Reviews

Slick, powerful, purifying and redemptive, Perpetual Frustration Machine is a spirited energizing show that has been superbly crafted by Zebastian Hunter with playwright Stephen Sewell, sound designer Ian Moorhead and associate director Benjamin Sheen. 

The set (Stephanie Howe) is shiny black with glowing wires falling from a basic grid or circus rig.

Be More Chill, a new musical by Joe Iconis and Joe Tracz, is a high energy show full of punchy musical numbers, with a modern but moving script and lyrics. Performed earlier this year by MMS at The Black Box Theatre as the Australian Premiere production, this production is the return season on the larger stage at the Star of The Sea Theatre.

The plot features student Jeremy Heere, an unpopular nerd as seen by other students, aching to be popular and wanting to win the heart of Christine Canigula.

Dickensian London is brought vibrantly to life in Shake and Stir’s clever and inventive production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Josh McIntosh’s design with its grey alleyways and streets shrouded in fog is marvellously evocative of the period, and with state-of-the-art video projections by Craig Wilkinson, music by on-stage musician Salliana Campbell, and a top-flight ensemble cast, the story of Ebenezer Scrooge finding redemption has hit written all over it.

With the burgeoning arts community on the Central Coast still steadily ablaze, yet another new company has lit its spark in one of the more under-appreciated facets of the industry.

Outlaw Opera is the brainchild of American born Christina Henson – a Julliard trained singer and vocal coach and she has pulled together an amazing array of talent including Opera Australia’s Caleb Son, Ashlee Woodgate from New York’s National Opera Center and the captivating Livia Brash, whose Lady Macbeth was a highlight of the evening.