Class of 2023 Acting and Musical Theatre Showcase

More than just a showcase, this year’s presentation by the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University Class of 2023 Acting and Musical Theatre students was a full show, with musical interludes in the dramatic pieces and dramatic interludes in the musical numbers.

The one-act show started with the Bachelor of Acting students filling the theatre for a group rendition of Shakespeare’s ‘All the world’s a stage’ from As You Like It – a powerful opening for a confident group of performers. To me, this feels like the strongest – and most diverse – group of actors we’ve seen in the last few years.

This is a step in the right direction. And it was nice to hear the performers add a few international accents to the mix of usual Aussie and American voices. We had Janice Devarakonda perform ‘I think about my Ammi all the time’ from Sudha Bhuchar’s Children of the Divide, Chris Nguyen take on Qui Nguyen’s ‘We’re dead’ from Vietgone, Abigail Waugh doing ‘Dad’s smile’ from the Scottish play, Iron, by Rona Munro’s, and Koen Brown tackle a spot-on and crowd-pleasing Wiltshire lilt with ‘I’ve seen a lot of strange things in this wood’ from Jez Butterworth’s brilliant Jerusalem.

As well as an outstanding collection of monologues from this talented class, I really enjoyed the two-hander selections, including Matthew Cieslar and Joseph Poli in an amusing bit from Sam Shepard’s True West, and Lewis Ziebarth and Patrick Bateman talk about ‘that painting’ in Yasmina Reza’s Art.

Gemma Keliher and Hayley Stein pleased the audience with their comic skills in a very funny scene from Brisbane writer Steve Pirie’s, Jane and Kel Go to Hell. The whole group returned to the stage for a brief reprise of their roles – a brilliant touch to remind all those eager casting agents out there who to chase up after the event.

The Musical Theatre students followed with an action-packed mix of new and old, mostly UK and US musicals, which I guess reflects their future working environment. However, it was a pleasantly surprising and unexpected selection, with represented musicals including Kinky Boots (‘Step One’ sung by Benjamin Richards), Dear Evan Hansen (Matthew Casamento and Alexander Tye taking on ‘Sincerely, Me’), Moulin Rouge! (Matthew Casamento singing ‘Crazy Rolling’), I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change (Michael Jarrett and Eliza Vine in glorious voice for ‘A Stud and a Babe’) and The Little Mermaid (Bradley J Oakman in a wonderful performance of ‘Poor Unfortunate Souls’).

There were outstanding solos by Mackinley Brown with ‘Lost in the Wilderness’ from Stephen Schwartz’s Children of Eden, Oliver Clisdell’s ‘Macavity’ from CATS, Juliette Milne singing ‘Greenfinch and Linnet Bird’ from Sweeney Todd, ‘Don’t Rain on My Parade’ from Funny Girl, sung by Eliza Vine, and a wonderful comic turn by Charlotte Page, Izzi Kratz and Mackinley Brown doing ‘A Musical’ from Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick’s Something Rotten!

Pop songs were fused and harmonised in a meld of ‘In the Air Tonight’, ‘Jolene’ and ‘Fields of Gold’ with outstanding group work by Isabella Gaskin, Sophie Montague, Taylor Brown and Natasha Dyson. Sophie Montague’s superb vocal talents were reprised to begin the coda, ‘Being Alive’ from Stephen Sondheim’s Company – a fitting, emotional ending to the evening’s entertainment.

The international experience of joint Creative Directors, Paul Sabey, Jacqui Somerville and Megan Shorey is clear as they gave this presentation a polished edge with a focused view on entertaining the audience with a choice of diverse, worldclass pieces. Credit must also go to Musical Director and Pianist, Heidi Loveland, and Choreographer, Dan Venz, for helping to create a satisfying and fast-moving entertainment piece. The quality of this showcase reflected the university’s move in August this year to become a Queensland Academy of Excellence in Musical Theatre. The course’s partnership with QPAC and support by producers Michael Cassel and John Frost, composers Stephen Schwartz and Claude-Michel Schönberg, and legendary performer Dame Judi Dench will see the musical theatre students work more closely with industry expertise, which means that these showcases will continue to be must-see viewing for all fans of high-quality and entertaining theatre.

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Beth Keehn

Photographer: Kenn Santos @ PIF Productions