SCHOOL OF ROCK THE MUSICAL

 

School of Rock THE MUSICAL. 

Based on the Paramount film written by Mike White. Book by Julian Fellowes. Lyrics by Glen Slater. Music by Andrew Lloyd-Webber. Directed by Marty King. Musical direction by Kat Tang. Choreography by Nathan Rutups.Costume designer Miriam Miley-Read. Lighting design Jacob Aquilina. Sound design Kyle Maley. Dramatic Productions. Gungahlin Theatre. October 7-22 2022. Bookings: stagecenta.com or 6253 1454

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

 

Max Gambale as Dewey Finn and the students of
Horace Green School in School of Rock  The Musical

Dramatic Production’s latest Musical Theatre offering rocks!! As productions go School of Rock THE MUSICAL is off the charts. This is largely due to the extraordinary talents of Julian Fellowes (Downton Abbey) who has written the book, lyricist Glen Slater and composer Andrew Lloyd-Webber. It is also due in very large part to an outstanding team of cast and creatives who blew audIences away and brought a full house to a spontaneous standing ovation. Managing director Richard Block has taken a bold initiative in casting two casts in principal roles , the SMALL CAST and the TALL CAST. On the night I went the TALL CAST was performing, while the SMALL CAST members took other roles.

The students of Horace Green School in  School of Rock  The Musical

The plot is simple enough. Dewey Finn (Max Gambale) has been thrown out of a band. His flatmate and former band member Ned (Bradley McDowell) and Ned’s harpie girlfriend Patti (Courtney Hayden) are demanding rent. Drastic times call for drastic measures and Dewey intercepts a job offer for Ned from the prestigious Horace Green School for privileged students. Posing as Ned, Finn discovers that his uptight class are musically talented and devises a plan to coach them in rock and enter them in the Battle of the Bands. It’s a plan fraught with danger. Not only does he have to face the scrutiny of the principal, Miss Mullins (Taylor Paliaga) but also other staff members and the parents of the children. And all this while trying not to be discovered as he carries out his unorthodox ambition.  It’s a scenario that Dramatic Productions’ company Take it to the Man in a show that explodes with Lloyd-Webber’s guitar twanging, drum crashing and keyboard thumping score under  Kat Tang’s assured musical direction, accompanied by a spirited seven piece orchestra.

Director Marty King doesn’t miss a beat, staging a fast flowing, high octane show that captures the feisty mood of pumped up rock, the sombre moment of  Finn’s plight, the sweet sentiment of Miss Mullins’s awakening and the fiery accusation of indignant parents. King is well supported by Nathan Rutup’s  imaginatively inventive choreography and Tan’s insightful musical direction of Lloy’d Webber’s easily recognizable and catchy score. Audience’s familiar with Lloyd-Webber’s canon will recognize elemens of his other popular songs. This is not a criticism but an observation that recognizes Lloyd-Webber’s  talent for turning out a popular tune. Dewey’s solo When I climb to the top of Mount Rock is a case in point.

Taylor Paliaga as Miss MUllins and Max Gambale as Dewey Funn

Central to the success of this production are the performances by Gambale, the amazing performances by the phenomenally talented young performers and the wonderfully realized characterization of the principal Miss Mullins by Paliaga. Gambale, a seasoned veteran of Musical Theatre in Canberra, is a giant of a presence on the Gungahlin Theatre stage. His command of the songs and his powerful dramatic performance are pivotal to the success of School of Rock. He emanates an energy and charisma that galvanizes excellent performances from his talented fellow artists. Taliaga’s captivating vocal range from opera to pop and her embodiment of the prim and proper head-mistress  harbouring suppressed creative talent is played to perfection.

Hollywood film comedian of the Thirties once said “Never act with children or animals.” Maybe it was because of his fear of being outshone by their energy, ebullience and truthful performances. King’s casting of every performer in this production is inspired, but none more so than the casting and direction of young performers whose joyous and authentic performances bring the house down. Each and every one sings, acts, dances and plays like a professional. Keep your eyes out for these remarkable performers. They are the brightly shining future of musical theatre on the amateur or professional stage. I kept being reminded of Tim Minchin’s Matilda the Musical with these performers as the children and Gambale as the intimidating Miss Trunchball. Maybe another year!

It would be remiss of me, as a former drama teacher, to simply comment on the wonderful direction, music, choreography, performances and set, costumes and lighting of Dramatic Productions' triumphant staging of School of Rock The Musical. The show is a lesson in pedagogy, a plea to unleash the inherent creative talent and to embrace individuality and true potential. The shackles of convention are cast aside by Dewey’s recognition of the spark that ignites the passion and the power of the creative spirit. We see conformity and expectation challenged and eventually overcome as a result of Dewey’s ignorance of conventional teaching methodology. School of Rock The Musical may offer an idealistic version of transformation by Dewey’s creative force and honesty but it is the inspiration for a production that is sure to bring audiences to their feet in rapturous applause at every performance. This is a musical theatre production not to be missed.

Photos by Janelle McMenamin

 

 

ELEMENTAL

 

Elemental .

Directed by Idris Stanbury. Warehouse Circus. The Street Theatre. October 5-8 2022

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins.

 

It is always a great pleasure to see young performers playing out their craft with commitment, enthusiasm and skill. This past week I have been vastly impressed by the quality of performance from Canberra Youth Theatre’s young ensemble in Jena Prince’s production of Kate Walder’s  Soul Trading, a cautionary sci-fi tale of a not too distant future where communication is virtually limited to between humans and their robots.

At the Street Theatre young circus performers from Warehouse Circus demonstrate their talents in juggling, acrobatics, aerial feats and clowning to name but a few of the adroit circus skills that visiting, internationally acclaimed  director Idris Stanbury  has introduced to Warehouse’s show Elemental.  Each act is in some way or other inspired by the Australian climate and the effect of the seasons on the landscape and lives of the people.

 Four comically dressed clowns introduce the show with their watering cans, a symbol of growth.  In an original and ingenious warming up of the audience, they cast out seeds of clapping, cheering, ooh-aahing accompanied by a watering can Mexican wave that set the tone for an entertaining and engaging evening of circus fun and amazement. Dealing with climate and climate change is a juggling act as the four gnomes fling their juggling clubs in a skilful display of intense concentration. Dexterous juggling feats by a trio with juggling balls that magically circled and entwined like eddies of wind currents also captured a sense of changing climate patterns. Cast members tumbled like spinifex across the stage or scurried like animals of the bush to escape the flame red danger of the approaching bushfire. Billowing blue cloth traversed the stage as the warning of flood enveloped the land.  And gymnasts clambered up the cloth and the poles to escape the rising flood. Every circus act revealed the impact of the seasons from the ravaging fires to the sweeping floodwaters , the air-filled snow and the solid earth. 

Each section is accompanied by songs that echo the seasonal movements and the accompanying circus acts from Burt Bacharach’s Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head to Otis Redding’s Sitting On The Dock of the Bay, the BeeGees Staying Alive, Billy Joel’s  We didn’t start the fire and Dean Martin’s Let It Snow. There is a funny mimed performance of Let It Go from Frozen. Director Stanbury has created a show ideal for all ages from this grandfather to his three entranced grandsons as they gazed in wonder and delight at the physical skills of people their own age. Of course, not every act goes perfectly. A juggling club might fall. The tightrope walker might lose her balance for an instant and another may find it difficult to stand on the balancer’s thighs without a gentle support from an helpful gnome. Even the nifty hat juggler with his splendid tricky routine with the sliding hat might have missed the mark a couple of times. A very stylish hula hooper gracefully recaptured her mesmerised audience. These are the risks in the circus game. What is so commendable is that every performer dealt with the slip-up professionally and resumed the routine with poise and flair. After all, every audience likes a mistake, as long as they get to see perfection in motion during the act.

In Warehouse Circus’s   finale it was only fitting that the seeds planted and watered at the start of the show should grow to full height as trees  of three loomed before our eyes in a forest of trusting, collaborative circus performers who enthralled their capacity audience of family and friends.   Some may one day cease to be circus performer and take with them the wonderful life skills that they have learnt into their adult lives. Some may become professional circus performers and live a life of entertaining others with their awesome skills. Whatever the case, performers and audience alike at Soul Trading and Elemental  will have had an evening of entertainment  filled with laughter and thoughtful contemplation about a possible future and the effect of climate change.

Curses to Newton 2022

 

 Curses to Newton by Brett Hoppenbrouwer.  Belco Arts, Belconnen, Canberra.  October 7, 2022.

Reviewed by Frank McKone

Production manager: Jen Wright
Producer/ Live Programs Officer: Sammy Moynihan
Mentor: Jim Sharrock
Performer: Brett Hoppenbrouwer


The arts, science and emotional intelligence come together in Brett Hoppenbrouwer’s presentation of Isaac Newton’s First, Second and Third Laws of Motion, especially suited for middle school ages. Brett is a non-binary and neurodivergent science communicator and circus artist with a background in molecular biology.

Brett takes on a role as a young person in the most untidy room you can imagine, full of balls, tubes, - all sorts of surprising paraphenalia.  They invent experiments as they juggle (very skilfully), and phone their Mum excitedly about what they’ve discovered about why things fall, why some things don’t, and how some things go in opposite directions from each other.  Children (and one parent) from the audience help them with doing experiments and explaining what’s happening.

Each time they talk to their mother, she tells them that Newton’s already explained the particular law of motion, and politely says “Don’t forget to clean up your room.”

After the third time Newton has beaten them to it, they feel angry and sad.  They ring their cheerful Dad who commiserates, and reminds them what their Mum will say.  In this mood, Brett turns to the children for advice about dealing with difficult feelings.  After several suggestions today, including “eat some food”, one boy explained what he knew about managing emotions.  Brett calms themself for a final juggling performance, and a great demonstration of what happens when you blow (with a powerful fan) a spinning toilet roll at the audience: like portside streamers.

As I saw it, Curses to Newton is more about an education in attitudes to life than imparting details of the Laws of Motion.  The show encourages the enjoyment of experimenting and inventing – science in practice – as well as teaching resilience and positivity rather than a sense of failure in the face of competition.

It must be the least ‘slick’ show I’ve ever seen – but that’s its strength.  The children,  and their parents (and grandparents) are with Brett as they try so hard – and after all, all the ‘experiments’ actually worked!

___________________________________________________________________

During a short break from research to figure out what they wanted from a career in STEM, Brett fell into a job as a balloon twister and clown, followed by another as a science party host and school show presenter, and another as half of the comedy juggling duo Passing Out. Enjoying all of these more than being cooped in a lab, they completed a Certificate IV in Circus Arts and a Master of Science Communication Outreach before continuing to work as, what they like to call, a science clown.

In Canberra, Brett developed the show through a mentorship with the well-known children’s music entertainer, Jim Sharrock (Lucky Jim https://www.luckyjim.com.au ) in a residency at Belco Arts, following training with You Are Here, a Canberra based, independent arts organisation. “We exist to provide Canberra artists with the resources and environment to develop, investigate, and be ambitious with their practice. We are focused on art that cares for the artists who make it, and the audience who experiences it.” (https://www.youareherecanberra.com.au/)

Contact to learn more: Sammy Moynihan
Live Programs Officer (Tuesdays to Thursdays)
Belco Arts

Brett Hoppenbrouwer
discovery.asn.au/

 

 

BEAUTIFUL THING

Written by Jonathan Harvey

Directed by Jarrad West

Everyman Theatre

ACTHUB theatre to 15 October

 

Reviewed by Len Power 6 October 2022

There’s something very likeable about ‘Beautiful Thing’ by Jonathan Harvey.  The play was written in 1993 when homosexuality was still a dirty word.

Jamie, a 15 year old, lives in a tough environment, the Thamesmead Estate in London.  His hard-working mother has a steady stream of lovers including the latest, Tony, and rules with a tough love.  He is bullied at school and his sexual awakening with his next door neighbour, Ste, as a gay person is just as much a surprise to him as it is to everyone else.  Coming out in that environment would be a troubling process.

Playwright, Jonathan Harvey’s love for his characters shines though as the story progresses.  Jamie’s story of sexual discovery is touching and told with delicacy.

Jarrod West has directed the play with great care, concentrating on the characters and ensuring a believable depth throughout.  The play has a nice energy throughout, too.

The set, with the audience surrounding the action, has been designed by Isaac Emily and uses the space wisely, giving the players a large acting area to work on.  Touches of colour keep the play from its bleak environment.

Nick Dyball (Jamie) and Liam Pritchard (Ste)

As Jamie, young Nick Dyball gives a heart-felt performance of great sensitivity.  It’s hard to believe that a person of his age could give such a knowing depth of performance, bringing out all of the sensitivity and self-doubt in the role.

Amy Kowalczuk (Sandra)

Amy Kowalczuk gives a strong performance as Sandra, the mother, struggling though life herself.  She strikes the right note of aggression and insecurity right from the beginning and maintains it thoughout. In spite of the tough exterior, you can see the love under the surface.  It’s a very good multi-faceted performance.

Liam Pritchard as Ste brings out the self-doubt and hate for his own sexuality very well.  His tough bravado at the beginning of the play soon melts as we see the real person struggling underneath.  Pritchard shows every facet of this character in a quiet but careful interpretation.

As the next door neighbour and precious friend, Leah, Liv Boddington is sassy and tough, showing an affection for Jamie at the same time.  She gives a knowing performance of great understanding.

As Tony, the boyfriend, Colin Giles is colourful and charming in a well thought out performance.  It’s a credit to his skill as an actor that we hope he’s ‘the one’ for Sandra by the end of the play.

This is a tough, uncompromising play with an astonishing delicacy that suddenly moves you.  It’s the characters that get to you as the play progresses and this cast masterfully draws you in.

Photos by Janelle McMenamin, Michael Moore 

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/.

 

Elemental - Warehouse Circus

 

Elemental by Warehouse Circus.  Produced by Aleshia Johnson, at Street One, Canberra, October Wed 5- Sat 8, 7pm; Matinee Sat 8, 1pm, 2022.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
Opening night Thursday Oct 6

Warehouse Artistic Director – Tom Davis

Elemental Director – Idris Stanbury
Assistant Director / Stage Manager – Ashley Cox
Choreography – The Cast, Ashley Cox, Ellen Cunningham, Maisie Walker-Stirling, Dimitri Yialeloglou
Props – Clare Pengryffyn, Bonnie Roppola
Costumes – Lynne Johnson, Ashley Cox, Ellen Cunningham
Lighting and Sound Design – Idris Stanbury
Live Music Arrangement – Kian MacLeod
String Teacher Extraordinaire – Jenny Higgs


“Elemental uses circus and comedy to explore the effects of weather and the seasons on the world around us. A show that explores all sides of the natural systems that affect our lives, sometimes dramatically. A thought-provoking and thoroughly entertaining circus show perfect for all ages, with something for everyone.”  The Street Theatre publicity describes Warehouse Circus’s 2022 production perfectly.

Quality modern circus needs to bring together three crucial elements: skills, entertainment, meaning.  Learning the physical skills individually is not enough: working in concert with a team is the beginning of making circus.  Performing physically amazing things that made the little person just behind me say many times “Ooh, I can’t do that!” is the core of circus entertainment.  Add in clowning, and riding and ‘taming’ animals, and fear of accident, injury or even death, and we have the kind of circus I remember a generation or two ago as a child in 1940s and 1950s London.  

It was Circus Oz in the late 1970s who introduced me to animal’s rights (by not riding or ‘taming’ them) and to making the acts into a drama about social issues.  Director of Elemental, Idris Stanbury, writes “Each scene is inspired by the effects of the elements on life [wind, fire and water each get a special guernsey], seemingly positive or negative; large weather events really do shape Australia.”  And so each act is choreographed to a sound track of a “mix of genres, pop songs and deep cuts, reflecting the meaning…”

Warehouse Circus is not just about training young people to be skilled physical performers of tumbling, balancing, swinging on trapezes, and juggling.  Funded through ACT Health and the Community Services Directorate, it is for the Australian Capital Territory an ArtsACT Key Arts Organisation “not-for-profit dedicated to improving the mental and physical health of young people through the medium of social circus.”  And this means for the audience as much as for the performers, at least their mental health, judging by the enthusiastic responses of the children and their parents to the show I saw tonight.  And the clapping (and oohs and aahs) was very vigorous physically, too.

So I congratulate everyone involved in creating and presenting Elemental for so successfully combining the elements of physical skills, entertainment (with special mention of the comedy skills of the four clowns who spread the seeds from which the whole show grew), and the meaning about the environment left for us to contemplate.  

It was very clear to me that, as Artistic Director Tom Davis writes, “They all take their training as seriously as they take their approach to stagecraft.”  Well done!

 

 

 

 

 

CRUEL INTENTIONS - The 90's Musical

Kirby Burgess & Drew Weston in "Cruel Intentions"

Directed by Alister Smith – Musical Direction by Daniel Puckey

Choreographed by Freya List – Scenic Design by James Browne

Costume Design by Isaac Lummis – Lighting Design by Declan O’Neill

Sound Design by Greg Ginger – Wigs designed by Trent Whitmore.

Canberra Theatre 5^th to 8^th October 2022.

Performance on 5^th October reviewed by Bill Stephens

Drew Weston & company in "Cruel Intentions"

“Cruel Intentions – The 90’s Musical” draws its inspiration from the eighteenth century novel “Les Liaisons Dangereuses” about two amoral lovers who become rivals as they amuse themselves by ruining others before ultimately destroying each other.

As the title implies, this modern adaptation transposes the action into the 1990’s where some of the victims are college students. In fact the musical opens with one of the protagonists, 18 year-old Sebastian, finishing a therapy session for sex addiction.

Kirsty Burgess and Cast of "Cruel Intentions"

The musical incorporates a slew of 90’s hit songs though which the characters express their feelings.  Heading an excellent multi-talented cast, Kirby Burgess is outstanding as the potty-mouthed, drug-addled,  Ann-Margret look-alike, femme-fatale half of the destructive duo, Kathryn Merteuil. Whether delivering lines which would make a wharfie blush, or introducing her young victim, Lucille, to the joys of sex, Burgess offers a mesmerising star performance.

 Her carefully nuanced acting together with her cyclonic  singing and dancing in the  brilliantly staged rendition of “Bitch/Losing my Religion” followed by “ Kathryn’s Turn”  in the second half of the show, is every bit as  riveting  as the  iconic  “Roses Turn” in “Gypsy”  to which it pays  obvious homage, and marks her as a top-shelf musical theatre leading lady.

Equally impressive as Kathryn’s venal accomplice, Sebastian Valmont, Drew Weston is a stylish singer and dancer who’s not afraid to flaunt his nude buff bod in the services of art or seduction as Kathryn’s venal accomplice, Sebastian Valmont, in an unholy duo you love to hate.

Rishab Kern & Francine Cain in "Cruel Intentions"

The strong supporting cast includes Francine Cain in a very funny comedic performance as the enthusiastic and willing seductee of the pair. Kelsey Hodge   shines as the not-so-naïve Annette Hargrove who ultimately causes the downfall of both Sebastian and Kathryn.

Euan Fistrovic Doidge, soon to be seen in the leading role of  a new production of  “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”, together with  Joseph Spanti  as his college-jock boyfriend provide the obligatory gay content, while Rishab Kern and Fem Belling add spice to the proceedings as Cecile’s coloured  cello teacher, and her stitched-up mother.

Joseph Spanti & Euan Fistrovic Doidge in "Cruel Intentions"

The talented ensemble , which include Sheridan Adams, Darcey Eagle, Etuate Lutui, Daniel Evbachev and Morgan Heynes , who together understudy all the leading roles, are kept busy moving  James Browne’s  beautiful, versatile setting around the stage, while at the same time  executing Freya List’s inventive choreography. They manage this multi-tasking with considerable panache, as does Daniel Puckey and his punchy band, which can be glimpsed up-stage, high above the proceedings.

Particularly notable among the excellent production values for this show are the imaginative contributions of the sound, lighting and video designers, particularly the remarkable video projections which throughout the show cover the setting with the lyrics of the songs, not for the audience to sing to, but as part of the visual design, as well as accent the thoughts of the characters.

While some may find the subject matter unsavoury, “Cruel Intentions” is a slickly produced and performed smart, sophisticated adult musical, with exemplary production values, which received an enthusiastic reception on its Canberra opening night from the predominately young audience. 

                                                Images by Nicole Cleary 

  This review also published in AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW. www.artsreview.com.au

.

 

   

    

WHITEFELLA YELLA TREE

 

Guy Simon & Callan Purcell

Written by Dylan Van Den Berg

Directed by Declan Greene & Amy Sole – Designed by Mason Brown

Lighting designed by Kelsey Lee – Composer and Sound Designer, Steve Toulmin

Canberra Theatre Centre Courtyard Studio- 28th September to 1^st October 2022.

Performance on 1^st October reviewed by Bill Stephens

Canberra  has been enjoying something of a  festival of Dylan Van Den Berg plays commencing with Street Theatre’s production of “Milk” in 2021, Belco Arts production of “Ngadjung: earlier this year, and now Griffin Theatre’s superb production of “Whitefella Yella Tree” which enjoyed a short season in the Canberra Theatre Centre Courtyard Studio this week.

Van Den Berg is emerging as a fresh new indigenous voice with a gift for writing captivating dialogue that is poetic as well as questioning as he explores aspects of his culture and identity.

With “Whitefella Yella Tree” he tells a story set in the time of first contact, of two 16 year-old indigenous boys   Neddy and Ty, who come across each other under a mysterious Yella tree.  One is from a mountain mob and the other from a river mob.

Callan Purcell & Guy Simon

At first suspicious of each other, they banter and flirt, and exchange information about the white- fellas who have been turning up and causing some disruption. During the course of their conversations they fall in love, and rejoice in their situation.

However Neddy is curious about the white settlers and decides to visit them. Ty agrees to wait under the yella tree for Neddy to return.  When Neddy eventually returns he is wearing a cast-off colonial army tunic, and in response to Ty’s questioning, reveals that through his association with the white-fellas he has learned to be ashamed of his relationship with Ty.

Performed in a tri-angular ply-wood setting by Mason Browne, sensitively lit by Kelsey Lee, and enhanced with an atmospheric  soundscape evoking an other-worldly atmosphere allowing Van Den Berg’s language to  resonate as  poetic, endearing, often laugh-out-loud funny, but never fey, as his characters  wrestle with the social and political questions surrounding colonisation.

As the boys, Neddy and Ty, Callan Purcell and Guy Simon offer committed, unselfconscious performances in response to the sensitive and tactful direction of Declan Greene and Amy Sole which provides space for Van Den Berg’s words to breathe. 

The result is a mesmerising, thoughtful and memorable production in which the only distraction was the decision to costume the two boys in modern koori dress thereby confusing the premise of the playing being set in the time of first contact.

                                                   Images by Brett Boardman

This review also published in AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW.  www.artsreview.com.au