Community Theatre

Hotel Sorrento by Hannie Rayson is being performed on stage in the town of its inspiration and origin this April, for the first time since it was written and published in 1990. The story was based on the lives of three sisters who grew up in Sorrento, but the degree to which it adhered to the facts of their lives is mostly unknown.

Melbourne’s CLOC Musical Theatre is preparing to launch its 2013 season in May with a huge coup – the WORLD amateur premiere production of Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber’s legendary masterpiece The Phantom of the Opera.

BE warned: zombies will be on the loose this May – and they’re accompanied by disco music.

Pop culture, apocalypse mayhem and the decade fashion forgot come together in Maul of the Dead, a dark horror comedy presented by Phoenix Theatre and Dark Psychic Productions (WA) from May 10.

Written by Mitch Brian and directed by Jayde Clark and Shaun Griffin, the show is set in the late 1970s and embraces a treasure trove of horror film clichés as ravenous hordes descend upon an abandoned shopping mall.

British black comedy The Anniversary, opening at Javeenbah Theatre (Qld) on March 22, may mark British ex-pat Dawn China’s directorial debut for the Gold Coast company, but she has an intriguing theatrical background.

Since moving to Australia in 2004, Dawn (pictured left with twin sons Ben and Paul) has embraced her new home at Javeenbah Theatre after a life of travelling the world.

“My husband’s career took us to Indonesia, where I first discovered theatre with the Jakarta Players, a group of expatriate theatre lovers.”