Somehow, despite loving theatre like the puppy I never got, I have never seen an UMMTA show. I have missed showing after showing, year after year of their music theatre extravaganzas, but I am glad to say I finally made it. And of all the shows to see, a double bill of new works written by up and coming artists is quite the first time. … Continue reading The Factory: Seeing Double
Venus Notarberadino as Hedda Gabler flips between a weighted stillness and erratic movement. She stares at nothing, caught up in her own mind, pulling the audience in. She’s the centre of Four Letter Word’s impressive adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, which opened this Wednesday. In a new adaption by Arthur Knight and Simon Farley, Hedda is brought into the modern era, dressed in a … Continue reading Hedda Gabler: A Hedda for the Here and Now
Four Letter Word’s production of Hedda Gabler opens this week in the Guild Theatre. I sat down with director Kate Douglas to talk about how the show came together, and what a modern audience can take away from their new adaptation of this iconic play. I’d like to start by getting to know your background a bit. How did you get into directing? I studied … Continue reading Interview with Kate Douglas, director of FLW’s Hedda Gabler
Upon hearing this show was taking place in the Union House Theatre, which seats around three hundred and fifty people, I was worried. There’s nothing worse as an artist than performing to a half empty theatre. But as I walked into the space with a minute to spare before show time, I was delighted to see an auditorium teeming with excited audience members. This … Continue reading The Med Revue: Medley’s Burning Inferno
Melbourne Uni Law Revue’s 2018 show took my comedy tastebuds one hell of a flavourful tour. The Cake is aptly named – slices of sweet, saucy, silly deliciousness are offered to their grateful audience with flair and finesse. So many perfectly formed bits come to mind that deserve review space, but I worry I’ll let them down in my delivery. You really have to see the … Continue reading The Law Revue: Comedy? Piece of Cake
After Heathers: The Musical’s run in early August, it would not be a surprise if there was a sudden trend towards more darkly comic stories on the stage. The International House Theatre Group seems to have continued this trend with their production of The Little Shop of Horrors, directed by Karolina Judd. Little Shop of Horrors is arguably the originator of a sub-genre in musicals. The … Continue reading Little Shop of Horrors: The Trend of Dark Musicals
Eclectic. Explosive. Energetic. Exciting. Tastings 18 promised a radical evening of original new works, and the five shows that made up Group B were more than up to delivering. The night’s works explored what it means to be creative, to exist in the 21stcentury, to have a body. It’s hard to come away from a show like this feeling anything other than inspired and creatively … Continue reading Tastings 18: Program B
Curtains, St Hilda’s recent production at Union House Theatre is set in 1959 Boston and follows the murder of Jessica Cranshaw (Bebe Berryman). In this musical within a musical, Cranshaw is the supremely untalented leading lady of Robbin Hood of the Old West,a fictional cowboy musical, and whose death plays out as a parody of a typical ‘whodunit’. Detective Lt. Frank Cioffi (Eamonn Shorter), is … Continue reading Curtains: A Murder Mystery Musical Comedy
The seven-course dinner that was Tastings ’18 Group A brought together seemingly heavy subject matters, usually hidden by the mundanity of the everyday, and emphasised their immense weight. Five stand-alone performances stripped away their existential layers and provided us with a fleeting but intimate glimpse of bare emotion and experience. All seven performances in Tastings reflected different ends of the social and cultural spectrum – … Continue reading A Tasting[s ‘18] of Raw Emotion
It would be easy to rattle off some scatological quips about Newman’s latest musical outing, Urinetown. But that would ruin the whole conceit of Urinetown’s refusal to submit to cheap wordplay and throwaway gags. The script is taut, intelligent and undeniably charming in its revisionist agenda. And Newman’s cast pulls it off with success. Directed by Matt Healy, the production makes use of a relatively … Continue reading Urinetown: Nothing is as it Seems
The Dialog 