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
Heathers: The Musical has to be one of the balliest musical choices, not only for the challenge of casting performers able to sing its absolutely mammoth vocal score, but also for the fear of offending any unsuspecting audience members with its gratuitously crude, dark sense of humor. And so, when I first heard the announcement that University College would be producing such musical, I was a … Continue reading Heathers: How Very Indeed
At a time when natural disasters headline the news every other day, Lab Kelpie’s Oil Babies taps into modern anxieties about a seemingly inevitable apocalypse, and the apparent futility of individual attempts to ‘save the planet’. Written and directed by Petra Kalive, the play depicts a dystopia not at all far away from our own world. Apocalypse is imminent, with the human race on the precipice … Continue reading Oil Babies: Anxiety and Apocalypse
It’s a fair assumption that, both in nature and reputation, college productions aren’t exactly supposed to be taken too seriously. However, this was not the case for audiences of Ormond College’s recent production of Chicago. The audience were forced to leave any such presuppositions at home as the cast and crew tackled this raunch-fest with surprising professionalism, style and finesse. Chicago tells the tale of two … Continue reading Chicago: Foxy and Full of Heart
The Dialog 