Mum, looks like you’re trying to burn the bloody house down. MAGGIE: Don’t be a silly. [ARTHUR enters holding the grill tray with a tea towel wrapped around the handle. On the grill tray are some charred fish fingers.]
The rights to the latest touring edition of Geoffrey Atherden’s Mother and Son are newly available for community theatres through David Spicer Productions. The script is a contemporary adaptation of the beloved ABC TV series. In this extract we publish scene four.
ARTHUR: [off] Mum! There are flames coming out of the griller!
ARTHUR: Mum! What’s that noise?
ARTHUR: What’s was this?
MAGGIE: [into the phone] Can you hang on for just a minute?
[MAGGIE’S attention is taken by the front door which opens and ARTHUR enters.]
52 Stage Whispers September November 2022 Living Room. Another day. MAGGIE has a grill tray and a packet of fish fingers which she empties onto the grill tray. MAGGIE exits to the kitchen. We hear the sound of the griller being lit. Whoomp! You could get the idea that the gas has been on for a while. And that it’s on a high heat. The house landline phone starts to ring. MAGGIE enters in a bit of a state as she hunts for the phone. It’s not on its base. She checks her pockets. She listens for the direction of the ring. It’s on the couch. No it’s not. It’s on the drinks trolley. No. There it is, on the table. MAGGIE picks it up and presses to answer. MAGGIE: Hello? Yes, speaking. Very well thank you. And how are you. Who did you say? Rita. Hello, Rita. [MAGGIE settles for a nice long chat.] My day? I’ve been looking for children’s books. I’m going to be reading to children down at the library Pardon? Ah yes, I like the sound of saving money. Plan? Ah… well, my plan is to go down to the library and… Oh, for the telephone. My plan is to use it as little as possible. That’s how I save money. The most recent bill? Where would I find that? [MAGGIE starts to look around but doesn’t get up.] Sorry, what bill was that? Phone bill. Not the gas bill? Gas was last week. That was a very nice man. Do you know him? Oh I see. Yes, completely different. [From the kitchen, the sound of the smoke alarm starts intermittently.] Now, Rita, while I’m looking, have you seen any good movies lately? What about television? I’ll tell you the one I like, that gardening one, but wouldn’t you think they’d do something about his hair! What? Yes, yes, I haven’t forgotten. Still looking. [Now MAGGIE gets and sorts through some papers behind the sofa. From the kitchen, the smoke alarm switches to full on. MAGGIE reacts to the noise.]
MAGGIE: It was going to be your dinner. I think it might be spoiled
ARTHUR: [off] Ow! Shit! God! Mum! [MAGGIE picks the phone up again.]
MAGGIE: Dear me, Arthur, looks like you’re trying to send smoke
MAGGIE: All these things we’ve got, I don’t like all these things [MAGGIE puts the remotes down and then spots the telephone.] MAGGIE: Here it is. [MAGGIE picks up the phone and speaks into it.]
MAGGIE: No, I was… Oh! Yes, yes. I was... [ARTHUR puts the grill tray into the sink. MAGGIE looks for the telephone.]
MAGGIE: Hello. Sorry to keep you, Miss…. Hello? Hello! Huh. Hung up. [MAGGIE puts the phone down again.]
ARTHUR: or ARTHUR/MAGGIE:the telephone ARTHUR: Hang up! MAGGIE: I don’t like to be rude.
MAGGIE: Yes. ARTHUR: I can believe that. But this chat about nothing, was it anything to do with our gas
ARTHUR: Who was it? MAGGIE: I didn’t get her name. A very nice young girl and we were having a lovely chat about… [MAGGIE remembers something important and changes her mind.] MAGGIE: Nothing. [ARTHUR crosses to her.]
MAGGIE: That’s rude. ARTHUR: That’s it. I’m going to ring up and put you on the Do Not Call register. MAGGIE: No, don’t do that. Then no one will ring and I’ll be here all day on my own and I won’t have anyone to talk to. Script ExtractGarry McDonald and Ruth Cracknell in the ABC TV series.
ARTHUR: Because I know you took down the sign to remind you but we have a strict rule. [ARTHUR retrieves a sign he’s had made which reads: IF ANYONE RINGS ABOUT ELECTRICITYGASORTELEPHONEHANGUP He reads it out to her.]
ARTHUR: If anyone rings about gas ARTHUR/MAGGIE: electricity
MAGGIE:account?No, nothing to do with gas.
ARTHUR: Don’t put it there. Put it back on the base.
MAGGIE: [mimicking] Don’t put it there. Put it back on the base.
ARTHUR: And that’s the DVD. And that’s the Pay TV.
stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 53
MAGGIE: Hello. ARTHUR: Mum, that’s the TV remote. MAGGIE: Is it? Oh yes. [MAGGIE finds two more remotes.]
MAGGIE: Big help you are. Never mind, here it is. [MAGGIE picks up the TV remote and holds it like a telephone.]
ARTHUR: You were having a lovely MAGGIE:chat. Yes, very nice. ARTHUR: About nothing.
ARTHUR: Or telephone or electricity? MAGGIE: No, no, nothing like that.
MAGGIE: Where did I put it, did you ARTHUR:see? No.
ARTHUR: You don’t have to be rude. You say, No thank you, very politely, and then you hang up.
origintheatrical.com.auTheatrical Cats (Young Actors Edition) Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber Based on Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T.S. ShortEliot Musical, Dramatic Comedy, Young Actors, Young Audiences Cast: 24 (any gender) Cats (Young Actors Edition) is a brand new, one hour adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical. Specially tailored for young actors in schools and youth groups, this edition has been adapted to include easy to sing orchestrations alongside helpful materials including Performance & Guide Vocal Tracks. origintheatrical.com.au/work/12580
Adapted by Timothy Allen McDonald Charley Maplewood has never been one for parties that would require friends, which he doesn’t have. Well, unless you count his monster friends, but they’re only imaginary. But now that he’s turning ten the big one oh he decides to throw a birthday party for himself, complete with a “House of Horrors” theme.
54 Stage Whispers September November 2022 Music Theatre International mtishows.com.auAustralasia
Home, I’m Darling Olivier Award® winning play for Best New Comedy
Rave reviews at MTC in 2020 and STC in 2021. origintheatrical.com.au/work/12585
Choosing A Show: New Releases
big one oh jr
The Big One Oh! JR. (60 minutes) Based on the Book by Dean Pitchford Music by Doug Besterman
“With a witty book and rousing score, The Big One Oh JR is ideal for students of all ages.” (Stuart Hendricks, mtishows.com.au/theMTIA).
Working (Localised Version) Your local workforce can play a role in this personalised version of Stephen Schwartz’s musical Working Based on Studs Terkel’s best selling book of interviews with American workers, Working paints a vivid portrait of the workers that the world so often takes for granted. Nominated for six Tony Awards, it has been updated for a modern age, featuring songs by Lin Manuel Miranda, Stephen Schwartz, James Taylor, Micki Grant, and more. Theatres have the opportunity to add local worker interviews from their own community to their mtishows.com.au/workingproduction.
localized version Origin
By2019Laura Wade Full Length Play, Comedy Cast: 4F, 2M Judy is the perfect ‘50s housewife. Her appearance, her home, her cooking, are all true to the 1950s. She is the perfect homemaker to her realtor husband, Johnny, preparing the perfect soft boiled eggs with buttery toast for breakfast, mixing cocktails and dancing in the evenings. The only problem is, it’s not the 1950s, it’s now, and being a domestic goddess isn’t easy.
Every Single Saturday By Joanna Weinberg Min: 2F, 2M or add 4 to 12 in the chorus In this musical comedy, the real action is on the sidelines. Set in the under ten Magpies soccer team, a tubby passionate coach, a fitness instructor, a single parent and a musician cheer on their children and navigate life. “A heart felt story about parenting, love and loneliness” (SMH). davidspicer.com.au/shows/every single saturday
Mother And Son By Geoffrey Atherden Cast: 4F, 3M Play adaptation of the smash hit ABC TV series about the relationship between a mother, Maggie, and her son, Arthur, who moved into look after her. davidspicer.com.au/shows/mother and son
Every Single Saturday. Let’s Put On A ShowCats (Young Actors Edition).
stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 55
David Spicer davidspicer.com.auProductions
“I stopped and picked one up. I then got an email from someone who wanted four chairs. The next morning I went back. There were the other three chairs under the rubbish. I was able to rebirth them with black upholstery. Later we turned one into the wheelchair in Wicked. It all comes apart.”
Veteran theatre creatives Bob and Col Peet featured in a recent episode of Stage Whispers TV on mastering prop and set building.
“We have made pot stands into a buffet, and very ordinary chairs into glamorous pieces,” said Col. Bob described how he found beautiful chairs in a clean up.
“I do a model box at a ratio of 1: 25. When we build it, the cast say the set looks just like the model,” said Col.
“So, it was appropriate that it became purple, which I got from a bedspread. That ended up being a lovely piece for The Producers,” he said.
Another time Bob found a gold couch on Facebook Marketplace at the home of a drag queen.
The brothers are big fans of giving community theatre casts a look at set model boxes early in the rehearsal process.Inthe video they showed off their latest masterpieces.
For more information communitytheatre.com.auvisit
Stage Whispers TV Watch Bob and Col Peet’s full interview with David Spicer. Scan or visit youtu.be/amsozdVVq1s stagewhispers.com.au/training
Roadside Rubbish Becomes Stage Treasures
The brothers, now based in Adelaide and Sydney, warned that it is very dangerous driving behind them on council clean up days. One of their favourite habits is picking up some roadside trash to save it for a time when they can make it into a stage prop.
Let’s Put On A Show
56 Stage Whispers September November 2022
The Stage Whispers TV Live Broadcast is sponsored by the Association of Community Theatre, which partners with Marsh Insurance to offer non professional companies public liability insurance policies.
It’s All
One email can start the ball rolling, saving time, money, your sanity and, ultimately, the environment. About The Students
stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 57 Schools put on productions for many reasons, but basically it is not to create a school full of actors. The school production is a delightful means to an end. Children learn many skills in the process of being part of a school production, and it is these skills which can potentially help them in their future lives. What does this have to do with the costumes? I say, a lot! Children are multi tasking the whole time they are performing. They often have so many things to think about their lines, where and how to stand, dance or prance, turn, and take turns. If costumes are uncomfortable, ill fitting, get in the way of walking etc., it can inhibit performance, and give the student way too many distractions. And then it is also about the parents. Some schools take the ‘easy’ approach, which is to have parents source costumes individually, which means that in one class of say 25 students, 25 parents need to go out and buy/borrow or find a costume suitable for their child. It is fine for the parent who needs to source a t shirt and shorts, but it is a whole new adventure finding an admiral or a horse! In the end, parents potentially spend three hours each, plus fuel, transport costs and the price of the actual costumes. This means that for a class of 25 students, there is a potential effort in excess of 75 hours work by parents (plus time to make alterations!) for the costumes for one class. It is definitely time to re think this Whichapproach.bringsme back to it being all about the students. The costumes need to be suitable for the children, and in an appropriate size. They need to be relatively comfortable and safe for the children to wear, and most importantly, have enough detail to clearly depict the character they are portraying.Inorder to save the environment as well, isn’t it best if the costumes are used and re used?
Tracey Nuthall from Costumes Without Drama explains some of the challenges facing students in the annual school play. Contact Tracey at Costumes Without Drama if you would like an obligation free info@costumeswithoutdrama.com.auchat.costumeswithoutdrama.com.au
Creatures.&Logan.Moulinmarypoppinsmusical.com.auSydney.Rouge.BookbyJohnCarmenPavlovic,GerryValRyanandGlobal Ongoing. Capitol Theatre, LindaWithers,MarlowSIXmoulinrougemusical.com/australiSydney.aTheMusicalbyTobyandLucyMoss.LouiseMichaelCoppelandBewick.TheatreRoyal.
58 Stage Whispers
JaneHamill,Sensecanberratheatrecentre.com.auCentre.AndSensibilitybyKatebasedonthenovelbyAusten.CanberraRep. Nov 17 Dec 3. Naoné Carrel Godcanberrarep.org.auAuditorium.ofCarnageby Yasmina Reza, translated by Christopher Hampton. Echo Theatre. Nov 23 Dec 3. The Q Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre.Newtheq.net.auSouthWales Mary Poppins. Based on the book by P.L. Travers and the Walt Disney Film. Music and Lyrics by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B Sherman. Book by Julian Fellows. New Songs by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe. Michael Cassel Group. Ongoing. Lyric Theatre
A.C.T.
COVID-19
Readers are advised to monitor public health advice in their jurisdiction and check with the relevant theatre group, venue or ticket outlet for specific performance impacts, cancellation or rescheduling information.
Until Sep 17, Sydney Opera House; Sep 23, Manning Entertainment Centre, Taree; Sep 27, Civic Theatre Newcastle; Oct 11, Griffith Regional Theatre, bellshakespeare.com.auGriffith. Tell Me I’m Here by Veronica Nadine Gkleeson, based on the book by Anne Deveson. Until Sep 25. Belvoir Street, Upstairs Theatre. belvoir.com.au A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. Sydney Theatre Company. Until Oct 15. Wharf 1 Sydneysydneytheatre.com.auTheatre.Fringe. Until Sep 30. Jumpysydneyfringe.combyAprilDe Angelis. Armidale Drama and Musical Society. Sep 1 17. The Armidale Buildingadms.org.auPlayhouse.BlocksbyBob Larbey. Nowra Players. Sept 3 17. Biggins.Australianowraplayers.com.auDaybyJonathanHuntersHillTheatre. Sep 9 25. Club SydneyChalkfacehuntershilltheatre.com.auRyde.byAngelaBetzien.TheatreCompany.Sep 15 Oct 29. Drama Theatre,
The Wharf Revue by Drew Forsythe, Jonathan Biggins and Phil Scott. Oct 24 Nov 5. The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre
Just $50 a month to reach thousands of theatre goers. Contact Stage Whispers for details. A.C.T. My Fair Lady. Music: Frederick Loewe. Book & Lyrics: Alan Jay Lerner. Free Rain Theatre. Until Sep 25. The Q Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre. theq.net.au Our Country’s Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker. Canberra Rep. Sep 8 24. Naoné Carrel Auditorium. Thecanberrarep.org.auBarberofSeville by Rossini. Opera Australia. Sep 15 17. Canberra Swancanberratheatrecentre.com.auTheatre.Lake.RoyalCzechBallet. Sep 18 20. Canberra VanWhitefellacanberratheatrecentre.com.auTheatre.YellaTreebyDylanDenBerg. Sep 29 Oct 1. The Coutryard Theatre, Canberra Theatre Shakespeare.WilliamThecanberratheatrecentre.com.auCentre.ComedyofErrorsbyShakespeare.Bell Sep 30 Oct 8. The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre
Until Oct 16. Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera Shakespeare.WilliamThesydneyoperahouse.comHouse.ComedyofErrorsbyShakespeare.Bell
Webber.RichardLyrics:Lyrics:Music:Thesixthemusical.com/australiaPhantomoftheOpera.AndrewLloydWebber.CharlesHart.AdditionalRichardStilgoe.Book:Stilgoe&AndrewLloyd
James.Sunshinecanberratheatrecentre.com.auCentre.SuperGirlbyAndreaPerformingLines. Nov 2 5. The Q Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre. Chalkfacetheq.net.auby Angela Betzien. STC and STCSA. Nov 9 12. The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre
CanberraSoulcanberratheatrecentre.com.auCentre.TradingbyKateWalder.YouthTheatre. Oct 5 8. The Courtyard Theatre, Canberra Theatre canberratheatrecentre.com.auCentre. Cruel Intentions: The ‘90s Musical by Roger Kumble, Jordan Ross and Lindsey Rosin David Venn Enterprises. Oct 5 8. Canberra Sullivan.HMScanberratheatrecentre.com.auTheatre.PinaforebyGilbertandQueanbeyanPlayers. Oct 14 23. The Q Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre. theq.net.au
On Stage & South Wales Update
New
Until Oct 1.
New South Wales
Photo: James D. Morgan.
Advertise your show on the front page of stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 59
The six wives of Henry VIII remix five hundred years of historical heartbreak, retelling their story their way in Six The Musical. Currently playing at Theatre Royal in Sydney, followed by Crown Perth from November 24, QPAC Brisbane from December 30 and a New Zealand tour to be announced. sixthemusical.com/australia
GriffinMothergsosydney.com.auMayWebyMelRee.Lookout. Sep 27 Oct 8. SBW Stables Priscillagriffintheatre.com.auTheatre.Queenofthe Desert by Stephan Elliott and Alan Scott The Regals Musical Society. Sep 30 Oct 9. Rockdale Town Hall. MusicLegallytheregals.com.auBlondeTheMusical.andlyricsbyLaurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin. Book by Heather Hach. Blackout Theatre Company. Sep 30 Oct 9. Pioneer Theatre, Castle Doblackouttheatre.com.auHill.YouHearThePeople Sing? Boublil & Schönberg Sep 30 Oct 2. Concert Hall, Sydney Opera Lookingsydneyoperahouse.comHouse.forAlibrandiby Vidya Rajan, based on the book by Melina Marchetta. Oct 1 Nov 6. Belvoir Street, Upstairs Theatre. belvoir.com.au Never Closer by Grace Chappple. Essential Workers. Oct 5 16. Belvoir Street, Downstairs Bloodybelvoir.com.auTheatre.MurderbyEd Sala. Pymble Players Inc. Oct 5 30. Pymble Players Theatre, Cnr Mona Vale Rd and Bromley Ave. (02) 9144 MusicalSullivan.Orwell.1984pymbleplayers.com.au1523.ThePlaybyGeorgeAdaptationbyMichaelArmidaleDramaandSociety. Oct 6 22. The Armidale Playhouse. Theadms.org.auBoyFrom Oz by Nick Enright, featuring the music of Peter Allen. Campbelltown Theatre Group. Oct 7 22. Town Hall Bevan.TheCampbelltown.Theatre,ctgi.org.auRestisSilencebyScottNewcastleTheatre
Sydney Opera Thesydneytheatre.com.auHouse.GreatAustralianPlay by Kim Ho. Montague Basement and Red Line Productions. Sep 15 Oct 8. Old Fitz TheatreJanisbyMyredlineproductions.com.auTheatre.FamilyandOtherAnimalsGeraldDurell,adaptedbyChambers.GenesianCompany,Sydney.Sep 16 Oct 22. EnsembleAngenesiantheatre.com.auEveningwithUrsulaYovich.Theatre. Sep 18 21. Theensemble.com.auLifespanofaFact by Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell and Gordon Farrell. Sydney Theatre Company. Sep 20 Oct 15. Roslyn Packer sydneytheatre.com.auTheatre. The Appleton Ladies’ Potato Race by Melanie Tait. Castle Hill Players. Sep 23 Oct 15. Pavilion Theatre, Doran Drive, Castle Alicepaviliontheatre.org.auHill.inWonderlandby Lewis Carroll. Australian Shakespeare Company. Sep 23 Oct 9. Royal Botanic Garden, Pioneer Society.HolroydbyJeanineShrekshakespeareaustralia.com.auGarden.TheMusical.MusicbyTesori.BookandlyricsDavidLindsayAbaire.MusicalandDramatic Sep 23 Oct 2. Redgum Zooom.Wentworthville.Centre,hmds.org.auPatchTheatre. Sep 24 Oct 5. Playhouse, Sydney Opera ARC.sydneyoperahouse.comHouse.Erth. Sep 24 Oct 7. Studio, Sydney Opera Gloucester,andGilbertThesydneyoperahouse.comHouse.PiratesofPenzancebyandSullivan.GilbertSullivanOperaSydney. Sep 24; Bundanoon, Oct 1, and Smith Auditorium, Shore School, Oct 7 9.
On Stage
The Comedy of Errors is a story of swapped identities, misguided love, mistaken imprisonment and chaotic mishaps, leading to an unbelievably crazy day for bumbling twins. Presented by Bell Shakespeare, the Australian tour continues at Sydney Opera House until September 17, and then at venues in regional NSW, A.C.T., Northern Territory and Tasmania throughout September and October. bellshakespeare.com.au/the comedy of errors Online extras!
Just $50 a month to reach thousands of theatre goers. Contact Stage Whispers for details. Company. Oct 7 22. Mammanewcastletheatrecompany.com.auMia!MusicandLyrics by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus. Book by Catherine Johnson. Willoughby Theatre Company. Oct 8 23. The Concourse theconcourse.com.auChatswood.Theatre, A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare. CHATS Productions Inc (Coffs Harbour). Oct 10 24 Losechats.org.autoWinby Mandela Mathia. Red Line Productions. Oct 12 22. Old Fitz TheatreEndredlineproductions.com.auTheatre.Of.byAshFlanders.GriffinCompany. Oct 13 Nov 5. SBW Stables EnsembleThegriffintheatre.com.auTheatre.CaretakerbyHaroldPinter.Theatre. Oct 14 Nov 19. ensemble.com.au The Wedding Singer. Music by Matthew Sklar, lyrics by Chad Beguelin, and a book by Beguelin and Tim Herlihy. Orange Theatre Company. Oct 14 23. Orange Civic ComedyCharnin.Strouse.Meehan.Annie.orangetheatreco.com.auTheatreBookbyThomasMusicbyCharlesLyricsbyMartinPenrithMusicalCompany. Oct 14 23. The Q Theatre, Penrith. (02) 4723 EngadineGaudioBrickman,Jerseythejoan.com.au7600.BoysbyMarshallRickElice,BobandBobCrewe.MusicalSociety. Oct 19 28. Engadine Community Society.Ahrens.StephenSeussicalengadinemusicalsociety.com.auCentre.TheMusicalbyFlahertyandLynStrathfieldMusical Oct 21 29. Latvian Theatre, strathfieldmusicalsociety.com.aStrathfield.u
Photo: Brett Boardman.
60th Anniversary Concert. Oct 28 Nov 5. Mammaeucms.org.auMia!Musicand Lyrics by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus. Book by Catherine Johnson. Albatross Musical Theatre, Nowra. Oct 28 Nov 6. Shoalhaven Entertainment Centre. amtc.org.au RBG: Of Many, One by Suzie Miller. Sydney Theatre
60 Stage Whispers
Oct 22 Nov 6. Belvoir Street, Downstairs Theatre. belvoir.com.au The Lovers by Laura Murphy, adapted from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Bell Shakespeare. Oct 23 Nov 20. Playhouse, Sydney Opera House. sydneyoperahouse.com Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella. Crossroads Live Australia and Opera Australia. From Oct 23. Sydney Lyric Theatre, The Acinderellamusical.com.auStar.StreetcarNamedDesire by Tennessee Williams. Red Line Productions. Oct 27 Nov 26. Old Fitz redlineproductions.com.auTheatre. The Appleton Ladies’ Potato Race by Melanie Tait. Woy Woy Little Theatre. Oct 28 Nov 13. The Peninsula Theatre, Woy Woy. Celebration.Jubilee:woywoylt.comADiamondEUCMS
Priscilla Queen of the Desert by Stephan Elliott and Alan Scott Gosford Musical Society. Oct 21 Nov 12. Laycock Street Community Knott.Dialgosfordmusicalsociety.comTheatre.MForMurderbyFrederickArtsTheatreCronulla. Oct 21 Nov 26. Calendarartstheatrecronulla.com.auGirlsbyTimFirth. Bay Theatre Players, Batemans Bay. Oct 21 Nov 5. Bontom.MalocchioThebaytheatreplayers.comItaliansbyDannyBall.Productionsand
On Stage New South Wales
Watch the fun filled preview of Bell Shakespeare’s The Comedy Of Errors youtu.be/KfBdaq0iHW0
The Jungle and the Sea by S. Shakthidharan and Eamon Flack Nov 12 Dec 18. Belvoir Street, Upstairs Theatre. Diebelvoir.com.auFledermaus Gala Concert. By Johann Strauss. Rockdale Opera Company. Nov 19 & 20. Rockdale Town Company.Shakespeare.Therockdaleopera.com.auHall.TempestbyWilliamSydneyTheatre Nov 15 Dec 17. Roslyn Packer Picassosydneytheatre.com.auTheatre.attheLapinAgile by Steve Martin. Castle Hill Players. Nov 18 Dec 10. Pavilion Theatre, Doran Drive, Castle Hill. paviliontheatre.org.au A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, adapted by Hilary Bell. Ensemble Theatre. Nov 25 Dec 30. Fourteen.ensemble.com.auQueenslandFromthememoir by Shannon Molloy. shake & stir theatre co. Until Sep 17. Cremorne Theatre, QPAC. 136 246. qpac.com.au The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, dramatised by Joseph Robinette. Brisbane Arts Theatre. Until Sep 23. artstheatre.com.au
Sep 10 Oct 1. gclt.com.au Mistero Buffo by Dario Fo, translated by Ed Emery. Metro Arts / Rhum + Clay. Sep 14 17. New Benner metroarts.com.auTheatre.
Advertise your show on the front page of stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 61 Company. Oct 29 Dec 17. Wharf 1 Thesydneytheatre.com.auTheatre.MusicMan.Music and Lyrics by Meredith Willson Bankstown Theatre Company. Oct 29 Nov 6. Bryan Brown Theatre, WyongCaravanbankstowntheatrecompany.coBankstown.mbyDonaldMcDonald.DramaGroup. Nov 4 12. Red Tree Theatre, TheatreGloriouswyongdramagroup.com.auTuggerah.byPeterQuilter.TheonChester(Epping). Nov 4 26. HammersteinRichardThetheatreonchester.com.auSoundofMusic.Music:Rodgers.Lyrics:Oscar2 nd. Book: Howard Lindsay & Russell Crouse. Hills Musical Theatre Company. Nov 4 12. Model Farms High School Auditorium Companyhillsmtc.comby Stephen Sondheim and George Furth. Armidale Drama and Musical Society. Nov 4 13. The Armidale Theadms.org.auPlayhouse.CruciblebyArthur Miller. GRAAPA Griffith & Regional Association of the Performing Arts. Nov 10 19. Cellar Door & Visitor Experience Centre, Piccolo Family Farm, Lake Wyangan. grapa.org.au Blaque Showgirls by Nakkiah Lui. Griffin Theatre Company. Nov 11 Dec 17. SBW Stables Theatre. griffintheatre.com.au Hercules The Panto by Sarah Jamari Edwards. Lane Cove Theatre Company. Nov 11 27. The Performance Space at St Aidan’s, Longueville Attwood,Thetrybooking.com/BURZUWatsonsbyKathrynadaptedfrom the unfinished novel by Jane Austen. Newcastle Theatre Company. Nov 11 Dec 3. Wilson.Thenewcastletheatrecompany.com.auBoyFriendbySandyRichmondPlayers. Nov 11 26. Richmond School of Arts. richmondplayers.com.au Secret Bridesmaids’ Business by Elizabeth Coleman. Hunters Hill Theatre. Nov 11 27. Club Ryde. (02) 9879 Rockdale.Cooney.Chasehuntershilltheatre.com.au7765Me,Comrade!byRayTheGuildTheatre, Nov 11 Dec 10. Lendguildtheatre.com.auMeATenorby Ken Ludwig. Glenbrook Players. Nov 11 19. Glenbrook glenbrookplayers.com.auTheatre.
Marvin’s Room by Scott McPherson. Ad Astra. Sep 1 17. FestivalTiddasadastracreativity.combyAnitaHeiss.Brisbane/LaBoite. Sep 5 24. Roundhouse Theatre, La Boite, Kelvin Girlbrisbanefestival.com.auGove.FromtheNorthCountry by Conor McPherson. Music & Lyrics by Bob Dylan. Runaway Entertainment, GWB Entertainment, Damien Hewitt, Trafalgar Theatre Productions. From Sep 8. Lyric Theatre, QPAC. 136 246. qpac.com.au Othello by Festival.QueenslandShakespeare.Theatre/Brisbane
New South Wales & Queensland
On Stage
Sep 10 Oct 1. Bille Brown Theatre, South GriffithQueenslandSullivan.Iolanthequeenslandtheatre.com.auBrisbane.byGilbertandBrisbaneFestival/ConservatoriumUniversity.
Sep 10 17. Conservatorium Theatre, Griffith Coast&MusicJekyllbrisbanefestival.com.auUniversity.&HydeTheMusical.byFrankWildhorn.BooklyricsbyLeslieBricusse.GoldLittleTheatre,Southport.
Thebrisbanefestival.com.auPiazza.Call by Connor D’netto, Kate Miller Heidke & Keir Nuttall and The Human Voice by Francis Poulenc. Opera Queensland. Sep 20 24. QPAC. 136 246. qpac.com.au
Oct 7 9. Ron Hurley Theatre, Seven Kinkyvillanovaplayers.comHills.BootsbyHarvey
Queen’s City by Alethea Beetson and Blak Social. Brisbane Festival. Sep 21 24. Cremorne Theatre, QPAC. 136 246. Sunshineqpac.com.auSuperGirl by Andrea James. Brisbane Festival. Sep 22 24. QPAC. 136 246. Mammaqpac.com.auMia!
Cinderella and the Seven Dwarfs by Dave Lowe. Brisbane Arts Theatre. Sep 24 Dec 3. Greaseartstheatre.com.aubyJimJacobs & Warren Casey. The Spotlight Theatrical Company. Oct 21 Nov 19. The Halpin Auditorium, Benowa. (07) 5539 Players.TomSorkinHiddenspotlighttheatre.com.au4255.inthePicturebyAaron&ASeparatePeacebyStoppard.Villanova
Queensland
Fierstein and Cyndi Lauper. North Queensland Opera and Music Theatre. Oct 5 15. Townsville Civic Centre. nqomt.com.au Why Young Men Run at 2am by Pierce Gordon. Ad Astra. Oct 6 22. Theadastracreativity.comBoyfromOz.Music and lyrics by Peter Allen. Book by Nick Enright. Spotlight Theatrical Company and The Star. Oct 14 23. The Star, Gold Coast. star.com.au Terry Pratchett’s Night Watch. Adapted by Stephen Briggs. Brisbane Arts Theatre. Oct 15 Nov 26. artstheatre.com.au Green Day’s American Idiot. Music by Green Day. Lyrics by Billy Joe Armstrong. Book by Billy Joe Armstrong and Michael Mayer. Matt Ward Entertainment and HOTA. Oct 20 29. HOTA Outdoor Stage, Gold Coast. hota.com.au The Producers by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan. Queensland Musical Theatre. Oct 21 30. Twelfth Night Blithequeenslandmusicaltheatre.comTheatre.Spirit by Noël Coward. Toowoomba Repertory Theatre. Oct 22 Nov 5. Mackintosh.Fellowes.AnthonySherman,RichardMarytoowoombarep.com.auPoppins.Music&Lyrics:M.Sherman,RobertB.GeorgeStilesandDrewe.Book:JulianDisneyandCameron
From Oct 22. Lyric Theatre, QPAC. 136 246. Musicqpac.com.auoftheNight. Music by Lord Lloyd Webber. Oct 22. Empire Theatre, Theatre.NickLyricsTheempiretheatre.com.auToowoomba.BoyFromOz.MusicandbyPeterAllen.BookbyEnright.NoosaArts
Just $50 a month to reach thousands of theatre goers. Contact Stage Whispers for details.
Music and Lyrics by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus and some songs by Stig Anderson. Book by Catherine Johnson. Savoyards. Sep 24 Oct 8. IONA Performing Arts Centre, Wynnum West. (07) 3893 4321. savoyards.com.au
Oct 27 Nov 19. Watson.adaptedBoy,noosaartstheatre.org.auLostbyKristinaOlsson,byKatherineLyallBellooCreative.Oct 29 Nov 19. Diane Cilento
Menopause The Musical. Sep 13 & 14. Empire Theatre, Iempiretheatre.com.auToowoomba.OughtToBeInPictures by Neil Simon. Cairns Little Theatre. Sep 16 24. Rondo Theatre. therondo.com.au
62 Stage Whispers
The Purple Rabbit. Strut & Fret. Brisbane Festival. Sep 15 24. South Bank
The Appleton Ladies’ Potato Race by Melanie Tait. Centenary Theatre Group. Sep 17 Oct 8. Delivercentenarytheatre.com.auusFromMamaby Jesse Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten. Ipswich Little Theatre. Sep 22 Oct 8. ilt.org.au
On Stage
The Full Monty by Simon Beaufoy. Sunnybank Theatre Group. Sep 16 Oct 1. Nextsunnybank2020.comtoNormalbyTom Kitt and Brian Yorkey. Javeenbah Theatre. Sep 16 Oct 1. javeenbah.org.au
Mel Brooks’ The Producers follows oddballs, Broadway producer Max Bialystock and accountant Leo Bloom, as they round up New York’s least talented entertainers to put on “the worst show in history”, all in the name of making a fortune. Nathaniel Currie directs Queensland Musical Theatre’s production which runs at Twelfth Night Theatre, Bowen Hills from October 21 to queenslandmusicaltheatre.com30.
Photo: Creative Street.
Advertise your show on the front page of stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 63 Studio, Queensland PhoenixCarlaMichaellyricsbylyricsItqueenslandtheatre.com.auTheatre.ShouldaBeenYou.BookandbyBrianHargrove.MusicBarbaraAnselmi.AdditionalbyJillAbramovitz,Cooper,WillRandall,RoseFisher,ErnieLijoi.Ensemble,Beenleigh. Nov 4 26. Kramer.Thephoenixensemble.com.auNormalHeartbyLarryAdAstra. Nov 3 27. Group.Grennan.Nowadastracreativity.comandThenbySeanCentenaryTheatre Nov 5 26. Thecentenarytheatre.com.auPhantomoftheOpera by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe. Lynch & Paterson. From Nov 10. Twelfth Night SuttonOvertwelfthnighttheatre.com.auTheatre.MyDeadBodybyMichaelandAnthonyFingleton. Tugun Little Theatre. Nov 10 26. tuguntheatre.org Jake’s Women by Agatha Christie. St Luke’s Theatre Society. Nov 11 26. Calendarstlukestheatre.asn.auGirlsbyTim Firth. Sunnybank Theatre Group. Nov 11 26. sunnybank2020.com Pride and Prejudice. Adapted from the Jane Austen novel by Jane Kendall. Gold Coast Little Theatre, Southport. Nov 12 Dec 3. gclt.com.au First Casualty by Christopher Johnston. Queensland Theatre. Nov 12 Dec 10. Bille Brown Theatre, South Breakerqueenslandtheatre.com.auBrisbane.MorantbyKenneth G. Ross. Ipswich Little Theatre. Nov 17 Dec 3. ilt.org.au Chicago. Book by Bob Fosse and Fred Ebb. Music by John Kander. Lyrics by Fred Ebb. Coolum Theatre Players. Nov 25 Dec 4. Thecoolumtheatre.com.auVenetianTwinsby Nick Enright and Terence Clark. Villanova Players. Nov 26 Dec 11. Ron Hurley Theatre, Seven Hills.
MichaelHamiltonInspiredlyricsHamiltonvillanovaplayers.comVictoriaBook,musicandbyLinManuelMiranda.bythebookAlexanderbyRonChernow.CasselGroup.
Queensland & Victoria
Ongoing. Her Majesty’s Theatre, hamiltonmusical.com.auMelbourne.
J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. By Jack Thorne. Based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling. Re imagined one part production. Ongoing. Princess Theatre, directedLineHairsprayau.harrypottertheplay.comMelbourne.BasedontheNewCinemafilmwrittenandbyJohnWaters.Book by Mark O’Donnell & Thomas Meehan. Music by Marc Shaiman. Lyrics by Scott Wittmann & Marc Shaiman. John Frost for Crossroads Live Australia Ongoing. Regent Theatre, DogRodneySankoffComehairspraymusical.com.auMelbourne.FromAwaybyIreneandDavidHeinRigbyandJunkyardProductions. Ongoing. Comedy Theatre, PatriciaLyrics9comefromaway.com.auMelbourne.to5TheMusical.MusicandbyDollyParton.BookbyResnick. Until Sep 17. State Theatre, Arts Centre Alter9to5themusical.com.auMelbourne.State.Acelebration of disability, creativity and culture. Until Oct 9. Arts Centre Melbourne and Arts Access Ludwig.Moonartscentremelbourne.com.auVictoria.OverBuffalobyKenElthamLittleTheatre.
On Stage
64 Stage Whispers
On Stage Victoria
All The Hours by William Lyons Sep 21 Oct 2. La Mama HQ. Cyranolamama.com.aubyVirginia Gay (after Edmond Rostand). Melbourne Theatre Company. Sep 24 Oct 29. Southbank Theatre, The Sumner. mtc.com.au The Addams young@part.FamilyMusic and Lyrics by Andrew Lippa. Book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice. Adapted by Mark Tumminelli. BATS Theatre Company. Sep 19 22. Cranbourne Community Centre. batstheatre.org.au War of the Worlds. Adapted by Howard E. Koch. Based on the novel by H.G.Wells. Peridot Theatre. Sep 22 Oct 2. Clayton Community Centre. Calendarperidot.com.auGirlsby Tim Firth. Warrandyte Theatre Co. Sep 23 Oct 8. Warrandyte Mechanics Hall. theatrewarrandytehallarts.asn.au/ Kovid Rat Cabaret. The Butterfly Club. Sep 26 Oct 1. Measurethebutterflyclub.comofaMoment by Charles Mercovich. Sep 27 Oct 2. La Mama Courthouse. Unsortedlamama.com.aubyWesley Middleton. Theatre Works. Sep 27 Oct 1. Dotheatreworks.org.auYouHearThePeople Sing. Boublil & Schönberg Sep 27&28. Hamer Hall, Arts Centre RedTheartscentremelbourne.com.auMelbourne.MeetingbyJeffStetson.Stitch. Sep 27 Oct 23. Meremereredstitch.netby Ngāti Maniapoto Sep 29 Oct 1. Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Kreveld.Franklyartscentremelbourne.com.auMelbourne.Winehouse.AshleighTheButterflyClub.Sep 30 Oct 1. thebutterflyclub.com
The creative team behind CLOC’s Priscilla Queen of the Desert has been reassembled to create a completely re imagined, innovative and daring production of Chicago a show known so well by so many, but never like this. Directed by Chris White and Lynette White and starring Melanie Ott (Velma Kelly), Emily McKenzie (Roxie Hart) and Will Hanley (Billy Flynn), Chicago will play at The National Theatre, St Kilda from October 7 to 22. cloc.org.au
Photo: Ben Fon.
Just $50 a month to reach thousands of theatre goers. Contact Stage Whispers for details. Sep 2 17. Eltham Performing Arts Centre, MordiallocVisitorselthamlittletheatre.org.auResearch.byBarneyNorris.TheatreCompany. Sep 2 17. MalthouseKmordialloctheatre.comBoxbyRaChapman.Theatre.Sep 2 18. Beckett Theatre.Gray.Citysongmalthousetheatre.com.auTheatre.byDylanCoburnWilliamstownLittle Sep 7 24. wlt.org.au Senser by Brittanie Shipway. Theatre Works. Sep 7 17. Theatre Trapstheatreworks.org.auWorks.byCarylChurchill Sep 7 17. La Mama Bedlamama.com.auHQ.&Breakfastby Mark Crawford Sep 7 18. Chapel off Disneychapeloffchapel.com.auChapel.FreakyFriday.Based on the novel by Mary Rodgers. Music and lyrics by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey. Theatrical Sep 8 18. Chapel off GeelongSomechapeloffchapel.com.auChapel.Girl(s)byNeilLaButeRepertoryTheatreCo. Sep 9 24. Woodbin Theatre, Geelong West. geelongrep.com Variations or Exit Music by Justin Nott. Sep 15 25. La Mama Ghostlamama.com.auCourthouse.StoriesbyJeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman. Realscape Productions. Sep 16 Oct 22. Athenaeum Theatre, ghoststoriestheshow.com.auMelbourne. Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox by shake & stir. Sep 20 24. Playhouse, Arts Centre KatieTheartscentremelbourne.com.auMelbourne.LastLighthouseKeeperbyReeve.TheatreWorks. Sep 20 24. Explosives Factory. theatreworks.org.au
On Stage
Falling by Andrew Bovell. The Mount Players. Nov 4 20. Mountview Theatre. themountplayers.com
Brief Encounter by Noël Coward. Lilydale Athenaeum Theatre. Nov 10 26. Emilialilydaleatc.combyMorgan Lloyd Malcolm. Essential Theatre. Nov 10 27. Playhouse, Arts Centre PeridotCurtainartscentremelbourne.com.auMelbourne.UpbyPeterQuilter.Theatre. Nov 10 20. Clayton Community Centre. Daisyperidot.com.auPullsitOff by Denise Deegan. Mordialloc Theatre Company. Nov 11 26. mordialloctheatre.com
Melbourne.Webber.RichardLyrics:Lyrics:Music:Themalverntheatre.com.auPhantomoftheOpera.AndrewLloydWebber.CharlesHart.AdditionalRichardStilgoe.Book:Stilgoe&AndrewLloydArtsCentre
ARC by Erth. Oct 15 & 16. Arts Centre Melbourne, Fairfax Misto.Harpartscentremelbourne.com.auStudio.ontheWillowbyJohnTorquayTheatreTroupe. Oct 20 29. Shoestring Playhouse @ The MAC. Girlsttt.org.au&Boys by Dennis Kelly. Melbourne Theatre Company. Oct 21 Nov 26. Arts Centre Melbourne, Fairfax Studio. Themtc.com.auLadyinthe Van by Alan Bennett. Malvern Theatre Company. Oct 28 Nov 12.
Nov 14 19. Athebutterflyclub.comSimpleActofKindness by Ross Mueller. Red Stitch. Nov 16 Dec 11. redstitch.net The Mentor by Joshua White. Theatre Works and Bravo Arts. Nov 16 26. Theatre Works. Thespistheatreworks.org.auorTheGods Grown Old by Gilbert and Sullivan. GSOV. Nov 17 20, Malvern Theatre, East Malvern; Nov 26, Dunolly Town Hall; Dec 3, Victoria
Advertise your show on the front page of stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 65 The Yeomen of the Guard by Gilbert and Sullivan. GSOV. Oct 1, Inglewood Town Hall, Inglewood; Sep 24, Mount Beauty Community Centre; Oct 6 8, The Alexander Theatre, Monash University. gsov.org.au Everyman & His Dog by Ron Elisha. Theatre Works. Oct 5 8. Explosives Bennett.Thetheatreworks.org.auFactory.HistoryBoysbyAlanThe1812Theatre. Oct 6 25. TheatreDeborahGentlemen1812theatre.com.auIncorporatedbyMulhall.TheBasinGroup. Oct 6 16. CLOCKander.andChicago.thebasintheatre.org.auBookbyBobFosseFredEbb.MusicbyJohnLyricsbyFredEbb.MusicalTheatre. Oct 7 22. The National Theatre Melbourne, St Kilda. Acloc.org.auFunnyThing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart. Babirra Music Theatre. Oct 13 21. Whenbabirra.org.auDadMarried Fury by David Williamson. Encore Theatre Co. Oct 14 29. Clayton Community encoretheatre.com.auCentre.
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. From Nov 11. Regent Theatre, TheatrebyRoundjosephthemusical.com.auMelbourne.andRoundtheGardenAlanAyckbourn.BrightonCompany. Nov 11 26. Club.You.Yourbrightontheatre.com.auSilenceWillNotProtectGavinRoach.TheButterfly
From Oct 30. State Theatre, Arts Centre DangerDayartscentremelbourne.com.auMelbourne.AfterTerribleDay.TheEnsemble. Nov 1 12. Theatre Whentheatreworks.org.auWorks.TheRainStops
Low by Daniel Keene. Theatre Works and Victorian Theatre Company. Nov 8 12. Explosives Sunshinetheatreworks.org.auFactory.SuperGirlby Andrea James. Melbourne Theatre Company. Nov 9 Dec 14. Southbank Theatre, The Sumner. mtc.com.au
66 Stage Whispers
Just $50 a month to reach thousands of theatre goers. Contact Stage Whispers for details.
AdelaideSweetstatetheatrecompany.com.auCentre.RoadbyDebraOswald.RepertoryTheatre. Sep 8 17. Arts Theatre, Adelaide. adelaiderep.com Aladdin Jr. by Alan Menken, Howard Ashman, Tim Rice and Chad Beguelin. Now Productions. Sep 9 10. Shedley Theatre, Players.andAdamShakespeareThenowproductionssa.weebly.comElizabeth.CompleteWorksof(abridged)byLong,DanielSpringerJessWinfield.TheStirling Sep 9 24. Stirling Community ofTheSondheimIntostirlingplayers.sct.org.auCentre.theWoodsbyStephenandJamesLapine.GilbertandSullivanSocietySA. Sep 22 Oct 1. Arts Theatre, Pubertygandssa.com.auAdelaide.Blues.Based on the novel by Kathy Lette and Gabrielle Carey. Deadset Theatre Company. Sep 28 Oct 2. Holden Street CompanyKramer.Theholdenstreettheatres.comTheatres.NormalHeartbyLarryStateTheatreSA. Sep 30 Oct 15. Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival
MusicalbookanimationBasedlyricsJeanineShrekstatetheatrecompany.com.auCentre.TheMusical.MusicbyTesori,withbookandbyDavidLindsayAbaireontheDreamWorksmotionpictureandbyWilliamSteig.HillsCompany.
Nov 4 19. Oliverhillsmusical.org.auTwisted.Arework of Dickens by Larry Waller. St Jude’s Players. Nov 10 19. Laughterstjudesplayers.asn.auonthe23rd Floor by Neil Simon. Adelaide Repertory Theatre. Nov 17 26. Arts Theatre, Handadelaiderep.comAdelaide.toGodbyRobert Askins. University of Adelaide Theatre Guild. Nov 17 22. Little JoshuaJacktrybooking.com/BWEOJTheatre.andtheBeanstalkbyDixon.TeaTreePlayers. Nov 25 Dec 10. BoyslikemeCockteatreeplayers.combyMikeBartlett.Productions. Nov 30 Dec 10. Holden Street Janeholdenstreettheatres.comTheatres.NorthernTerritoryEyre by Charlotte Brontë, adapted by shake & stir. Oct 12. Darwin Entertainment Centre. yourcentre.com.au
On Stage Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia & N.T.
CompanyTheatreEmmeLutton,Monsters.artscentremelbourne.com.auMelbourne.CreatedbyMatthewStephanieLakeandHoy.Malthouse/StephanieLake
Oct 21 & 22. Theatre Royal Studio Theatre, Hobart. theatreroyal.com.au The Last Resort by Belinda Bradley, Franz Docherty and Clayton Jacobson. Hobart Repertory Society Theatre. Oct 21 29. The Playhouse Theatre, Hobart. playhouse.org.au The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare. Bell Shakespeare. Oct 26 29. Theatre Royal Studio Theatre, Hobart. Mammatheatreroyal.com.auMia!MusicandLyrics by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus. Book by Catherine Johnson Burnie Musical Society. Oct 28 Nov 5. Burnie Arts and Function Centre. Theburniearts.netWindinthe Pillows by Daryl R Peebles. Bawdy Pantos. Nov 16 19. Theatre Royal, Hobart. Souththeatreroyal.com.auAustralia Curtain Up by Peter Quilter. Blackwood Players. Sep 2 13. Blackwood 21 (Blackwood Memorial Sunshineblackwoodplayers.comHall).SuperGirlby Andrea James. State Theatre Company SA. Sep 2 17. Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival
PreachrsRentstatetheatrecompany.com.auCentre.byJonatnanLarson.Productions. Oct 6 15. Queen’s Theatre, Adelaide. 9rentadl.auto5The Musical. Music by Dolly Patron. Lyrics and book by Patricia Resnick. Based on the 20th Century Fox Picture. John Frost for Crossroads Live. Oct 8 31. Festival Theatre, Adelaide Festival adaptedCowerThe9to5themusical.com.auCentre.VicarofDibleybyIanandPaulCarpenterfromtheTVseries by Richard Curtis and Paul Mayhew Archer. Tea Tree Players. Oct. 12 22. Ateatreeplayers.comLoveAffairbyJerry Mayer. Galleon Theatre Company. Oct 20 29. Domain Theatre, Marion Cultural Centre. galleon.org.au Guys and Dolls. Music and lyrics by Frank Loesser. Book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. The Met. Oct 20 29. Arts Theatre, Schirach.Terrormetmusicals.com.auAdelaide.byFerdinandvonRedPhoenixTheatre. Oct 20 29. Holden Street Benfield.Bedsideholdenstreettheatres.comTheatres.MannersbyDerekTherryTheatre.Nov 3 12. The Arts Theatre, Adelaide. therry.org.au Single Asian Female by Michelle Law. State Theatre Company SA. Nov 4 19. Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival
Quambatook Memorial Hall, Quambatook. gsov.org.au The Woman in Black by Stephet Mallatratt. The 1812 Theatre. Nov 17 Dec 10. One1812theatre.com.auManTwoGuvnors by Richard Bean. Frankston Theatre Group. Nov 18 Dec 4. RepertorybyPatrickThefrankstontheatregroup.org.au39Steps.AdaptedbyBarlow,fromthenovelJohnBuchan.GeelongTheatreCo.
Oct 20 Nov 5, Princess Theatre, MonaandTuylupatheatrenorth.com.auLaunceston,bypakanakanaplilaSomaLimia.TasdanceandFoma.
Nov 18 Dec 3. Woodbin Theatre, Geelong West. geelongrep.com Lucy Durack’s ROM COMCERT. Nov 24. Hamer Hall, Arts Centre
Oct 1 15. Theatre Royal, Hobart. theatreroyal.com.au Scaredy Cat. Terrapin. Oct 7 9, Theatre Royal Studio Theatre, theatreroyal.com.auHobart, and Oct 13 15. Earl Arts Centre, Company.Crewe.BobBrickmanJerseytheatrenorth.com.auLaunceston,Boys.BookbyMarshall&RickElice.MusicbyGaudio.LyricsbyBobEncoreTheatre
Nov 24 Dec 11. Merlyn Productions.WorksLachlanHerdmalthousetheatre.com.auTheatre.byPetaMurrayandPhilpott.TheatreandWreckedAll Nov 30 Dec 10. Theatre Thetheatreworks.org.auWorks.TasmaniaCompleteWorks of Shakespeare (Abridged) by Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield. Launceston Players. Sep 8 17. Earl Arts Centre, Pasttheatrenorth.com.auLaunceston,TheShallowsby Julian Larnach from Favel Parrett’s novel. ATYP and Archipelago Productions. Sep 14 24. Peacock Theatre, Salamanca Arts Centre. sac.org.au Amy’s Tattoo by Alison Mann. Blue Cow. Sep 21 24, Theatre Royal Studio Theatre, Hobart, theatreroyal.com.au and Sep 30 Oct 1, Princess Theatre, TheSondheimIntotheatrenorth.com.auLaunceston,TheWoodsbyStephenandJamesLapine.ShowCompanyTasmania.
Photo: Ben Fon.
Sep 15 Oct 1. Cold War drama. Limelight Theatre, MurderMurderlimelighttheatre.com.auWanneroo.attheOscarsbyattheMaj.Cluedunnit. Sep 15 17. Murderous dinner theatre. Downstairs at the Maj, His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth. StirlingLucybasedYatesAnneartsculturetrust.wa.gov.auofGreenGablesbyJanetandMarkFriedman,ontheclassicstorybyMaudMontgomery.Players.
The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare. Bell Shakespeare. Oct 19, Darwin Entertainment Centre and Oct 21, Araluen Arts StatewithLoveyourcentre.com.auCentre.BurnsbyGraemeKoehnelibrettobyLouisNowra.OperaSouthAustralia Oct 21 22. YouthBargainmartTheyourcentre.com.auEntertainmentDarwinCentre.RiseandFalloftheKingbySLIDEDanceCompany.Oct 26 27. Darwin Entertainment Centre. yourcentre.com.au Sydney Comedy Festival Showcase Oct 29, Darwin Entertainment yourcentre.com.auCentre,and Oct 30, Araluen Arts Menopauseyourcentre.com.auCentre.TheMusical. SK Entertainment and GFour Productions Nov 12. Darwin Entertainment Theatre.SandSong.yourcentre.com.auCentre.BangarraDance Nov 25 26. Darwin Entertainment yourcentre.com.auCentre.
On Stage Northern Territory & Western Australia
Frozen by Jennifer Lee, Kristen Anderson Lopez and Robert Lopez. Until Oct 30. Disney Musical. Crown Theatre
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. Roxy Lane Theatre, Maylands. Sep 2 18. (08) 9255 3336. Tilttaztix.com.aubyvarious authors. WAAPA 3rd Year Performance Making. Sep 7 17. Blue Room Theatre, Perth Cultural Acting.Smith.IdentitiesHeights,Fireswaapa.ecu.edu.auCentre.intheMirror:CrownBookingsandOtherbyAnnaDeavereWAAPA3rdYear Sep 8 14. State Theatre Centre of WA, Studio Underground, Perth Cultural 2ndOrestesartsculturetrust.wa.gov.auCentre.byEuripides.WAAPAYearActingStudents.Sep 8 14. Enright Studio, WAAPA, Edith Cowan University, Mt Lawley. (08) 6304 Theatre.DavidWhenwaapa.ecu.edu.au6895.DadMarriedFurybyWilliamson.Garrick Sep 8 24. (08) 9255 3336. Hanseltaztix.com.auandGretelby Engelbert Humperdink. WAAPA Classical Voice. Sep 9 15. 19th century opera. Geoff Gibbs Theatre, WAAPA, Edith Cowan University, Mt Lawley. (08) 6304 6895. waapa.ecu.edu.au The Pajama Game by George Abbott, Richard Bissell, Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. WAAPA 3rd Year Music Theatre Students. Sep 9 15. Roundhouse Theatre, WAAPA, Edith Cowan University, Mt Lawley. (08) 6304 Repertory.Whitmore.Packwaapa.ecu.edu.au6895.ofLiesbyHughWanneroo
Hach, Lawrence O’Keefe and
Advertise your show on the front page of stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 67
DrewChicagofrozenthemusical.com.auPerth.byKanderandEbb.AnthonyCreative. Until Sep 25. Planet Royale, Northbridge. ticketmaster.com
This Spring school holidays, the adventurous Tinkerbell will fly into Adelaide Botanic Gardens and meet up with the fairies from A Midsummer Night’s Dream to create an enchanting world of song and dance. shakespeareaustralia.com.au Online extras! Join the magical fairies as they go on an exciting musical youtu.be/ZQNiHNg3zaEadventure!
Western Australia
Sep 16 Oct 1. Stirling Theatre, RockinghamRopetrybooking.com/BUQHOInnaloo.byPatrickHamilton.TheatreCompany. Sep 23 Oct 2. The Castle, RoomFlyingDreamsrtcrockingham.comRockingham.ofaLonelyPlanet.BicycleCollective.BlueandAwesomeArts.Sep 23 Oct 1. Blue Room Theatre, Perth Cultural Flaherty,Seussicalblueroom.org.auCentre.byAhrensandbasedonthebooks of Dr Seuss. HAMA. Sep 23 Oct 2. Regal Theatre, Subiaco. Creation,ticketek.com.auCreation. Windmill Theatre and AWESOME Arts. Sep 27 30. State Theatre Centre of WA, Heath Ledger Theatre, Perth Cultural Legallyartsculturetrust.wa.gov.auCentre.BlondebyHeather
Just $50 a month to reach thousands of theatre goers. Contact Stage Whispers for details. Nell Benjamin, based on the novel by Amanda Brown and MGM film. Stray Cats Theatre. Sep 29 Oct 2. Mandurah Performing Arts
Nov 22 Dec 10. Celebration of cultural heritage. Blue Room Theatre, Perth Cultural blueroom.org.auCentre. Bernie’s Old Time Music Hall. Garrick Theatre. Nov 24 Dec 10. (08) 9255 3336. 42ndtaztix.com.auStreetby Harry Warren, Al Dubin, Micheal Stewart and Mark Bramble, Wanneroo Repertory. Nov 24 Dec 10. Limelight Theatre, Civic Dve, Edgar.Dickens,Alimelighttheatre.com.auWanneroo.ChristmasCarolbyCharlesadaptedbyDavidHarbourTheatre. Nov 25 Dec 11. Camelot Theatre, Mosman Park. (08) 9255 3336. Rosetaztix.com.auandWalsh by Neil Simon. Stirling Players. Nov 25 Dec 10. Stirling Theatre, stirlingplayers.com.auInnaloo.
Oil by Ella Hickson. Black Swan State Theatre Company. Nov 5 27. Is blood thicker than oil? State Theatre Centre of WA, Heath Ledger Theatre, Perth Cultural Tamsilgaren.Utopiaartsculturetrust.wa.gov.auCentre.byAmirMusavi. Nov 8 19. The plight of refugees. Blue Room Theatre, Perth Cultural Centre. Crossings.blueroom.org.auWAAPA
On Stage
SullivanSullivan.Theartsculturetrust.wa.gov.auCentre.GrandDukebyGilbertandTheGilbertandSocietyofWA. Oct 13 22. The Dolphin Theatre, University of WA, Crawley. Radiumticketswa.comGirlsby DW Gregory. Old Mill Theatre. Oct 14 20. Old Mill Theatre, South Perth. oldmilltheatre.com.au You’re So Brave by Georgi Ivers. Oct 18 29. Blue Room Theatre, Perth Cultural Centre. Theblueroom.org.auCruciblebyArthur Miller. PAANDA. Oct 25 Nov 5. American classic. Prindiville Hall, Notre Dame, Theatre.AndrewThingsfremantlepaanda.comFremantle.IKnowtoBeTruebyBowell.Melville Oct 28 Nov 12. Australian play. Melville Theatre, Palmyra. (08) 9255 3336. taztix.com.au 107 by Michele Gould. Socks and Sandals. Nov 1 12. Homegrown musical. Blue Room Theatre, Perth Cultural Centre. KoorlinyJohnCurtainsblueroom.org.aubyRupertHolmes,KanderandFredEbb.ArtsCentre. Nov 4 19. Murder mystery musical. Koorliny Arts Centre, Kwinana. (08) 9567 koorliny.com.au7118.
68 Stage Whispers
Productions.Flaherty.Luckymanpac.com.auCentre.StiffbyAhrensandPrimadonna Oct 4 22. Mandurah Performing Arts Centre, Fishtrap Barrackingmanpac.com.auTheatre.fortheUmpire by Andrea Gibbs. Black Swan State Theatre Company. Oct 7 23. World Premiere Western Australian play. State Theatre Centre of WA, Heath Ledger Theatre, Perth Cultural
Western Australia Rent tells the story of a group of impoverished young artists struggling to survive and create a life in NYC's East Village in the thriving days of bohemia, Alphabet City, under the shadow of HIV/ AIDS. Presented by 5 Quarter & Preachrs Productions, Rent will be playing at The Queen Theatre in Adelaide for a strictly limited season from October 7 to 15. rentadl.au
2nd Year Performance Making, Nov 9 13. Site specific work. Gilkinson’s Dance Studio, Perth. (08) 6304 Thewaapa.ecu.edu.au6895.DrowsyChaperone by Lisa Lambert, Greg Morrison, Bob Martin and Don McKeller. Murray Music and Drama Club. Nov 11 26. Pinjarra Civic Centre. taztix.com.au or 9255 Assassins3336 by Stephen Sondheim. WAAPA 2nd Year Music Theatre Students. Nov 11 17. State Theatre Centre of WA, Studio Underground, Perth Cultural Frankensteinwaapa.ecu.edu.auCentre.andtheLion of Nemea by David Milroy. WAAPA Aboriginal Theatre Students. Nov 11 16. Enright Studio, WAAPA, Edith Cowan University, Mt Lawley. (08) 6304 6895. waapa.ecu.edu.au The Tempest by William Shakespeare. Roleystone Theatre. Nov 12 20. Shakespeare in the Park, Araluen Botanic Park, GraduateDickaraluenbotanicpark.com.auAmphitheatre.Whittington.GRADSDramaticSociety. Nov 17 Dec 3. Pantomime. The Dolphin Theatre, University of WA, Crawley, Ingradswa.blogspot.comWA.BedWiththeBishops by Rob Selzer. KADS. Nov 18 Dec 10. British Comedy. KADS Town Square Theatre, Wirla.Sandkadstheatre.com.auKalamunda.byZacJames.Desert
By Vidya Rajan, based on the book by Melina Marchetta. Presented by Malthouse Theatre and Belvoir. Directed by Stephen Nicolazzo. Merlyn Theatre, The Malthouse, 113 Sturt Street Southbank. Jul 9 31.
More reviews can be found at stagewhispers.com.au/reviews Stage Whispers 69 Reviews
Looking For Alibrandi. Photo: Jeff Busby.
WRITING a musical play is ambitious. Getting it onto the stage can be difficult. Doing both yourself can be challenging. Not if you are as determined as playwright/ director Lucy Matthews. Ugly Love looks at love and polyamory through contemporary eyes. It looks at the predictability and ennui of long term relationships, the difficulty of discussing problems, and the excitement of new love … especially a different sort of love. Matthews does this gently, without recrimination or moralising. Her seven characters tell their stories in short, well written scenes elaborated in musical dialogues where the lyrics give greater depth to the emotional dilemmas the characters are facing and the ‘ugly’ hurt of love.
Chanella Macri gives a stellar performance as Josie, striking a great balance between strength and vulnerability. This is beautifully written over every facial expression, intonation, and gesture she makes. An incredibly accessible production and a truly meaningful theatrical experience.
Patricia Di Risio
Ugly WrittenLoveand directed by Lucy Matthews. Acoustic Theatre Company. Flight Path Theatre, Marrickville. Jul 14 23.
Looking For Alibrandi
Sam’s marriage begins to dissolve when his wife Jess is attracted to a woman and suggests that they should become polyamorous. Jess is torn between vows and liberation, security and change and all the ramifications of her new relationship with Lola, a sexy cabaret singer cum barista.
THE adaptation of this classic Australian coming of age tale resonates with anyone with heritage outside the white Anglo Saxon norm. There are subtle but significant differences from the book and film that give it a very individual quality. Italian Australian culture remains at the heart of this story but the diversity in the casting creates a universal approach to addressing racism and otherness. Josie’s experience of culture clash becomes very emblematic of Australian identity. Details such as the passata making ritual and the Nonna gossip network are preserved and all the Italian Australian stereotypes are emphasised through an obvious artifice, ingeniously pointing out the superficiality and absurdity of such representations. Another ingenious stroke is the doubling up of some roles. Jennifer Vuletic as Nonna Katia and Sister Louise captures the wisdom of both characters, and Josie’s ambivalence towards their authority. Hannah Monson as Ivy and John Barton highlights the parallels in the emotional impact they have on Josie. Lucia Mastrantone as Christina and Sera is an absolute treat. The incredible transition she makes from one character to the other is a sheer delight to watch. All the performers exhibit an acute awareness of both the culturally specific and universal aspects of this story and embrace the Italian Australian elements with warmth and simpatico.
Carol Wimmer Top Coat By Michelle Law. Sydney Theatre Company. Director: Courtney Stewart. Wharf 1. Jun 30 Aug 6 IN Top Coat, Michelle Law uses the comic ‘body swap’ genre to make astute comments about the impact of white privilege across society, from the beauty industry to theWinniemedia.(Kimie Tsukakoshi) is a manicurist saving for her own salon, whilst constantly facing unthinking condescension and racism. Kate (Amber McMahon) is an acerbic television executive confident, pushy, and blissfully unaware of her flagrant, insensitive discrimination.Theirlivesare as different as their workplaces as they find when their bodies are magically ‘swapped’, giving Law the perfect scenario to comment on racism, social structure, and representation in the arts industry and intuitive director Courtney Stewart to realise the staging possibilities that the scenario suggests.
With designer James Lew, Stewart has commissioned a set that moves as constantly as the action. It becomes a ‘built in’ extension of the play. The actors and stage crew work in synch. If ever a play depended on ensemble work, this is Comedicone! timing is essential and both Tsukakoshi and McMahon make the most of every comic line and interaction. As do Arisa Yura, John Batchelor, and Matty Mills, the three actors who play the characters who people Winnie and Kate’s lives. This production is written, directed and designed by Asian Australians. Two of the cast are also Asian Australians. One is indigenous. It boldly accentuates a host of social inequities, but does so in a way that makes us laugh albeit uncomfortably.
Carol Wimmer
Each character is well drawn by the actors familiar enough that you think you already known what’s coming, yet playwright Amelia Bullmore turns the narrative Online extras!
Playwright Michelle Law invites you to join her as she discusses Top Coat youtu.be/4EUAb112ZwM
Di And Viv And Rose By Amelia Bullmore. Corseted Rabbits Collective. Rumpus Theatre. Jul 15 24.
A PLAY about three women sharing a house at university demonstrates that it’s not so much an academic education as one in life. Set in the again fashionable eighties, that era’s music bookends each episodic scene as we’re introduced to the three women: Di (Julia Vosnakis), a sporty lesbian except when she’s with her mum; Viv (Georgia Laity), a militant wordsmith who is determined to change the world; and Rose (Isabel Vanhakartano), a naïve southerner whose new found sexual experimentation will inevitably change her life.
70 Stage Whispers More reviews can be found at stagewhispers.com.au/reviews
Michelle is the conscientious, ambitious IT expert with whom Lola has a long standing relationship and Maddi is Jess’s best friend and confidante, who is also having her own relationship problems with her partner Gus. Lincoln Elliott, LJ Wilson, Cypriana Singh and Madelaine Osborn ably portray their emotional dilemmas in both words and song. There are twenty musical scenes in Ugly Love, including the title song, all of which progress the story. Some, such as “The Dating Song”, are satirically amusing. This new Australian musical deserves a wider audience.
Top Coat. Photo: Daniel Boud.
Fiona Bruce’s design is stunning, beautifully evoking an apartment in 1937, despite lack of walls, doors, and windows, with costuming that tells us much about characters, as well as capturing the era with expertise.
Mark Wickett
Meg Wilson’s design has enough signals to remind us we start in the 1980s, with cassettes stacked on the shelf and the novelty of a rotary dial home telephone. Yet instead of getting sentimental with its nostalgia, this is heart warming in its exploration of female friendship. It doesn’t hide from the challenges women faced then, underlines how little has changed in forty years, and how shockingly contemporary these issues remain.
Lighting, designed by Lucy Birkinshaw, brings the set to life, and the use of low light is particularly stunning.
More reviews can be found at stagewhispers.com.au/reviews Stage Whispers 71 differently, and director Rachel Burke reins them in before they become stereotypes. All three performers are brilliant in expressing the emotional washing machine of 18 year olds living away from home for the first time, and exploring the core philosophy of why people do good things.Yet it succeeds more for the relationships between them, the dialogue using the perspectives and challenges of each housemate to coax the audience into critical thinking, Burke directing this without preaching or taking sides.
Swan’s beautiful and contemporary feeling production of Tennessee Williams’ classic play is a rendition loyal to the author’s intentions, and despite up to the minute use of modern technology and staging, it evokes the poetry and original style of The Glass Menagerie, more than any production of this play that I have ever seen.
Michael Carmody’s video design is outstanding, and despite this technology being unavailable when this play was written, builds on the original stage directions. The production is gorgeously and emotively underscored and accompanied live by composer/pianist Tom O’Halloran, present on stage throughout. This ensemble cast appear to have an almost organic connection, working together with a tangible shared history and clear, believable family connections. Mandy McElhinney is a fascinating Amanda Wingfield, blending domineering and controlling maternal relationships with lovely vulnerability, in a captivating performance. Joel Jackson is a wonderfully conflicted Tom Wingfield, torn between familial loyalties and a need to escape. Acacia Daken is an exquisite Laura, as fragile as her glass ornaments yet performed with great strength. The long awaited gentleman caller, Jim O’Connor, is drawn with depth by Jake Fryer Hornsby completing this cast well. Great to see a classic that is both loyal to the author’s intentions yet produced with fresh ideas and techniques. Precisely and intelligently directed, with wonderful performances.
Kimberley Shaw
The Glass Menagerie By Tennessee Williams. Black Swan State Theatre Cmpany. Directed by Clare Watson. His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth. Aug 2 BLACK21.
72 Stage Whispers More reviews can be found at stagewhispers.com.au/reviews Online extras! Join the buzz of Hairspray’s opening night in Melbourne. Scan or visit youtu.be/RSaxxBCI59c Hairspray. Photo: Jeff Busby.
ByAlbionMike Bartlett. Secret House., New Ghosts Theatre Company and Seymour Centre. Jul 29 Aug 13. MIKE Bartlett’s hit play revolves around a country house of characters whose stories are slowly revealed across four acts, against the undertow of a post Brexit Britain.London businesswomen Audrey, with her reluctant daughter, Zara (Rhiaan Marquez) and happily ineffectual husband (Charles Mayer), has big plans to restore the house and its once magnificent gardens especially when the ashes of her soldier son are buried there, along with past war dead.
The battle between the tug of heritage and the future, between patriotism and contemporary issues of class, immigration and sexuality has begun.
Joanna Briant shines as the misguided, controlling Audrey, as do Marquez and Mayer as her daughter and husband, and Deborah Jones as the enigmatic visiting novelist.Thegarden of course is a metaphor of Britain today, just as The Cherry Orchard works similarly for Chekhov, especially when the underclass are left behind.
More reviews can be found at stagewhispers.com.au/reviews Stage Whispers 73
Hairspray Book by Mark O’Donnell & Thomas Meehan. Music by Marc Shaiman. Lyrics by Scott Wittman & Marc Shaiman. Based upon the New Line Cinema film written & directed by John Waters. Crossroads Live. Regent Theatre, Melbourne. Aug 6 Oct 9, followed by Adelaide and Sydney.
Set in Baltimore in 1962, the production goes all out on 1960s styles in extravagant design, colours, wardrobe, songs, dances, and, of course, those hairstyles that need all that hairspray. The show’s origin is John Waters’ subversive, campy 1988 movie with drag queen Divine as Edna Turnblad. In 2002 Waters’ movie is adapted into a musical stage play what we see now and that becomes the movie musical in 2007 with John Travolta as Edna. Dialogue changes remove the ‘white saviour’ element and make Motormouth Maybelle (the fabulous Asabi Goodman) the undefeated leader with her big number ‘I Know Where I’ve Been’. Music theatre and American music theatre in particular may not be your thing, but with this much talent, oomph and pizzaz on stage, you may be converted.
Mark Langham excels as Audrey’s increasingly demented gardener, Claudette Clarke is his wife, replaced as cleaner by an efficient young Polish immigrant (Emma Wright). James Smithers is the junior gardener wanting to
IT’S not often that you find yourself part of an audience that is so totally into a show as the audience for Hairspray a show that is exuberant, energetic, bouncy, romantic, poignant, pacey, and unstoppable, where every song is greeted with applause and roars of approval. Amongst the Australian lead cast, the standout is, of course, Shane Jacobson as Edna Turnblad, our heroine’s Mom: shy, overweight, self conscious, and good hearted a beautifully controlled, sustained performance. Jacobson’s interactions with Todd McKenny’s Wilbur, especially their dance number, ‘You’re Timeless to Me’, are both funny and touching. Very talented Carmel Rodrigues is an immensely sweet, irrepressible Tracy. Mackenzie Dunn as Tracy’s BFF is a superb comedienne her scenes with Javon King as Seaweed threaten to steal theTheshow.ensemble are all impossibly attractive. The villains Velma (Rhonda Burchmore) and her equally nasty daughter Amber (Brianna Bishop) are obviously hateful, and our heroes are naturally good. The still topical ‘message’ (acceptance of all body shapes and sizes, and racial integration) blends seamlessly within smart songs, nostalgic tunes, terrific dance numbers, a simple plot, and an absurdly optimistic fairy tale ending.
Michael Brindley
74 Stage Whispers More reviews can be found at stagewhispers.com.au/reviews be a writer, and as the neighbour, Alec Ebert brings village politics to the garden.
Jane Angharad is compelling as the disenfranchised young lover of the dead son (Ash Matthew as his ghost!)
By Robert Louis Stevenson, adapted and directed by Kip Williams. Sydney Theatre Company. Roslyn Packer Theatre, Walsh Bay, Sydney. Aug 8 Sep 10.
Monique Langford’s appealing garden set shifts from ruin to blossoming to abandonment, transformed for each act. Director Lucy Clements sets a rather ponderous pace, not always filled by the cast, as strong as they all are.But as with gardening, patience is rewarded with much wit and engagement.
Martin Portus Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde
WITH the same STC creative team behind his acclaimed Picture of Dorian Gray, Kip Williams has now adapted and directed this hypnotic, new cine theatre version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s horror story. Again, the setting is London in the late 1800’s, a time when new sciences and moral panic curdled into these troubled tales of good and evil. Albion. Photo: Clare Hawley. Online extras! Get a glimpse of STC’s thrilling new cine theatre experience. Scan or visit youtu.be/J0wlz3o1ZWA
More reviews can be found at stagewhispers.com.au/reviews Stage Whispers 75 PERFORMING ARTS MAGAZINE SEPT/OCT/NOV 2022. VOLUME 31, NUMBER 4 ABN: 71 129 358 710. ISSN: 1321 5965 All correspondence to: The Editor, Stage Whispers, P.O. Box 2274, Rose Bay North 2030, New South Wales. Telephone: (03) 9758 4522 Advertising: stagews@stagewhispers.com.au Editorial: neil@stagewhispers.com.au PRINTED BY: Spotpress Pty Ltd, 24 26 Lilian Fowler Place, Marrickville, 2204. PUBLISHED BY: Stage Whispers. PRE PRESS PRODUCTION & DESIGN BY: PJTonline Solutions. pjtonline@pjtonline.com DISTRIBUTED BY: Gordon & Gotch, 25 37 Huntingdale Road, Burwood, 3125. DEADLINES For inclusion in the next edition, please submit articles, company notes and advertisements to Stage Whispers by November 11th, 2022. SUBSCRIPTION Prices are $39.50 for 6 editions in Australia and $60AUD elsewhere. Overseas Surface Mail (Airmail by special arrangement). Overseas subscribers please send bank draft in Australian currency. Maximum suggested retail is $6.95 including GST. Address of all subscription correspondence to above address. When moving, advise us immediately of your old and new address in order to avoid lost or delayed copies. FREELANCE CONTRIBUTORS Are welcomed by this magazine and all articles should be addressed to Stage Whispers at the above address. The Publisher accepts no responsibility for unsolicited material. Black and white or colour photographs are suitable for production. DISCLAIMER All expressions of opinion in Stage Whispers are published on the basis that they reflect the personal opinion of the authors and as such are not to be taken as expressing the official opinion of The Publishers unless expressly so stated. Stage Whispers accepts no responsibility for the accuracy of any opinion or information contained in this magazine. LIMITED BACK COPIES AVAILABLE. ADVERTISERS We accept no responsibility for material submitted that does not comply with the Trade Practices Act. CAST & CREW Editor: Neil Litchfield 0438 938 064 Sub editor: David Spicer Advertising: Angela Thompson 03 9758 4522 Layout, design & production: Phillip Tyson 0414 781 008 Contributors: Cathy Bannister, Anne Blythe Cooper, Michael Brindley, Kerry Cooper, Rose Cooper, Ken Cotterill, Bill Davies, Coral Drouyn, Jenny Fewster, Kitty Goodall, Peter Gotting, John P. Harvey, Frank Hatherley, Barry Hill, Jude Hines, Beth Keehn, Fiona Kelly, Tony Knight, Debora Krizak, Neil Litchfield, Ken Longworth, Rachel McGrath Kerr, Mel Newton, Peter Novakovich, Peter Pinne, Martin Portus, Suzanne Sandow, Kimberley Shaw, David Spicer, Mark Wickett, Geoffrey Williams and Carol Wimmer.
Our storyteller Gabriel Utterson is on the trail of the links between his respected friend, Doctor Jekyll, and the monstrous murderer, Mr Hyde. It’s a London of black and white polarities, dim gas lights, back alleys of fog and shadows and doors to dark fears. Our eyes follow the live and recorded camera closeups of the actors projected on constantly shifting screens, their faces often split aberrantly across them. Settings of different interiors magically arrive just as the actors and camera operators do. Matthew Backer is riveting as Utterson, withheld as a gentleman bachelor but empathetic as he narrates this journey. And as Jekyll, Hyde, and most of the other London characters, Ewen Leslie is outstanding with an expert range of faces, voices, wigs and agonies.
Martin Portus
Clemence Williams’ score of drum beats and tense strings, the shadows and lighting by Nick Schlieper, and Marg Howell’s design and period costumes all swirl together in a film noir world, with David Bergman’s video design centre stage. For two uninterrupted hours the actors give urgent voice to almost all of Stevenson’s novella. It’s highly expositional, and by the end the weight of words grows heavy, yet the hypnotic pull still lasts beyond.
Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde. Photo: Daniel Boud.
David Spicer
Nothing’s certain! We would all love of course to stay, but sadly it is looking like we may need to accept an offer moving forward. If you do sell, where will you go?
On The Market
Musical Spice
76 Stage Whispers September November 2022
A unique theatre hub in Queensland is the Brisbane Arts Theatre a bustling community non for profit which is sadly putting its premises in the Central Business District of Queensland’s capital up for sale. A unique feature of the Arts Theatre is their children’s productions, which run all year round and are a birthday party favourite. I spoke with the company’s President Tallulah Grey. How long has the Brisbane Arts Theatre been staging shows at your venue?Brisbane Arts Theatre bought our iconic home at 210 Petrie Terrace in 1956, and we’ve been treading the boards ever since! Before COVID 19, what would a typical season have been? A typical season would be around 10 main house and 10 children’s theatre productions per year: a couple of musicals, a comedy, maybe a little classic thrown in there. How did COVID 19 affect audiences and your finances? To start with, the Arts Theatre had to close its doors for a few months. When we were able to reopen in the second half of 2020, we were one of the few theatres in Australia still performing live productions. COVID 19 restrictions around numbers of patrons and other things made it more difficult, as for a while we were only permitted around 50 patrons, which is only a third of our capacity. Are audiences now coming back in the same numbers as before? Sadly no. We’ve been very lucky with being able to continue to operate for as long as we have post COVID 19, but we are still seeing drastically lower audience numbers than pre COVID 19. Did you have any luck with Government assistance? We were able to receive JobKeeper to assist payroll, which was of great assistance. Other than that, we’ve applied for every funding and grant opportunity that has come our way, and spoken with Local, State and Federal Government representatives. We have occasionally been successful with the odd grant, but unfortunately, we have been able to receive very little assistance. Why did the board call for expressions of interest to sell your property?Revenue has significantly dropped over the past two years. Earlier this year a question was put to our membership: would you continue to support Brisbane Arts Theatre if its home was no longer at 210 Petrie Terrace? There has been a lot of discussion in the community about the issue. The board finally decided to call for expressions of interest as we are continuing to move towards the sad reality of no longer being able to afford to operate in our location. Is it certain you will sell?
There’s a real possibility that we will be able to lease back our current premises after a sale, at least for the short term. But nothing is set in stone. We’re working to do what we can to ensure the best interests of the Arts Theatre community and its legacy.What can people do to help? Come see a show! Enrol in a class! Tell a friend about Brisbane Arts Theatre! We’re an institution here in Brisbane, and we would absolutely hate to disappear out of people’s lives.
2022/2023 catalogue out now. Order your free copy david@davidspicer.comdavidspicer.com.auat:(02)93718458
stagewhispers.com.au Stage Whispers 1 NEW RELEASES MOST POPULAR 1. We Will Rock You 2. Back to the 80’s 3. Popstars 4. Ladies in Black 5. The Boy from Oz 6. Masquerade 7. Aotearoa 8. Song Contest 9. The Great Australian Rock Musical 10. Essgee’s Pirates
THEATRE GOING
KEEPING
Congratulations to every company and school which managed to keep theatre going in very difficult times, and commiserations to those who had to cancel.TheCentre Stage Event Company in Albury had to postpone twice to navigate COVID 19, then had to navigate rules from two different states, to get its production of We Will Rock You to the stage. A high school in the COVID 19 free bubble of The Northern Territory miraculously got a production of The Great Australian Rock Musical up at the peak of the Chookascrisis.tocompanies resuming disrupted seasons and wishing everyone a safe return to the theatre. Albury. The Great Australian Rock Musical.
