Reviews

Come From Away

Book, Music & Lyrics: Irene Sankoff & David Hein. Director: Christopher Ashley. Musical Director: Luke Hunter. Musical Staging: Kelly Devine. Junkyard Productions & Rodney Rigby Production. Lyric Theatre, QPAC. From 28 March, 2021.

Come From Away has finally made it to Brisbane and the production that was on display last night is a carbon copy of the Broadway original. Directed by Christopher Ashley, who directed it on Broadway, its honorable intentions and feel-good vibe, not to mention the occasional moist-eye, should see it do similar business to that in Melbourne, where it broke the box-office record at the Comedy Theatre.

Into the Woods

By Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine. WAAPA Third Year Music Theatre. Directed by Nicole Stinton. Studio Underground, State Theatre Centre of WA. Mar 26-31, 2021

WAAPA Third Year Music Theatre students feature in this unconventional retelling of Sondheim and Lapine’s Into the Woods, playing in the Studio Underground, in the State Theatre Centre. With most production and design elements by current WAAPA students, and the majority of the orchestra WAAPA music students, this is a chance to see the talents of students from many areas of the academy in a more public setting.

Caucasian Chalk Circle

By Bertolt Brecht - translated by Alistair Beaton. WAAPA Third Year Performance Making students. Directed by Emily McLean. The Enright Studio, WAAPA, Edith Cowan University, Mt Lawley, WA. Mar 25-31, 2021

The Caucasian Chalk Circle is an often studied, and consequently an often detested work, but this production, performed by WAAPA’s Third Year Performance Making students is a dynamic, beautifully cohesive and sensitively performed incarnation, that charms its (too small) audience and is simply the best version of this play I have ever seen (and I have seen it many, many times).

In Her Eyes

Indefinite Dance Company. Meat Market, North Melbourne. March 27 & 28, 2021.

In Her Eyes is an explorative new dance show by the all-female youth company Indefinite Dance Company, choreographed by the founder Casey Chellew and featuring choreographer Freya List in ‘Unravel’ in the closing of Act One.

Colour-Fool

Directed and choreographed by Yumi Umiumare and performed in conjunction with ButohOUT 2021! Ensemble. Dancehouse, Carlton, Vic. 25-28 March, 2021.

Colour-Fool is a bold theatrical experiment which explores the confusion and anxiety that characterises the new normal in a global pandemic context. Yumi Umiumare orchestrates an environment which is everything but normal and this a recurrent thread throughout the entire performance. It quickly becomes clear to expect the unexpected. 

Margaret Fulton The Musical

Book and Lyrics by Doug MacLeod. Music by Yuri Wonrontschak. Directed by Aarne Neeme. Jally Entertainment. The Q, Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre. 23 – 27 March 2021 and touring

Margaret Fulton, Australia’s original domestic goddess, broadened stodgy Western recipes in the 1960s and 70s by introducing an international influence simple enough to appeal to the least skilled bachelor and interesting enough to whet the appetite of the most practiced home cook. Based on her autobiography, Margaret Fulton The Musical celebrates the lady and her life. ThIs musical, infused with the colours, sounds and flavours of mid-century Australia and London, capture Margaret’s character and how she changed what we ate.

La Traviata

Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour. Opera Australia. Director: Constantine Costi. Conductor: Brian Castles-Onion. March 26th to April 25th 2021.

After a week of torrential rain, Sydney sparkles for the opening night of Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata … on the harbour! With the Opera House and the city skyline shining through a clear, balmy night, it seems impossible to believe that only three days ago the city cowered under torrential rain – and flood waters surged throughout the state.

Stop Girl

By Sally Sara. Directed by Anne-Louise Sarks. Belvoir. Upstairs Theatre. March 20 – April 25, 2021

Image: Sheridan Harbridge

In the year 2000, the ABC sent two young reporters to Indonesia to cut their teeth as the second in charge reporter in the Jakarta Bureau.

One was Sally Sara – who went on to become a celebrated foreign correspondent and now an accomplished playwright. The other was myself.

Scout Boxall: Good Egg

Written & performed by Scout Boxall. Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Trades Hall, Quilt Room. 25 March – 4 April 2021

As we enter, Scout Boxall, dressed as a fried egg, dances in faux awkward style.  You have to be good to get a laugh out of bad. Boxall knows, and deliberately sets a self-conscious faux awkward tone.

Hard Rock Café 25th Anniversary

Featuring Thirsty Merc, Shannon Noll and the Hard Rock Heroes. Hard Rock Café, Surfers Paradise. 22 March 2021

Ever since entrepreneur Jim Cavill built his Surfers Paradise Hotel in the 1920s, the corner of Cavill and Orchid Avenues has been the beating heart of live entertainment on Queensland’s Gold Coast. And after a lonely year in lockdown, live music is back on the road, and performing at that famous corner – now the Hard Rock Café. This venue celebrated its 25th anniversary on 22 March.

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