Stage Briefs

Storeyboard Entertainment have announced that Bert and Patti Newton will join the cast of FOLLIES IN CONCERT.

Bert and Patti will play the roles ofTheodore and Emily Whitman, ex-vaudevillians who perform an old routine from their days in the “follies” ("The Rain on the Roof").

Tim Roseman, Artistic Director of Playwriting Australia, and Perpetual as Trustee, today announced Chris Summers as winner of the $30,000 Max Afford Playwrights’ Award 2016, awarded to playwrights aged between 18 and 40. The national prize is for Mr Summers’ script, Pedagogy.

Chris, 27, receives $15,000 prize money plus a creative development opportunity at Playwriting Australia’s forthcoming National Script Workshop in April in Sydney valued at $15,000.

Don Battye’s death in the Philippines on 28th February 2016 closed the chapter on the longest running collaboration in Australian musical theatre history. When Battye met composer and lyricist Peter Pinne in 1960 who knew it was the beginning of a prolific musical writing team that would be at one time called “Australia’s answer to Rodgers and Hammerstein.”

Following the recent announcement that FOLLIES IN CONCERT will be performed for three performances only in May, exclusive to Melbourne and starring David Hobson (Buddy), Lisa McCune (Sally) and Nancye Hayes (Hattie), further casting for this all-star theatrical event has been announced today.

Adding to the already announced cast are Philip Quast (Ben), Anne Wood (Phyllis), Debra Byrne (Carlotta), Cheryl Barker (Heidi), & David Rogers Smith (Roscoe).