Young classical music singer Mark Vincent will make his musical theatre debut in the role of Billy in the new Australian production of Dirty Dancing, producer John Frost announced today (September 16, 2014). The leading roles of Johnny Castle and Baby will be announced in coming weeks.Dirty Dancing will play at the Sydney Lyric Theatre from 28 November this year, then Melbourne’s Princess Theatre from March and the Lyric Theatre, QPAC from May.
It doesn’t seem possible that 2015 marks the 25th anniversary of the Bell Shakespeare Company, truly our only National theatre company, or that Bell still heads the company that bears his name, though he has grown from leading man to elder statesmen. These days he has a co-Artistic Director in Peter Evans, but it is still Bell’s vision at the core of the company.
The collection of works that makes up Ralph Myers’ fifth and final season prioritises new Australian plays, alongside a renewed commitment to Indigenous-led theatre and inventive interpretations of the classics.
Producers John Frost and Phil Bathols have announced that actor, dancer, director, author, activist and legend Shirley MacLaine will tour Australia and New Zealand in December 2014 in her show If They Could See Me Now – Shirley MacLaine.
Shirley MacLaine has forged a powerhouse presence on the world stage that spans seven decades and countless indelible performances, from Irma La Douce and Sweet Charity to Terms of Endearment, Steel Magnolias and Downton Abbey.
WESTERN AUSTRALIAN ACADEMY OF PERFORMING ARTS 20 – 23 JUNE 2015
WAAPA has announced that it will host the 2015 Conference for the Musical Theatre Educators’ Alliance (MTEA), which will coincide with the 30th Anniversary of WAAPA’s much respected Music Theatre Course. Themed Australasian Overtures, this will be the first conference to be held in the Southern Hemisphere.
Coral Drouyn ticks off the ‘must-see’ productions as the Melbourne Theatre Company launches its 2015 season.
Attending launches goes with the territory of being a reviewer. Whilst they are interesting they rarely excite enough to have one salivating. But MTC changed all that last night and I joined 2,000 other theatre-lovers in “oohing” and “aahing” and mumbling “I want to see that.”
Artistic Director Andrew Upton has announced the Sydney Theatre Company’s 2015 program, featuring many of our Australia’s top performers and directors in a season which combines new Australian and international plays, fresh explorations of classics and stage adaptations of literary masterworks by Virginia Woolf and James Joyce.
During September musical theatre stars Michael Falzon and Bobby Fox will recreate Painted From Memory, the classic 1998 collaborative album by music legends Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello, on stage at Sydney’s City Recital Hall. They took a time out from their working brunch to chat to Neil Litchfield about the event.
For Season 2015, Malthouse Theatre will utilise all spaces in its iconic building with performances in the courtyard as well as its three theatres; present a new approach to the season with thematic chapters; premiere new work from Chunky Move, Ash Flanders, Nicola Gunn and David Woods, Declan Greene and Lally Katz; reimagine Sophocles’ Antigone; celebrate the large dancing body; hold a banquet for 39 people; and introduce audiences to Caryl Churchill’s new play.
Adelaide has been treated to exclusive theatrical events many times in the past, often as part of the city’s fine Adelaide Festival. While there’s not a festival in sight in October, the city will again be blessed with an Adelaide-only theatre experience when iconic British Director Peter Brook brings his moving production The Suit to Australia as part of its world tour.
