While Australia punches well above its weight when it comes to performers, there have been comparatively few locally written and developed shows that have become successful. This may be changing. Over the past 18 months (since the start of 2022) there have been at least thirteen Australian musicals that been either produced (including presentations of public development showcase readings) or announced.

Not all of these will become successful (realistically, only a few - or fewer - will), but the amount of work in development reaching point where it can be presented to the public (either in showcase or full form) is encouraging.

Australian musicals that have had a showing since 2022 include:

  • Moulin Rouge
  • Midnight - the Cinderella Musical
  • Bananaland
  • Bloom
  • The Dismissal
  • Driftwood
  • Rabbits on a Red Planet
  • The Lucky Country
  • Metropolis
  • Show People
  • Mount Hopeless
  • Work of Art
  • Dubbo Championship Wrestling
  • The Deb
  • Songs of the Unseen
  • Wonderfully Terrible Things
  • Roller Coaster
  • Forgetting Tim Minchin
  • The Hero Leaves One Tooth
  • The Marvellous Elephant Man
  • Villainy
  • My Brilliant Career

If you know of more, please chime in.

More details in the posts below.

Note: this post is about musicals written (or otherwise created by) Australians. It is not about international musicals produced in Australia, such as Australian productions of Hamilton, Wicked, Mamma Mia, Into the Woods, The Great Comet etc.

  • Prouvaire@kbin.socialOP
    2·
    1 year ago

    What is your favourite of all the new Australian musicals

    Of the ones I’ve seen (most of them), Moulin Rouge is undoubtedly the most grand in scope and polished in execution. That said, despite its many strengths (which I largely attribute to Alex Timbers, who ironically does Baz Luhrman better on stage than Baz Luhrman himself did with his adaptation of Strictly Ballroom - a show I thought was pretty woeful), Moulin Rouge is ultimately not my kind of show (even though I have seen it multiple times). I prefer musicals to have an original score.

    The Deb was pretty solid too. Can’t remember the specifics now, but I recall thinking the construction, songs and performances were all quite good. Although I undoubtedly had quibbles as well.

    I was also predisposed to like Show People (just ignore what I said ten seconds ago about preferring original scores) because I absolutely adored Dean Bryant, Mathew Frank and Christie Whelan-Browne’s Britney Spears the Cabaret. I pretty much consider Britney Spears the Cabaret the female version of Hedwig and the Angry Inch (although Hedwig has also been played by women such as Ally Sheedy and Lena Hall of course): both take a seemingly ridiculous premise and extract plenty of laughs from it, but then actually take us on an affecting personal journey underscored by great pain and culminating in a kind of catharsis. It’s a shame that Britney Spears the Cabaret never had a production without Whelan-Browne (who, don’t get me wrong, is amazing), because I think the material is certainly strong enough.

    I also rate Muriel’s Wedding very highly (weirdly, the original production also had Christie Whelan-Browne in a supporting role, although - dare I say - I think she was miscast). While not perfect (eg I think the show is a little overstuffed with plot) I think Global Creatures could have a hit with Muriel’s Wedding in London. Heathers - another show with an acerbic sensibility centred around high school girls - successfully played in the massive Theatre Royal Haymarket there, and I think London audiences would respond well to the daggy, dark tone of Muriel’s Wedding. Carmen Pavlovic probably sees Broadway as a more lucrative market, but I’m not sure if American audiences would connect with Muriel’s Wedding.

    Of the new Australian musicals coming up, I’m looking forward to The Dismissal the most. I had a ticket to the 2019 showcase in Sydney but couldn’t make it at the last minute. I was then looking forward to seeing the show as part of my STC subscription, but that didn’t work out. (Interesting that Squabbalogic are now mounting it themselves rather than being rescheduled into another STC season.) Squabbalogic really is “the little company that could” with a solid track record going back well over a decade now. And they’re focusing more and more on new work development, which I find really commendable. The Dismissal is their big work in progress of course, but they also got rights to do an adaptation of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens - for which they had a development reading in Wollongong in 2019.

    I’m hoping to make it to Melbourne to see Midnight, but not sure if I will. I saw Life’s a Circus some years ago, and Anthony Costanza has a gift for a catchy tune. And Kate Miller-Heidke, who contributed a song (and who did Muriel’s Wedding), has a unique voice.