West End's Alfie Boe + Meow Meow puts on The Red Shoes
Cabaret star Meow Meow interprets Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales in inimitable style. Returning with her brilliant show The Red Shoes, about a girl possessed by a pair of vivid red shoes that won't stop dancing. Meow Meow explains why the story resonated with Andersen and discusses some of her favourite female performers from the era of the Weimar republic.The Glass Menagerie is perhaps one of the most visceral and intimate plays from Tennessee Williams and is about to open in Adelaide at State Theatre Company of South Australia. Prepare for the full intense pantheon of emotions; failed aspirations, family dysfunction and unreliable memories all set in a claustrophobic, dingy St Louis apartment during the 1930’s depression. Ksenja Logos and Laurence Boxhall join us.West End star Alfie Boe is the voice that for many years has been synonymous --for international audiences-- with the character Jean Valjean in Les Miserables. An operatic tenor who is a true crossover artist, finding massive popularity for his interpretations of musical theatre standards and pop music. He is touring Australia next year.
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Three moods of William Shakespeare hit our stages
On this episode it’s all about Shakespeare. A comedy. A tragedy. And a tale of utter savagery. The many moods of William Shakespeare – starting in a happy place with actors Alison Bell and Faysal Bazzi, and Shakespeare specialist Mark Wilson, who directs them in a tale of love and mischief – Much Ado About Nothing at the Melbourne Theatre Company. Original music excerpted is by composer and sound Designer Joe Paradise Lui.Then the Prague Shakespeare Company teams up with local company Th' Unguarded Duncan to offer a Japanese-horror influenced Titus Andronicus at Melbourne's Theatre Works. Original music excerpted is by Max Hopkins.And we finish with a new production of King Lear with villainous sisters Goneril and Reagan, played by Charlotte Friels and Jana Zvedeniuk — who assure us that they're really not so bad. The True History of the Life and Death of King Lear & His Three Daughters is on at Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney.Want more of the Bard? Don't miss Wherefore, Shakespeare? The Stage Show's special podcast series.
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Danielle de Niese's journey to the heart of Carmen
Danielle de Niese started life in suburban Melbourne, appearing on Young Talent Time at the age of nine before pursuing singing in the US. She is now a star soprano, performing many of opera's most famous roles and married into a famous opera-loving family — with their own opera house! She's back in Australia to perform the character Opera Australia are billing as “the most dangerous women in opera” — Carmen. In the musical play Cowbois, a sleepy wild west town populated by women whose husbands have left for the gold rush, is interrupted by a charming bandit who sparks a ‘gender revolution’. Written for actors across the gender spectrum, Cowbois' Australian production has added a whole new set of songs, and we're joined by Clay Crighton, Jules Billington, Zachary Alexander and Nelson Fannon to perform one of them.Athol Fugard wrote influential plays about the injustices of South Africa’s racist Apartheid system on everyday people, for decades. Fugard died this year and fellow playwright and scholar Anthony Akerman tells Michael about his work and impact. First broadcast April 2025.
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The couple performing theatre's worst marriage + Lamine Sonko
Why would two actors, who are married in real life, pretend to eviscerate each other night after night in the emotionally brutal play Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf? Kat Stewart and David Whitely first performed this Edward Albee classic on the small, indy stage of Melbourne's Red Stitch Theatre and it was a hit. Now it's being remounted by Sydney Theatre Company.Composer, musician and director Lamine Sonko is a guewel, a traditional custodian of cultural knowledge in West Africa. Over seven years, Lamine has travelled to remote and sacred places in Senegal to better understand how ancient cosmology and metaphysical knowledge influence guewel traditions. The result is a show called Guewel, at Melbourne's Arts House and made in collaboration with the National Theatre of Senegal.Smallpox was eradicated from the planet in 1980 -- the only human disease which has been totally wiped out! But for centuries before this, an inoculation against smallpox was already in existence in different parts of the world and it was practised mostly by women. Playwright Melanie Tait has used this medical history for the basis of her latest play The Royal Experiment, performed on stage by third year NIDA students.
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Why Eddie Perfect wrote a musical for his alma mater
The new musical Tivoli Lovely is Eddie Perfect’s return to the grand days of what was known across Australia as the Tivoli Theatre circuit. He's written it especially for second and third year music theatre students at WAAPA, his alma mater. He joins Michael along with director Dean Bryant, who's made a string of entertaining shows as a director and writer, including writing the lyrics for the 2024 hit musical My Brilliant Career.This Halloween, academics and dancers are gathering in Melbourne/Naarm for a national ballet symposium on the theme of haunted. Dance researcher Yvette Grant is an organiser and has delved into the largely forgotten story of the dancer and choreographer Valrene Tweedie, whose unconventional career saw her study with the greats of the USA and Cuba.Dylan Van Den Berg's acclaimed play Whitefella Yella Tree is a tender love story between two young men and set in the early days of an invasion that will transform their worlds forever. It's being re-mounted by Brisbane's La Boite and has elements of a theatre genre that Dylan is also writing a PhD on, Aboriginal gothic.
Australia