Reviews

Presented annually for the past four years, Queensland Ballet’s The Nutcracker has been so phenomenally successful that this year they’ve had to move the production to a bigger venue to accommodate the demand for tickets. Notwithstanding this production also saw the return to the stage for the first time in 18 years of Queensland Ballet’s artistic director Li Cunxin as Dr Drosselmeyer, a one-time only performance on 10 December that was sold-out within one hour of the tickets going on sale.

Independent theatre is booming in Melbourne and new kids on the block The Baker’s Dozen Theatre Company are forging ahead. A team of graduate actors from the Ballarat Arts Academy who got together at the end of 2013, have been consistently and tirelessly producing theatre that challenges and provoke audiences. Self-funded, with collaborative eclectic tastes, they consistently excel, producing classical and contemporary works. The Hitmen is no exception, a current piece of homegrown theatre by Mish Wittrup.

This youth work offers much to a big crew of emerging and developing theatre makers and their audiences.  Although all aspects may not be fully formed or acutely realized, as an ambitious conceptual piece brought to production, it is inspirational and inspiring.

The backbone of this production was a spectacular projected animation, which used large moving LED screens trucked across the stage, taking the audience on a kaleidoscope around Oz. The images ranged from the inside of a clock to a hurricane. All were especially vivid due to the intimate seating of the Glen Street Theatre.

The entire multi-media – which must have taken hundreds of hours to program - was custom made by the lighting/set designer Matt Osborne under the talented direction of Declan Moore.