MIDDLE RAGED - A Musical Meltdown

 

Middle Raged– A  MusicalMeltdown. 

Co-written and produced by Queenie Van De Zandt and Tiffany Noack. Directed by Priscilla Jackman. Musical Director Robyn Womersley. Choreographer Sally Dashwood. Set, Costume and Properties Designer Isabel Hudson. Lighting Designer Trudy Dalgleish. Multi-Media Artist. Mark Bolotin. Songwriters Gillian Cosgriff and Laura Murphy. Set Cartoons Kaz Cooke. Arranger Mark Jones. Sound Designer Paul Charlier. Production Managers Richard Dinnen and Rinko Imashimizu. Stage Manager Chelsea Albanesi. Audio Technician Siiri Metsar. Lighting and AV Technician Declan O’Neill. Produced by Women in the Pocket and Andrew Kay and Associates. The Playhouse. Canberra Theatre Centre. July 8-11 2026

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

 

The cast of Middle Raged - A Musical Meltdown 
Carita Farrer Spencer, Valerie Bader, Zuleika Khan
and Queenie Van De Zandt.

The power of pink floods Isabel Hudson’s eye-catching design on the Playhouse stage. It illuminates Musical Director Robin Womersley on keyboard, Sandy Klose or Tina Harris on bass and Jillian O’Dowd on drums as they welcome the audience to their seats. Middle Raged – A Musical Meltdown is a smash hit celebration of womanhood, a salute to feminism, a tribute to every woman who has experienced or is about to chart her way through menopause. What makes Queenie Van De Zandt and Tiffany Noack’s such an absorbing, illuminating and uplifting theatrical powerhouse of a musical is its account of hundreds of interviews of women across the country. No example is left unturned to reveal the trials, the heartaches and the countless symptoms of a condition that has too often defined and disempowered women. But it is something that the brilliant cast and creatives of Middle Raged-A Musical Meltdown are about to set right and prove that the view from over the hill is spectacular. The cast of Van De Zandt, Valerie Bader, Zuleika Khan and Carita Farrer Spencer know what it is to live with the hot flushes, the dryness, the brain fog, the aching joints and the hundred or more afflictions known as The Change.

 

Four friends ignored by a young waiter in the restaurant

Middle Raged- A Musical Meltdown is not the show to bemoan one’s sorry state. Quite the opposite. It is here to lead audiences, men and women, to the other side of the hill; to rouse them with songs by songwriters such as Missy Higgins, Tim Minchin, Gillian Cosgriff, Laura Murphy, Sia and Pink (naturally!), to split their sides with those confusing moments of forgetfulness, to fill the heart with compassion and the mind with understanding. The mission is clear in the lively, loud and proud opening sing-along number, Time To Celebrate and unleash “the conscious liberation of the female state” with a filmed account of the lot of women through the ages. It is time to make a stand with a new musical that is informative, hilarious, touching and thought provoking.

Stories in photos from around the nation

Director Priscilla Jackman brings her customary pizzazz to this heartwarming new musical. Every scene is a jewel in the crown of women’s affirmation. Valerie Bader and Zuleika Khan give a Roy and HG take on commentating the rollercoaster Menopause Marathon, a gruelling obstacle course through the debilitating symptoms of the condition. Brain fog confounds Queenie Ashton and Carita Farrer Spencer as they desperately try to remember the name of that actor in that film about something. We laugh uproariously at something we know too well. Laughter turns to empathy as Spencer recounts the agony of an Emergency Room wait to cope with the care of an aging parent or an injured son. Khan’s account of sexual need strikes the recognizable chord of failed communication.

 

Middle Raged- A Musical MeltDown is a clarion call for action as they sing Sisters Are Doing It for Themselves (Aretha Franklin and Annie Lennox) and P!nk’s What About Us! Van De Zandt and Noack’s new musical hit a high note at its premiere performance in musical theatre icon Van De Zandt ‘s home- town before a largely female matinee audience. It is not surprising to see the man next to me craning forward with intense interest or a woman behind me repeatedly calling out Amen! or the entire audience leaping to their feet with rapturous applause. This is a musical that not only sets the Bird Free (Sia) but gives it the wings to take flight. It is a new Australian musical that every man and woman need to see.

Photos by Philip Erbacher

Middle Raged – A Melt Down Musical  -  Song List

Holiday (Madonna); Sisters Are Doing It for Themselves (Aretha Franklin & Annie Lennox); What's Up (4 Non Blondes); Wannabe (Spice Girls); What About Us (P!nk); The Second Act (MissyHiggins); The To-Do List (Gillian Cosgriff, Queenie van de Zandt & Tiffany Noack); Edge of Something (Missy Higgins); Herstory (Laura Murphy, Queenie van de Zandt & Tiffany Noack); Carry You (Tim Minchin); Bird Set Free (Sia).

 

 

 

 

MIDDLE RAGED

 

Written by Queenie van de Zandt and Tiffany Noack. Directed by Priscilla Jackman. Musical director Robyn Womersley. Canberra Theatre. Canberra Theatre Centre. July 8-11.

Middle Raged is boisterous, insightful and just plain fun as it barrels its way through the perils of an age in women’s lives that used to be spoken about in whispers, if at all.

It’s a mixture of sketches, narrative and some powerful singing, especially from Queenie van de Zandt and Zuleika Khan. They and Carita Farrer Spencer and Valerie Bader combine to share some sharp observations on the particular knowledge of what time does to a woman, something that history has often been at pains to repress or ignore or misunderstand.

Queenie van de Zandt, Valerie Bader, Zuleika Khan and Carita Farrer Spencer

A somewhat delightfully truculent band up the back (Robyn Womersley, Sandy Klose and Jillian O’Dowd)  pushes things along musically.

The stories and jokes are pulled out of research which asked women to send in their experiences of mid life and menopause. Projected quotations and cartoonist Kaz Cooke’s quirky cartoon figures turn up on the set (design by Isabel Hudson) which is happily reminiscent of an old fashioned women’s TV programme and which is lit cheerfully and appropriately by Trudy Dalgleish.

It’s not altogether clear what seedy male sports commentators Mark (Khan) and Brian (Bader) are doing there but the actors have some fun with the stereotypes.

The audience response to the show is predominately about taking joy in middle aged female experience becoming visible.

Middle Raged doesn’t dig too deep but it does speak out loud. It’s celebratory, rather than analytical, but it ought to provoke thought.

 

Alanna Maclean

Middle Raged: A Musical Meltdown

A Women With Pockets Production
The Playhouse, Until July 11.
Reviewed by SAMARA PURNELL.

Not one thing on the list of “47 symptoms of menopause” looks funny: Extreme fatigue, flooding, insomnia, restless legs, brain fog, bloating, hot flushes and sweating, and for the ironic kicker - dryness of just about every other body part. Add to that unplanned pregnancies, loss of fertility and trying to maintain family relationships in a carer’s role. Yet with perimenopause being the buzz-word of the day, women are discussing it in pubs, coffee catchups and furiously sending memes to each other and now a new, original comedy is touring through Canberra.

A post-Covid 50th birthday party conversation about middle age and menopause was the catalyst for Queenie van de Zandt and Tiffany Noack to write a show about that and Middle Raged - A Musical Meltdown was born, directed by Priscilla Jackman.

A three-piece, female band (Jillian O’Dowd on drums, Sandy Klose on bass, Robyn Womersley, as the musical director, on keyboard) are clad in pink satin suits and positioned on stage, entertaining the audience as they settle in. The band maintained an upbeat pace, providing subtle backing vocals and an understated, enjoyable presence on stage and there was a well-balanced sound level between it and the actors throughout, although a few times the mic switching was a fraction late. 

 

Middle Raged unfolds in vignettes as four friends, portrayed by van de Zandt, Valerie Bader, Carita Farrer Spencer and Zuleika Khan, meet for lunch, a day spa and a session of painting and pinot, calling to mind the recent series “And Just Like That…” - the latest installment of Sex and the City.

Queenie van de Zandt, Valerie Bader , Zuleika Khan, Carita Farrer Spencer. Photo by Philip Erbacher 

Bader plays Judy, the older friend who is on the other side of menopause, and with a renewed sense of serenity suggests that the future may in fact be bright and offers suggestions to her girlfriends as to how to reframe menopausal concerns. Khan (Karen) is in perimenopause and the other friends are in the thick of menopause. The show was created from interviews and input from hundreds of middle-aged women - sometimes intentionally funny, at others heartbreakingly sad. 

Realistically, this show is not just about menopause, but the experience of women in that age range - of life management, of identity of self, within a family and in society, and of feeling invisible.

Middle Raged is laugh-out-loud funny. While it refreshingly abstains from man-bashing, it does take the audience on a brief history through menopause - written by men and “mansplained” and sees several instalments of male broadcasters commentating the cleverly-devised “Menopause Marathon”. This train-wreck of an event was endearingly hilarious but brutally accurate.

The heart-wrenching account of becoming an empty-nester, whilst dealing with the declining health and death of parents, had the audience audibly in tears. And the description of mis-matched sex drives and the age-old problem of lack of communication within a marriage and an affair, elicited sympathy for all involved. 

The show’s opening of well-known pop songs under the guise of a karaoke night with the girls gave way to lesser-known songs for the solos, where Khan’s rendition of Missy Higgins’ Second Act packed a punch and van de Zandt’s powerhouse vocals were on display in the emotional Edge of Something.

Queenie van de Zandt and cast. Photo by Philip Erbacher 

The musical and comedy highlight was a group number on the historical portrayal of women through the arts. In the framework of Chicago’s Cell Block Tango and the musicals Six and & Juliet, The Mona Lisa, Elizabeth Bennett, Lady Macbeth and Cio Cio San are given life after art, delivered in an array of musical styles. The lyrics are witty, impeccably delivered and the props and staging were appealing. So too was the low-key choreography by Sally Dashwood, which was minimal, entertaining and tightly delivered throughout.

The animated Kaz Cooke inspired graphics and media production by Mark Bolotin is used to wonderful effect, from train-of-thought bubbles popping mid-sentence, floating lists and bossy fairies.

Isabel Hudsen’s costume design had all the women in pantsuits. Given the list of potential bodily functions, satin seemed a surprising choice of fabric. Despite suffering many symptoms of menopause, the characters all appeared remarkably well-groomed and rested, with not a sign of hair loss to be seen. 

Middle Raged was very much a bonding experience with the actors addressing the audience directly for large parts of the show. Photos are permitted and people can submit their own photos for possible use during the production. Singing along to the pop songs is encouraged and throughout the show, there is continual audible and enthusiastic agreement to the scenarios discussed and the symptoms mentioned and the shit-show that is organizing a functional home care package.  

Middle Raged kept it light for the most part. It’s not crass or uncomfortable. The show had a vague ending, with a shoutout to anyone not specifically in the menopause demographic. The performance was given a standing ovation and sparked a sense of sisterhood and community. Perhaps that warm feeling many described upon leaving the theatre, a little less raged and full of animated discussion, was the sign of an enjoyable show. Or it could just be the next hot flush. 

An edited version of this review appears in CityNews

MIDDLE RAGED, A MUSICAL MELTDOWN

 

Written by Queenie van de Zandt and Tiffany Noack

Directed by Priscilla Jackman

Produced by Women with Pockets and Andrew Kay & Associates

The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre to 11 July

 

Reviewed by Len Power 9 July 2026

 

Part comedy, part concert and part midlife awakening, Middle Raged celebrates the good and the bad aspects of that time when women hit midlife. It’s raw and doesn’t pull any punches but it’s also fiercely funny as four women share personal experiences during an ultimate night out together.

Created from hundreds of comments collected from women across Australia about this important time in their lives, the show shines a wide spotlight on the riotous chaos of aging, raging and changing. The clever, witty script is by Queenie van de Zandt and Tiffany Noack. While there’s plenty of rage, there’s also a surprising and feel-good optimism in the show.

Queenie van de Zandt, Valerie Bader, Zuleika Khan and Carita Farrer Spencer

The cast of four - Valerie Bader, Carita Farrer Spencer, Zuleika Khan and Queenie van de Zandt – give highly polished and individually appealing performances that range from high comedy to intense drama.

All are fine singers, too, performing relevant songs by Missy Higgins, Gillian Cosgriff, Laura Murphy, Tim Minchin, Sia and P!nk. They are supported by an excellent onstage band comprising Jillian O’Dowd on drums, Sandy Klose on bass and Robyn Womersley on keyboard.

Queenie van de Zandt and the cast

There is an impressive and colourful production design by Isabel Hudson and a clever use of multimedia designed with flair by Mark Bolotin. The striking lighting design by Trudy Dalgleish adds a fine atmosphere to the show.

This fast-paced production, performed without interval, works very well. Director, Priscilla Jackman, has ensured that all the elements of this highly imaginative show come together, giving the audience an explosive entertainment.

For proof that middle age and menopause can still be hugely entertaining, look no further than this delightful show.

 

Photos by Philip Erbacher

Len Power's reviews are also broadcast on Artsound FM 92.7 in the ‘Arts Cafe’ and ‘Arts About’ programs and published in his blog 'Just Power Writing' at https://justpowerwriting.blogspot.com/.

 

Middle Raged - A Musical Meltdown

 

Middle Raged – A Musical Meldown by Queenie van de Zandt and Tiffany Noack
Canbera Theatre Centre – The Playhouse.  July 9, 10 7pm; July 11, 3pm 2026

Reviewed by Frank McKone, July 9

The Cast
Queenie van de Zandt; Valerie Bader 
Carita Farrer Spencer; Zuleika Khan

The Creatives
Co-Writers & Producers: Queenie van de Zandt and Tiffany Noack
Director: Priscilla Jackman
Musical Director: Robyn Womersley
Choreographer: Sally Dashwood
Set & Costume Designer: Isabel Hudson
Additional material and musical numbers: Laura Murphy

With an all-female live band, the performance weaves together skits, poetry, monologues, and iconic songs from artists like Missy Higgins, Sia, P!nk, and Tim Minchin.

This is a terrifically well written, well played and well sung highly amusing presentation, derived from a large number of interviews with women experiencing menopause.

In addition to being thoroughly engaging and entertaining, it is seriously educational, not only for young women to learn what to expect, usually in their fifties, but to encourage those in the throes of hot flushes, emotional turmoil, and often depression to know that there is a life for them, often of greater freedom from conventional strictures, in their later lives: demonstrated by these very women on stage.  

Grandmothers are very often essential for holding families together.

Taking a comic approach, with claps and cheers at many of the songs and dance routines, enhances the depth and sense of importance of the issues women face, not only from the changes in bodily functions, but even more from the failure of men to treat women with respect and proper recognition of what women go through – and what they do for everybody else.

Definitely not to be missed – by women and girls, and as much by men and boys.  

I am biassed on this last point, having had to take female hormone to reduce the chance of my prostate cancer growing back again.  For women, menopause means an imbalance of and a degree of loss of the female hormone against the male hormone, testosterone.  

In men, the testosterone is the energy source for growing prostate cancer.  Female hormone treatment – a monthly injection – causes me to experience the same ‘hot flushes’ that menopausal women experience; and I may need to continue – on a three monthly injection basis – for the rest of my life.

However, as Middle Raged concludes, life goes on – so I am still writing reviews at my ripe old age of 85.  

And after tonight I understand so much more from these four women: making me – I mean this very seriously – a more respectful man.

Middle Raged – A Musical Meltdown is creative, real-life theatre at it best.

 

 

 

 

GIA OPHELIA

 

Gia Ophelia by Grace Wilson.

Directed and produced by Jo Bradley. Performer Annie Stafford. Sound Design and Composer: Otto Zagala. Lighting Design: Holly Nesbitt. Costume Design: Geita Goarin. Set Design Jo Bradley. Production Stage Manager: Rhiley Winnett. Assistant Producer: Laila Chesterman. JB Theatre Company. Associate Producers: Canberra Youth Theatre. Photographer Philip Erbacher. Courtyard Theatre. Canberra Theatre Centre. July 8-11 2026. Bookings: Canberra Ticketing on 6275 2700

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

Annie Stafford is Gia in Gia Ophelia

Grace Wilson’s Gia Ophelia is an actor’s confessional, revealing the most intimate, soul-searching aspirations of one actor’s life and passion.  It is 13 years since Gia played Ophelia in a school production. Nobody came, and now at 29 she is longing to play the part and reveal to audiences Shakespeare’s true intent in the creation of this tragic heroine.  Playwright Wilson paints a funny, raw and intensely moving portrait of a woman, obsessed by the role of Ophelia and torn between the dream of a career in theatre and the expectations to be a wife and mother forced on her by her partner Dan’s family and Dan himself.  Gia’s chance to escape the life of a waitress comes with the opportunity to take part in a training residency, culminating in a performance of Hamlet. It is the perfect opportunity to finally play the role she has longed for.

Gia Ophelia is a triumph for the writer, director and performer of JB Theatre Company. Wilson imbues the text with the authentic awareness of someone who has experienced the highs and lows of seeking to make a career in the industry. It is real, depicting a woman torn between hope and despair. Comedy and tragedy, those two faces of drama, interconnect in a one woman play that has the audience laughing at the absurd drama exercises at the training residency and then feeling the aching pain of rejection when Gia’s world collapses around her. Wilson’s writing reflects the rewards that come with a close relationship between writer and director. Director and former member of Canberra Youth Theatre, Jo Bradley intuitively captures Gia’s turmoil, carefully orchestrating performer Annie Stafford’s physical and emotional response to her changing circumstance. Following on from a highly successful and sold-out season at the 2025 Sydney Fringe Festival the production is tightly directed by Bradley, while eliciting a fresh spontaneity from Stafford’s performance in the Courtyard Studio of the Canberra Theatre Centre.

As Gia, Stafford gives a remarkable performance traversing the difficult emotional terrain of a woman obsessed, buoyed by hoped, dashed by disillusion, tormented by choice, possessed of a secret that threatens to destroy her stability and burdened with the expectations that can’t be met and the sacrifice and loss that that entails. Only the final scene of the 80-minute monologue appears drawn out as the play draws to a heart wrenching conclusion, with Gia cradling a rolled-up blanket in her arms as the child she knows she can never have. Wilson leaves us with no happy ending. We can only be left, like Gia, to hope that she will rise from the mattress in the basement to let the Ophelia inside her free.

What we are witnessing in JB Theatre Company’s Gia Ophelia is the emergence of three promising talents that give hope for the future of theatre in the country. If Gia Ophelia is any indication we can look forward to more outstanding work by writer Grace Wilson, director/producer Jo Bradley and actor Annie Stafford. Remember these names and the company. They have so much more to offer Australian theatre.

 

 

THE STRANGEWAYS CABARET - Merrigong Theatre Company - The B.

 

The cast of the Strangways Cabaret.

 

Director: Anne-Louise Rentell – Musical Director: Daryl Wallis

Performed by: Phillip Prentiss – Ethan Arnold – Malcolm Allison – Jordan Bowater – Ethan Green – Rachel Head – Phillip Prentice – Christian Tagliaferro – Ricky Gamble – James Carey. Guest Artists: Lulu Venom – Nixi Cola – Canberra Burlesque Academy.

Musicians: Daryl Wallis - Keys. Rob Laurie - Drums and percussion.

The B, Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre, July 4^th, 2026. Reviewed by BILL STEPHENS

Members of The Strangeway Cabaret

 

The Strangeways Cabaret has been an annual event in the Merrigong Theatre Company’s calendar since 2021. These were the company’s first performances in Queanbeyan as part of a short tour which commenced in Wollongong and also includes Bathurst.

The Strangeways Ensemble is a company of neuro-diverse actors and musicians from Wollongong, who through the Strangeways Cabarets, which through self-written songs, monologues and sketches, explores universal themes from the unique perspectives of the participants.  

The Strangeways Ensemble is Wollongong’s only professional theatre company.

In this edition, those themes focussed mainly on love. Self-love as well as romantic love, while exploring ways of being accepted as yourself.

Supported by excellent lighting and sound and directed by Anne-Louise Rentell, with the company assuming purposely bizarre characterisations, costumed individually as fantastical players, in a setting reminiscent of an underground Parisian cabaret, the performance took the form of a series of unconnected items.

Unfortunately, there were no printed programs, or other material, available to identify the players or the titles of each item, which may have assisted the audience to appreciate the intent of those items. As it was, the audience was left to make what it could of original songs for which the lyrics were not always distinct.

This was a pity because there was no doubting the passion behind the messages those songs and monologues were intended to communicate.

But missed messaging aside, the performance still left lingering memories of the elderly lady, a vision in head-to-toe pink, who carried a small hand-puppet puppy and performed counter-melody lyrics about loneliness to the tune of the Unchained Melody.  

And the enthusiastic dancer, snappily costumed in a black dinner suit topped off with white hat and shoes, who after demonstrating his prowess with Fred Astaire poses and Michael Jackson moonwalks drew gasps when he stripped away his suit to complete his act in white singlet and gold underpants.

And not forgetting the very tall gentleman dressed in a bear-suit and red-ruff collar who conjured up memories of baggy-pants comedians of Tivoli vaudeville days as he traded gags with the pink lady and gold-pants dancer; or the excellent band augmented by cast members who doubled on various instruments, and the clever drummer who contributed creepy sound-effects for the monologues, The Strangeways Cabaret certainly offered a unique theatrical experience.

 

The Strangeways Cabaret Band

 

 

                                     Photos provided by Merrigong Theatre Company