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Canberra Today 13°/16° | Saturday, March 30, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Sydney director for local musical

THERE’S no business like show business.

l. to r. Lisa McClelland as Pearl,  Jill Walsh as Beryl and Karen Strahan as  Ruby in the new show.
L-R: Lisa McClelland as Pearl, Jill Walsh as Beryl and Karen Strahan as Ruby in the new show.
When Stephen Pike, the intended director of the new musical, “Winging My Way to the Top”, pulled out of the show recently for personal reasons, it was back to the drawing board.

Not to worry, local producers Karen Strahan and Jill Walsh, who also wrote the book and libretto, have secured the services of famed Sydney director Rodney Fisher, recipient of an award for “significant contribution to the theatre” from the Sydney Theatre Critics’ Circle and known for his collaborations with the late playwright Dorothy Hewett.

“Winging My Way to the Top”, billed as being about “sibling rivalry, fragile egos and a second chance at the big time”, shows the fictional Diamond sisters finally getting to star in their own musical.

Strahan and Walsh, well-known cabaret and club singers and both members of “The Marvellous Mizdemeanours” quartet, describe the show as “just a little off Broadway”, but with its mixture of comedy and poignant drama, it looks to have all the feel of Broadway itself, and indeed “CityNews” writer Bill Stephens has gone so far as to say the show has “strong potential to become a Broadway hit”.

It won’t come cheap. A crowdfunding campaign intended to raise $30,000 of the $120,000, has so far secured $3,901, and the team has also scored an ArtsACT grant of $34,452 and a CAPO grant of $4,000 for set design.

It is, as they say in showbiz, a long way to the top.

“Winging My Way to the Top,” at The Q, Queanbeyan, May 8 to 17, bookings to 6258 6290.

 

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Helen Musa

Helen Musa

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