Theatre & Musicals in Perth

A MUSICAL about mental health is making its way to Melville Theatre.

Written by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey and directed by Craig Griffen, Next to Normal focuses on a mother struggling with worsening bipolar disorder and the effects managing her illness has on her family.

Diana Goodman has tried to balance sanity, happiness and her commitments over the past 16 years but her disorder takes a turn for the worst and her husband, children and doctor try to help her through the struggle.

The show takes audiences into the minds and hearts of each character, presenting the family’s story with love, sympathy and heart.

Next to Normal has three Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize to its credit and was named one of the year’s 10 best shows by US critics on its debut.

“It’s a rare production that isn’t afraid to tackle heavy themes,” Griffen said.

“While we’re certainly much more willing to discuss mental illness now than 10 years ago, it’s definitely something we still need to keep pushing out into the open, shine a light on and sweep away social judgments that leave so many ill people without care.

“I have a personal connection to the subject – I was diagnosed with a both a depressive and anxiety disorder 11 years ago and it’s still something I struggle with and seek help for to this day.

“I wanted to have the opportunity to put some of my personal experience onto the stage in a piece that wasn’t afraid to go to the dark places these issues can take us.”

Involved in theatre from age 10, Griffen first appeared on stage in WA in Hairspray and The Wizard of Oz at the Koorliny Arts Centre – and was named “best other than a lead male in a musical” for both roles at the annual Finley Awards.

He has worked as a director, production designer, producer and behind the scenes for Fresh Bred Productions on Closer, The Last Five Years, Spring Awakening and Sweeney Todd.

In 2018, Griffen directed and designed Urinetown at Melville Theatre, scoring six Finley Awards including best musical, best set and best director of a musical.

Last year, he picked up several nominations and the technical achievement award for his work as director, designer and puppet-builder on The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe at the Koorliny Arts Centre.

“With Next to Normal, the subject matter is obviously a difficult thing to handle,” Griffen said.

“Coming into it with my personal experiences, working on the show naturally brings up a lot of difficult emotions for me.

“Navigating those emotions and re-directing them into the work is a tough thing to do.

“Next to Normal is also a very intense show for the cast – they have to go to some dark places throughout the show, all while singing a non-stop score with a rock band playing along with them.

“Supporting them through that is really one of my biggest roles while directing the show.”

Next to Normal plays at 8pm August 21, 22, 27, 28, 29, September 3, 4 and 5 with a 2pm matinee August 30. Tickets are $30, $25 concession – book at www.TAZTix.com.au or call TAZTix on 9255 3336.

Melville Theatre is at 393A Canning Highway (corner of Stock Road), Palmyra.

From the creative minds of 2nd Year BPA Performance Making. There will be laughter, drama, politics and tears, in an evening that includes gutsy new writing and breathtaking visual and physical theatre.

Western Australian theatre company THEATRE 180 and new entertainment platform CinemaStage are beyond thrilled to resume their West Australian tour of their unique account of the beloved West Australian true story A Fortunate Life by AB Facey, and due to popular demand, begin with an additional Perth season at ACE Cinemas Rockingham, 28 August to 13 September.

Using theatre performed live in cinemas, the tour was abruptly cut short in March when restrictions around COVID-19 forced the production to cease immediately. It had already toured to Midland, Albany and Busselton with many sold out shows, and was due to reach Geraldton cinemas.  The Geraldton season will now play 17 - 19 October.

Stuart Halusz, Artistic Director THEATRE 180, says, that in a world that is undergoing such universal challenges, where people are questioning what really matters in their lives, now is a perfect time to remount this story. 

“We can learn so much from Bert Facey’s resilience, hope, courage and humility; qualities which epitomise the fortitude and ingenuity of our early pioneers and those generations who lived through two world wars.”

“Theatres have endured shutdowns many times throughout history, but storytelling and live performance has always survived and will continue to thrive as a basic and fundamental human need. We are proud to be one of the first theatre companies to bring back live theatre to audiences in WA,” Halusz said.

Adapted and written for the stage by Jenny Davis and Stuart Halusz and using the large screens in cinemas as the backdrop to re-create significant landscape scenes filmed by Green Man Media, the live performance from THEATRE 180 takes place within the cinema as a cast of three bring to life the story of AB Facey’s much-loved and award-winning A Fortunate Life.

THEATRE 180 evolved from Agelink Theatre, a 25-year success story creating theatre from oral histories founded by Jenny Davis OAM and has added Main Stage theatre and Education pillars to the trajectory into a new and challenging future. 

A Fortunate Life includes West Australian cast favourites: Rebecca Davis, Benj D’Addario and Michael Abbercromby.

Writers: Jenny Davis and Stuart Halusz   |   Director: Stuart Halusz   |   Composer: Ron Siemiginowski  |  Audiovisual Designer: Green Man Media   |   Sound Designer: Ben Collins.

Book your tickets now via https://afortunatelife.com.au/buy-tickets/

Get ready to be inspired, provoked and entertained as WAAPA’s graduating performance makers hit the Blue Room Theatre stage at full tilt, showcasing their creative talents over two weeks in September. This is theatre at its most eclectic, with powerful performances and inventive stagecraft underpinning highly original works that explore the very edges of theatre making.

Spurned by society, a horribly deformed young man is a freak attraction in a travelling sideshow. But when a famous young doctor befriends him, John Merrick changes from an object of pity to an urbane and witty favourite of the aristocracy and literati. Can the Elephant Man achieve normality? And does he even want it? Based on the real-life story of Joseph Merrick, The Elephant Man is a powerful and poignant look at what it is to be different. Join WAAPA’s graduating actors as they present Bernard Pomerance’s multi-award-winning play in the intimate space of UWA’s Dolphin Theatre.

Leo Frank’s trial and conviction is a shocking miscarriage of justice that leads to tragedy. Based on true events, the Tony-award-winning Parade is not your average feel-good musical. Yet this powerful tale of racism and false patriotism, set to a striking score that ranges from soaring anthems to ragtime and blues, is a timely reminder of the ugly consequences of ignorance and fear.

Choreographed by: Jayne Smeulders

Presented by Life on Hold Productions and directed by Sarah Christiner, Not About Nightingales is based on the true story of a prison scandal that shocked the US in the mid-1930s.

Inmates went on a hunger strike due to poor conditions and were locked in steam-heated cells as punishment.

The focus is on the politics of prison life, told through a love story, compelling dialogue, power-corrupted officials and the human condition.

Playwright Williams is most famous for A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Glass Menagerie, among his more than 100 plays.

Originally written in 1938, the first performance of Not About Nightingales wasn’t until 1998 in London after actress Vanessa Redgrave tracked it down.

It moved to Broadway a year later and picked up six Tony Awards, including best play.

“The play is episodic and bounces between locations in the prison with each scene announced as if it was a newspaper article,” Christiner said.

“It’s not a happy story but I believe it ends with hope – it’s open to interpretation what happens to the characters at the end.

“Conclusions are not certain and that’s something I really enjoy about the text.”

The main challenges, according to Christiner, are some of the surreal scenes in the show.

“They’re not like anything I’ve worked with before and I particularly wanted to do them justice,” she said.

“This has involved some musical direction and choreography to draw the audience into the prison space and life, actively bringing them in what’s going on.

“Not About Nightingales was Tennessee Williams’ first full-length play and it doesn’t have the mature editing of his more well-known later works.

“Working with the script to create a production that wasn’t too long, but also didn’t omit anything quintessentially Williams or relevant to the main storyline, was a challenge.”

Involved in theatre since 2003, Christiner has performed in a plethora of productions and has also done extensive tech work and stage-managing, recently extending her love of the performing arts to directing and setting up Life on Hold Productions.

In 2018, her company debuted with a production of A Clockwork Orange, followed by Animal Farm and The Other Side last year.

“I was stuck for inspiration on what show to produce in 2020 so I went to the State Library and randomly selected several plays to read,” Christiner said.

“Tennessee Williams is one of my favourite playwrights and I hadn’t heard of Not About Nightingales before.

“It had the classic Williams lyricism and interplay of realistic action with surrealist scenes but it was so much more visceral and violent than usual.

“The idea of trying to bring this prison experience, based on real events, to life excited me and offered new creative opportunities.”

Tennessee Williams’ Not About Nightingales plays at 7.30pm September 11, 12, 15, 17, 18, 19, 21, 23, 25 and 26. Tickets are $25, $20 concession – book at www.TAZTix.com.au or call TAZTix on 9255 3336.

The Last Drop Canning Vale is at 507 Nicholson Road.

Shakespeare’s most farcical tale of mistaken identity is a crazy comedy of far-fetched coincidences, madcap confusion and hilarious misadventures. Two sets of identical twins, separated 25 years earlier in a shipwreck, end up in the same city on the same day. The father who set this chaos in motion is also in town, searching for his lost sons, but falls foul of the law and is condemned to death unless he can raise a ransom. Will his family be reunited before the day is out? And will the who’s who get sorted?

Starring Gold Logie winner John Wood as the Wizard himself, and featuring all of the songs and characters you adore from the classic film, this lavish new arena production uses state-of-the-art LED screen technology to bring the land of Oz to life before your eyes. With over 3,000 individual costumes, 2,000 wigs, a stage the size of 3 basketball courts, and over 500 performers, this is the largest production of Oz ever staged.

Take your whole family somewhere over the rainbow and join Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tinman and Lion for an unforgettable journey down the Yellow Brick Road!

The boom went bust, and now Jono’s locked in a desert mine site’s donga, trapped in debt and a lifestyle that is slowly strangling his soul. Jono’s wife Mary feels stuck in the high flying life of the lonely FIFO parent and has decided they’d be better off cutting their losses and moving home to Broome, close to family and her younger sister Janey. But the old neighbourhood, and her sister, ain’t what they used to be. Janey is locked in her house, sliding into stand-up comedic delusion as she awaits her FIFO husband Brad’s return. But where is Brad? And where’s their young daughter Katie? Something’s gotta give, but what it will take to stop the slide into the deepening pit that threatens to engulf them all?

In a country abundant with natural resources, mining is a way of life. This warm, tautly written drama pulls no punches as it explores the impact of mining on two Indigenous families from extensive interviews with miners from across the country and lived experience of the writer. Developed in Broome with Goolarri Media’s Indigenous Writers program, and with the support of Yirra Yaakin, Playwriting Australia, Ilbijerri Theatre Company and Yellamundie First Nations Play Festival, FIFO, brings us an exciting new voice from the Kimberley, former FIFO mine worker Melody Dia.

Join a joyous celebration 60,000 years in the making where Esperance Civic Centre presents Duki Mala, Proudly supported by Lotterywest.

Direct from Elcho Island, Djuki Mala (Djuki meaning 'bird' with a Yolngu accent and Mala meaning 'mob') perform a high-energy and stunning fusion of traditional Indigenous culture, contemporary dance and strorytelling.

Since their 2007 clip of 'Zorba the Greek' went viral, they've been consistently thrilling audiences with reinterpretations of popular culture and traditional dances in a way that juxtaposes contemporary Yulngo culture.

The show tells the genesis of Djuki Mala, interspersed with multimedia and gives audiences the opportunity to experience some of the more intimate moments and turning points that have shaped them, in a show that is a marvel of timing, comedy and clowning, with a hefty dose of heart and soul.

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REVIEWS
“There is no better offering at this year’s Perth Fringe Festival…tremendous fun.” THE WEST AUSTRALIAN ?????

“Djuki Mala is an hour of infectious joy” BROADWAY BABY, EDINBURGH ?????

“Joy enhancing, inspiring, thrilling, intoxicating' ????? UPSIDE NEWS

“entertainment with plenty of skill, fun and charm” ????? IN DAILY, ADELAIDE

“Has the audience eating out of their hands…a show of sheer joy, energy, hilarity…hugely entertaining”
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PURCHASE TICKETS online www.esperance.wa.gov.au/events/djuki-mala

Tickets:
Child $18
Concession $25
Adult $27.50
Group of 6 + $24.50

Duration: 60mins
Rating: All Ages (recommended 5+)

Tickets also available from Shire Administration, Esperance Library and Visitor Centre.

Experience this beautiful location as the afternoon sun sets and see the site come alive through performance. International guest director Betina Birkjaer has over a decade of experience with acclaimed Teatro des los Sentidos, making immersive performance all over the world and will be our guest director for this.