Joining the cast of the new Australian musical recording, Any Moment, is Greenroom Award nominated actor Jonathan Hickey. Hickey, a graduate from the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith Uniersity, is fluent in Italian and played Fabrizio in The Light in the Piazza at Arts Centre Melbourne in 2017.
In the real life aftermath of Trump’s immigration policies, Melbourne has gained a rising star of cabaret, musical theatre and performance in Melissa David.
Seanna van Helten and Penny Harpham started She Said Theatre because they couldn’t see any clear pathways to make the type of work they wanted to create. Now their new show, Fallen, a powerful new work about fallen women finding a new life on the other side of the world, opens at fortyfivedownstairs this week, following a highly successful premiere season in Sydney. I spoke to van Helten about creating the company and this work, how it has been impacted by the #MeToo movement, and how she sees women in theatre.
There is no more fitting a celebration for a triple 20 year anniversary: for the show The Boy From Oz, for The Production Company and for Rohan Browne’s professional debut. The 2018 season of The Boy From Oz is everything: cheeky, heartfelt, endlessly energetic, and a serious force to be reckoned with – the show is near flawless and tickets should be snatched up immediately.
Rio comes to Melbourne with The Boy from Oz opening this week! Director Jason Langley is no stranger to The Production Company or to the show; this is his third TPC show (having previously worked on Brigadoon and Dusty). We spoke about his vision for the show, and how his friendship with Nick Enright has influenced him in working on the show.
One of the most unique, true stories in comedy form is heading to Australia this September, written by British comedian David Baddiel. For the first time, he’s bringing his show My Family: Not A Sitcom, with his trademark brand of truth telling; part TED Talk, part standup comedy show to Australia.
For a company only five years old, which was literally formed in someone’s actual shed in a back yard, The Bloomshed have established themselves firmly as experts in reanimating older texts, bastardising classic texts to create cutting edge, political contemporary theatre.
Thirty years’ experience as a pianist and musical director, two previous Production Company shows, and two previous runs of The Boy From Oz, including the original – Michael Tyack is the perfect person to bring to light the music and story of Peter Allen, for both the show and The Production Company’s 20 year anniversary.
This return season is nearly sold out, and rightly so: this brilliant show by Anthony Crowley returns after first blasting onto stages in October 2016. This show has the makings of a cult classic indie musical, with its wild and wonderful story line, weird characters and sense of fun and light heartedness, Motor-mouth Loves-suck Face is back to charm audiences and dazzle with everything from zombies to a Bollywood diversion: there is seriously not a single element in this show not to love.
I headed into rehearsals for The Production Company’s Boy From Oz and have a chat with leading man Rohan Browne and the creative team, Jason Langley, Director, Michael Tyack, Musical Director, and Tim Chappel, Costume Designer.
Essence Productions presents the 2018 Victorian Tour of Point of No Return, written and directed by Alaine Beek which has just begun a state-wide tour. Based on the true story of Australia’s first boys’ prison, the show is set to be a riveting, energetic new Australian drama about a group of youths struggling to survive in Tasmania’s Point Puer Boys’ Prison.
The Rocky Horror Show is back! Fresh, fabulous, energetic and shaking off the controversy and allegations that riddled the previous tour, it brings the house down with an opening night party full of laughs, sparkles and glamour.
You’re always in for an entertaining, roaring with laughter and unpredictably funny kind of night when you see a Big Hoo Ha show, and their 8th birthday show at Howler in Brunswick absolutely upheld this
He’s a Helpmann nominated cabaret performer, been smashing it over in London, sold out shows at Edinburgh, Adelaide and Perth Fringe Festivals and now he lights up Chapel Off Chapel’s Loft as part of Provocaré Festival, Reuben Kaye has been described as “The evil love child of Liza Minnelli and Jim Carrey is a dazzling explosion of songs, lashes and teeth!” and he does not disappoint this description.
18th century French drama and glamour has landed at the Northcote Town Hall with Heartstring Theatre’s production of David Adjmi’s Marie Antoinette. Filled with florals and tulle and the talent of six exceptional performers, this show is modern in its presentation but true to the history of the French revolution and the last Queen of France’s story.
Australian theatre household names Todd McKenney and Shane Jacobson have leapt into the cast of The Rocky Horror Show which is coming home to Melbourne this month. A truly classic, outrageously fun show, it returns to Her Majesty’s Theatre from July 12.
The impossible search is over: Madiba the Musical has found it’s leading man of Nelson Mandela in South African star of the stage, television and film – Perci Moeketsi. The triple threat is from Pretoria, the South African city where Mandela was both imprisoned and later inaugurated as President, so it is fitting that a star from this area is chosen for the pivotal role.
Before she even opened her mouth, a full house at Hamer Hall were upstanding, a standing ovation simply from being in the presence of Patti LuPone, Grammy and Tony Award winner, America Theatre Hall of Fame Inductee, film and TV star and all round Broadway legend. Is it possible to give this show more like 100/5 stars?
The show must go on, and last week an Australian favourite joined the cast of UK touring show Beyond the Barricade with only a few days’ notice. Between her busy schedule of finishing an energetic and delightful run as Ado Annie Oakley in The Production Company’s Oklahoma, to learning a host of brand new songs for this highly acclaimed concert series, we spoke to Elise McCann about the whirlwind of the last few weeks.
As someone who is also looking to emigrate to London in the coming years, LaLa Barlow and Robbie Smith’s cabaret on share house horrors is an amusing and witty night of stuff you just can’t make up. A laugh out loud mash up of songs from Shaggy, Eminem, and Adele to Chicago, Little Shop of Horrors and Legally Blonde, woven in with original numbers and ridiculous anecdotes.
