Ghostlight, Choir In The Pub and Busker’s Alley
Ghostlight
Theatre Tour. Australian Musical Theatre Festival. Host: Stuart Loone. Musical Director: Amanda Hodder. Day 2. May 22, 2025.
The ‘Ghostlight’ tour treats the audience not only to a tour of the glorious Princess Theatre, featuring fascinating commentary about the rather eccentric history of the architecture, but also presents a series of fabulous live performances (some of which were spooky). It’s fair to say that this is not your average ‘tour’. Talented performers popped out of the woodwork at every turn. And just to spoil us all rotten at the end, we were given a mini concert - by lamplight - finishing with an unexpected cameo by Mark Vincent, singing “Music of the Night”.
The other-worldly and timeless vibe captured in this tour has to be experienced to be fully appreciated.
The Princess Theatre has a fascinating history and, with major renovations slated for next year, it has an exciting future ahead.
Choir In The Pub
Australian Musical Theatre Festival. The Royal Oak Hotel. Day 2. May 22, 2025.
If you’ve attended, or caught any of the large scale “Pub Choir” performances on social media in recent years - you'd know that a Pub Choir is a great a chance for every shower singer and karaoke addict to experience a truly democratised, satisfying, yet ephemeral experience of being in a room full of fellow music lovers - to belt out (usually contemporary pop) songs - in up to four-part harmony.
The AMTF experience, while scaled down significantly, is still a blast; especially because we’re talking Show Tunes! It's also FREE. Choir Master was the affable, diplomatic and very patient Travis Hennessy. To everyone’s great delight, the chosen song was ‘Seasons of Love’ from Rent. With only an hour to knock our harmonies into shape - we did pretty darn well, which is a testament to Travis’ mad skills. However - and this is just a minor nitpick - it would have sounded even better if he had a female offsider to help the women navigate the octave jump required to differentiate them from the Tenor line, as taught by Trevor. We’re just a bunch of amateurs after all. Small nitpick. Nevertheless, amid all the chaos there was still so much love in the room.
Busker’s Alley, Parts 1 And 2.
The Australian Musical Theatre Festival. Day 4, May 24, 2025.
Rain overnight unfortunately forced a last-minute change of venue from the historic Dicky White’s Lane to the far less atmospheric “Legacy Hall” in Launceston. It’s basically just a big room, but this did not dampen the enthusiasm of the fabulous, multi-talented ‘Hobartian’ MC, Rod Anderson. He really set the scene with his charming intro, followed by a nice little song and dance. Soon, all inconveniences were forgotten as he kept the assembled crowd enthralled with a well-written and highly informative narrative.
The original ‘lane’ option was meant to keep the crowd moving in a linear fashion, with a succession of pop-up performances appearing throughout. This indoor option forced everyone to be pretty much herded - cattle-like - to alternately face different walls and corners of the hall…or the centre; or face the accessibility ramp - for each individual performance. But thanks to Rod’s fascinating tales of memorable Broadway shows over the decades, the attendees were too spellbound to care about the cramped setting.
With marvellous performances from the best and the brightest emerging artists - local and interstate, this free event was all class. There was even a fully choreographed ensemble performance of “Big Spender” and a belting ensemble rendition of ‘The Tale of Sweeney Todd’ among the many highlights. Big props to the fabulous assistant who moved (ran) the blue-tooth speaker from place to place, as well as the source for the backing tracks. At times it felt like there was an actual piano in the space.
Ditto was the case for…
Part 2 - Australian Edition
As full as the Festival program already is, Tyran Parke in his crazy wisdom decided to throw in an extra Busker’s Alley this year, just for fun. However, I’m not sure he expected such a strong attendance. But that’s what you get when you whet the crowd’s appetite for impressive free entertainment beforehand; they're gonna want more.
Consequently, the hallways of the Grand Chancellor proved to be a little too cramped for some of the numbers. Not that anyone cared, really.
The thing is - the beauty of beginning this show at the Grand Chancellor and then ending up in the foyer of the Princess Theatre (100 or so metres away) is that it was timed to perfection to finish mere minutes before Tyran’s interview with Nancye Hayes at the Earl Theatre, only 50 metres away. It was the most seamless of transitions and resulted in an absolutely packed audience for Nancye.
Anyway, back to the buskers…Tyran’s running commentary regarding the history of Australian productions was equally as informative as Part 1. I confess I haven’t seen nearly enough original Australian productions, so I really enjoyed hearing several songs for the first time - rendered brilliantly yet again by the Festival’s ubiquitous troupe of modern-day troubadours.
One song that I did recognise was ‘Run’ from the unforgettable Shane Warne, The Musical.
Because I’m super cultured and that.
Again, the blue-tooth speaker wrangler was on top of it all. All in all - a great day’s entertainment and education.
It feels wrong to single any performers out in this format. These up close and personal performances, presented outside the comfort of a theatre setting, take loads of courage to do. But stripped down, raw, acoustic performances, taking place in weird and wonderful settings provide a great training ground for these stars of the future. They all did themselves and the organisers proud.
When all is said and done - and big names aside - it’s these free street performances that represent what the festival is all about. It’s about encouraging and nourishing emerging artists and it’s also about literally bringing the magic of Music Theatre to the people.
Busker’s Alley has become an institution within the festival. Who knows how many they’ll have next year, and where they will pop up and who will be among the next troupe of Festival stars?
Word to the wise (young performers), start working on your audition now, and it might even be you.
Rose Cooper
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