Reviews

Irine Vela, Artistic Director of Outer Urban Projects, works with young rappers, singers and beat boxers in the outer suburbs of northern Melbourne.  She remembered a play from Greek antiquity, The Frogs by Aristophanes.  It gave her an idea.  In The Frogs, Dionysus, as Ms Vela puts it in her program note, is ‘frustrated with the diminishing community spirit, culture and literature of Athens and decides to undertake a journey to the Underworld to find [poet and dramatist] Euripides… to bring him back life with the hope that his words can inspire

WAAPA’s Third Year Acting Students present Noël Coward's Present Laughter, in a gorgeous looking, charming production, that is clever and engaging.

Kelly Fragon has designed an attractive pre-war set that is lavish and luxurious, with beautiful attention to detail. Costuming (a team led by Katy Rasaiah and J. Orman) perfectly sets the era, and we are transported to 1939 to a world that is somehow devoid of rising war concerns and tensions - a world that probably never existed - escapist and elite.

The Western Australian Academy of Performing Art’s annual ‘big’ musical at The Regal Theatre is many people’s only contact with WAAPA students before they graduate. This very impressive, very tight production of 42nd Street showcases WAAPA talents beautifully, and is a wonderful public relations exercise as well as being a top-notch production.

The Athenaeum is the perfect Theatre for this brilliantly staged work.   All production values are in place to facilitate suspension of disbelief and immersion in the creepy ‘old world fear’ of a ghostly apparition.   The marvelous picture book set by John Kerr with lots of quirks and illusions is really the fourth character of this stunningly eerie production.