Designing Love Never Dies

While audiences may not be unanimous in their praise of Sir Andrew Lloyd-Webber's Love Never Dies, no-one is quibbling about its lack of spectacle. The person most responsible for this is Gabriela Tylesova, who designed costumes and set in just 6 months. Add to this the knowledge that the artist has two pre-school children and her achievement takes on gargantuan proportions.

My interview with Gabriela Tylesova, originally published in the July-August edition of Stage Whispers, can now be viewed online.

Read it here.

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Happy Rehearsal Campers at Ringwood - Production Camps - Why Bother?

Singing can be heard from the dirt track leading to Mt Evelyn Recreational Camp at the foot of the Dandenong Ranges. It’s not rehearsal, but the dinner queue in the pine-lined dining room.  More than 100 students from Ringwood Secondary College, a production team of 10 staff and two ex-students are into the second evening of a three-day camp. In three weeks Cole Porter’s Kiss Me Kate will open on the school stage for eight performances.

Director of Performing Arts, Benjamin Moody is munching on fish ‘n’ chips. While his first involvement was in 2000 as a ring-in, this is his sixth camp as a production team member, and the first as director.

‘Unless you come away for three days, you don’t get an uninterrupted run through. The rehearsal hours for the chorus [on camp] are as many as we can get over the entire Tuesday night rehearsal period,’ he explains. ‘From my point-of-view, the distance we’ve come in the last 24 hours is quite phenomenal, and we still have two full runs to go.’

Year 12 student Shaun Dickson agrees. ‘At school we get a few hours a week, but at camp we have three days straight. There are no distractions, and there’s no going home. You wake up and you just do it. There’s nothing else. Everyone is here to do production. Everyone has their head in the zone.’  Continue reading

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Review: Charles Dickens presents A Christmas Carol

My review of the quite astonishing one man show by Phil Zachariah, Charles Dickens presents A Christmas Carol, is now published online by Stage Whispers.

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Profile: Justin Burford

After six weeks in the wings nursing possibly the world’s worst ever sprained ankle, Justin Burford is keen to return to his role as Drew in the jukebox musical, Rock of Ages, at Melbourne’s Comedy Theatre. 

Landing a lead role in a stage musical is not usually on the to-do list of rock musicians. So no-one was more surprised than Justin Burford when he virtually fell into the Australian production of Rock of Ages after his Perth-based band, End Of Fashion became a studio band last year.

‘I was wondering what I was going to do with my life,’ he ponders, ‘and then Rock of Ages came along, and it was just perfect timing.’ Continue reading

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Ringwood Lake Park

Weekend Notes is an online site which reviews leisure activities across Australia and in other parts of the world including New York, Singapore and London. My review of Ringwood Lake Park is now published.

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Bluff Circuit Walk, Barwon Heads

Weekend Notes has published my Bluff Circuit Walk at Barwon Heads activity review online. 

10 Party Games for Grand Final Day

Melbourne is at a standstill. Poised, waiting for Saturday afternoon when the AFL Grand Final will be decided.

Tomorrow is irrelevant except if you are planning a gathering of friends to watch the game. As an avid AFL fan (Go Bombers) I am more interested in actually watching the game. So if you've been lured by the title you will possibly be disappointed. However, here are some ideas to mark the day.

1. Arrival: Face Paint

Invite your guests to show their true colours by donning face paint ahead of the game.

2. Lucky Door Prize

Hand out raffle tickets and draw winners at half time. Prize ideas include chocolate footballs, umpires whistle, footy garb, badges, posters etc...

3. Food

• The usual MCG cuisine: meat pies, cold drinks, hot jam donuts, coffee
• Team coloured food
• White jellybeans or white witchetty grubs' - white maggots' (affectionate term for umpires)
• Cake in team colours
• Jelly cups in team colours

4. Clothes

• Provide raincoats and make space behind the seating for those for whom footy is not right without  standing room in the outer.
• Eye patches for one-eyed supporters
• Whiskers for Cats supporters, feathers for Magpies.

5. Music

Obviously the team songs, but also Advance Australia Fair and footy songs by Mike Brady of 'Up there Cazaly' fame.

Ok, ok, so you'd like a few games to warm up before the game. What about these for starters:

6. Lolly Game

Chose either M&Ms, Smarties, Jellybeans or similar. Guests race the clock to fish team coloured lollies from a central bowl. The person with the most lollies of the right colours in their cup after a minute wins.

7. Handball Competition

You know what to do.

8. Play 'Malthouse says', or 'Scott says' (aka Simon says)

9. Footy Piñata - a great half-time occupation. 

10. Ladder competition 

Divide guests into teams. Use either an actual ladder, or make one from cardboard and fix it to the wall. Provide each team cards on which each AFL team is written. Race the clock. Team members take turns to pick up a card and place it on the ladder in the order which the teams finished this year.

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My review of MTC's production of Clybourne Park is now published by Stage Whispers.
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