Schools on Stage

Popstars! The 90s Musical

It's boy band vs girl band in this hilarious musical from the writing team that brought you the previous Xavier production, Back to the ‘80s.

Popstars is packed with smash hits from the hyper-coloured 1990s by artists such as The Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, MC Hammer and many more.

It's set in a school in the 1990s where Mark (Lennox Broadley) is head over heels in love with his girlfriend, Queen Bee, Shannon Van de Witt (Evie Sargent).

Mary Poppins Jr

By Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman and additional music and lyrics by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, and a book by Julian Fellowes. Bel Canto. Directed by Blake Jenkins. Old Mill Theatre, South Perth WA. May 31 - Jun 3, 2024

Disney Pixar Finding Nemo Kids

By Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Robert Lopez, Lindsay Anderson and Myrna Conn. Western Theatrics, Directed by Peregrine Carr. Koorliny Arts Centre, Kwinana, WA. May 23-26, 2024

Finding Nemo Kids is a youth theatre production from relatively new theatre group Western Theatrics. Presented by a dynamic young cast, it is running for a short season at Koorliny Arts Centre, sharing a performance season with sibling production Legally Blonde Jr.

Training Up in Tech

Does your school or community group have students or volunteers who are interested in working backstage?

Outlook, one of Victoria’s leading audio and full production companies, is putting out the welcome mat. 

Outlook is offering an opportunity for students, who don’t want to be on stage, to train alongside some of Melbourne’s best radio mic technicians or be mentored in mixing sound front of house.

Outlook is one of the only companies that allows such involvement.

Brainstorming For a Better Future

Clinical psychologist Dr Ameika Johnson explains how live theatre can help young people tackle online exploitation and bullying.

The internet is a complex and rapidly changing space. Technologies like artificial intelligence, augmented reality and the metaverse have the potential for great benefit but also carry the risk of great harm, for children and young people.

Live theatre provides a platform to explore these opportunities and challenges and empower students to take positive action in the digital world.

How To Write An Opera

Students across Australia can access an on-line program that teaches them how to write, compose, orchestrate and design their very own opera. The Victorian Opera’s Tim Ryan describes how the Beyond the Stage program brings the creativity of opera to classrooms.

I came across Beyond the Stage as a VCE Music and Drama teacher, trawling the internet for engaging resources during the dreaded COVID-19 lockdowns of 2021.

Mentally Sound

Image: Gundagai Public School hosted Cristian and Mark from the Backflips Against Bullying

Samwise Holmes from Action Education explains how one-hour shows help high school and primary school students navigate bullying and mental health.  

When we launched Backflips Against Bullying at the beginning of 2019, in New South Wales, it exploded with popularity, and we were completely floored.

All-Stars' Dot and the Kangaroo Triumph

Australian and New Zealand school students have won a special award at the Junior Theatre Festival in the United States.

Each year, the “Aussie All-Stars” and the “Kiwi All-Stars” take part in a program that includes Broadway musicals, workshops and a performance of their Broadway junior production after an intensive four-day rehearsal.

The Digital Stage

Tools that were once the preserve of professional theatres with substantial budgets are now available to educators and students alike

Director’s Diary – Little Women

Emmaus College took out five awards at the Music Theatre Guild of Victoria Bruce Awards for its production of the musical Little Women.  The director, Elise Cavallo, describes the unique staging and choreography which made the production a success.