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).