Community Theatre

Nominations have been announced for the Music Theatre Guild of Victoria’s 2015 Bruce Awards for Excellence, which will be presented at an Awards Ceremony on December 12 at the Costa Hall, Geelong Waterfront.

The Music Theatre Guild of Victoria Inc. is a not-for-profit organisation for the ongoing support, encouragement and development of non-professional music theatre in the state of Victoria.

Bookings: 0438 711 378.

In 1933, when African American Paul Robeson played Othello in London, the legendary actor/singer’s performance in the role was seen as a revolutionary, even shocking new development in theatre. Theatregoers of the time didn’t realise it, but Robeson was not creating history. There’d been a precedent by another actor one hundred years before. Now there’s to be an Australian Premiere of a new play about that trailblazing actor, Ira Aldridge. Lesley Reed reports.

Epic musical EVITA plays at Manly’s Star of the Sea Theatre in November 2015

Manly Musical Society follows up its hit recent productions of Chess and Company with the famous epic about the iconic South American leader, Eva Peron.

It’s a love story with a difference. It’s Pygmalion in Footscray with a nod towards Educating Rita. A retired English Literature teacher (with a penchant for the Marx Brothers) falls on hard times. He meets a newly arrived young woman, one of the original boat people from Vietnam. Neither speaks the same language. How they communicate is a mix of mirth and misunderstanding until along come the words of a playwright called Shakespeare. As a one-act play with three characters, Shakespeare in Saigon was wonderfully successful.