When the Malthouse Theatre and Victorian State Opera staged The Threepenny Opera, the Director Michael Kantor was able to update the setting by dipping into Melbourne’s rich tapestry of crookedness. He’s found just as much seediness in Sydney to update the classic by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill once more. David Spicer reports.
Michael Kantor is passionate about Bertolt Brecht, describing him as the consummate political theatre satirist of our time.
Get out the hair gel and dust off your leather jackets. Grease 2: Live in Concert brings Rydell High’s Class of ’61 to Melbourne’s Chapel off Chapel after a successful Midsumma season earlier this year.
Following a sellout premiere season, this concert style musical returns to the Melbourne stage bursting with back-to-back songs from the original soundtrack – ‘Back to School Again’, ‘Reproduction’, ‘Cool Rider’ and a string of 1960′s chart toppers. Hand-jiving is out and rock music is in!
Mátalor, a conceptual hard rock dance opera based on an avant-garde imagining of Romeo and Juliet, will have its World Premiere at Melbourne’s Chapel off Chapel in October. Mátalor promises to shock, entertain and inspire.
Choreographed by Stephan Agisilaou (Creative Director of Vertical Shadows, Choreographer on 'So You Think You Can Dance') and Adam Blakey (Multi Australian Dancesport Championships Winner).
Mátalor combines contemporary, jazz, Latin and ballroom dance.
Brisbane children's cast now been announced - see the article - Link
Our earlier coverage of the casting of the Sydney children follows.
On August 25, 2011, producer John Frost today announced the 24 children who have been cast in the upcoming production of the ever-popular Broadway musical Annie. There will be three different casts alternating in the roles of Annie and the seven orphans.
New Musicals Australia has announced the next round of works selected to undergo workshops for further development in November / December 2011, and the creative teams.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. During previews for Love Never Dies, line changes came so fast and furious that Ben Lewis, playing the Phantom, jotted them down on the handiest prop. Lucy Graham went backstage to peak behind the mask.
It was announced today (August 15) by Barry O’Farrell, Premier of NSW, that Sydney has won the right to host the World Premiere season of the new musical An Officer and a Gentleman in 2012.
Neil Litchfield was at the musical's launch, on the Flight Deck of the HMAS Sydney, at Sydney’s Garden Island, and spoke to members of the creative and producing team afterwards.
Advertising for the Perth Theatre Company’s Australian Premiere of Tender Napalm by British playwright and provocateur, Philip Ridley (The Pitchfork Disney, Mercury Fur) has proved a bit too provovative.
Banned from billboards in Mt Lawley and Osborne Park as too explicit, the publicity image of a waist up naked couple in an embrace (see image) was banned by the Public Transport Authority, believing it breaches the Australian Association of National Advertisers’ code of ethics.
Powerfully written, thought-provoking... Part thriller, part social-drama.
In September 2011, for the first time in its history, the Seymour Centre will produce a new Australian play from the ground up in partnership with Riverside Theatres and directed by Tim Jones, Artistic Director of the Seymour; the Australian premiere of Transparency, a bold new Australian play by Suzie Miller
Opera Australia should have the largest audience in history in 2012 – announcing a series of blockbuster productions that will tour Australia.
Included are fireworks on the harbour, English translations of popular classics and a taste of Broadway.
Teddy Tahu Rhodes (pictured) stars in the award-winning Lincoln Center Theatre’s production of South Pacific, that will run for four weeks at the Sydney Opera House before heading off on a national tour.
It’s the first season under the artistic leadership of Lyndon Terracini.
