MAY 7, 2019 \ STARWEEKLY.COM.AU
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Music to their ears
Emmanuel and Janine with fellow Les Miserables cast members. (Luke Hemer)
Get ready to hear the people sing. Catholic Regional College Sydenham is gearing up to perform its first musical production and they haven’t started small. The VCE theatre studies students are taking on the stage classic Les Miserables, which will be held at the college’s Caroline Springs campus over three showings from May 16-18. Master of the house/director Cassandra Hutchison said the excitement was palpable. “We wanted to do a musical for a while and we knew we had a talented year level singing-wise and decided this was the year,” she said. “It’s a huge challenge, but we’re super excited to put it on for everyone and why not start with the biggest show ever?” College captain Emmanuel Soriano said it was an honour to play lead character Jean Valjean. “Les Miserables is one of my favourite musicals. For Jean Valjean I tried to see different interpretations of him so I could decide which way I wanted to take the character, but I didn’t want to stray too far from the original,” Emmanuel said. “He’s so human that it becomes so relevant to almost everyone.” For more information and tickets visit: https://crclesmis.eventbrite.com.au Tate Papworth
Centre budget blowout By Tate Papworth The cost of Brimbank council’s plans to upgrade and redevelop the St Albans Leisure Centre has ballooned to a staggering $60 million. The revelation follows last week’s election promise by Labor to fund $5 million towards the project, should it win this month’s federal election. Just six months ago, the council said the project would cost about $50 million and called on the state and federal governments to contribute $25 million each. The state government is yet to pledge any money toward the project and in November last
year knocked back the council’s application for a $3 million grant as part of the Better Pools program. Last month, the costs were estimated to have risen to about $58 million, but Brimbank mayor Lucinda Congreve told Star Weekly last week the costs were now estimated to be more than $60 million. “Last year, council set out with an ambitious plan to advocate for funding by the state and federal governments into this project, which is expected to cost more than $60 million in total,” she said. “We believe this project would benefit greatly from having all levels of government involved.”
Cr Congreve said the council will continue to work closely with the state government to secure its support and was committed to continuing its efforts at state and federal levels. “We’re very happy with the funding commitment made this week by the federal Labor opposition to contribute $5 million towards the replacement of the St Albans Leisure Centre with a health and wellbeing hub,” she said. However former mayor John Hedditch said on Star Weekly’s facebook page: “The ALP’s $5M commitment is a small first step but I wish it was a $15M commitment like the good citizens of Surf Coast Shire have been promised
by the ALP candidate for a new Torquay Pool with another $10M from Dan Andrews on top. “In needy Brimbank the $58M St Albans Leisure Centre Redevelopment now has a proposed $5M Federal ALP commitment and nothing from the Dan Andrews Government yet. "Don’t know about anyone else but I’m feeling like a less valued second class citizen compared to those in Torquay.” Brimbank council has previously said it would fund $25 million of the project. Last month The Age revealed that the council could seek gaming industry funding to help build the centre.