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Arts / Rhonda returns for more

Rhonda Burchmore… audiences are in for plenty of entertainment and a few wicked surprises, too.
Rhonda Burchmore… audiences are in for plenty of entertainment and a few wicked surprises, too.
BILLED as Australia’s queen of cabaret and musical theatre, Rhonda Burchmore soon returns to Canberra for a cabaret performance of her show, “Broadway Baby”.

She’s been in musicals such as “Guys and Dolls”, “Mamma Mia!”, “They’re Playing Our Song” and “Mame”, as well as more operatic shows – “Iolanthe”, “Ruddigore” and “Die Fledermaus” for the Victorian Opera – as well as her own cabaret shows, notably “Legs 11”, also the name of her 2010 autobiography.

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Rhonda Burchmore… audiences are in for plenty of entertainment and a few wicked surprises, too.
After studying theatre at the University of New England, Burchmore’s first big Australian theatre breakthrough was a role opposite Garry McDonald in the 1988 production of “Sugar Babies”, a role she repeated opposite Mickey Rooney and Ann Miller in the West End, where she also starred in “Stop the World – I Want to Get Off”.

In 1997 she gave the opening performance at Crown Casino in Melbourne with her cabaret, “Red Hot & Rhonda”, later the same year hitting Broadway in Irving Berlin’s “Easter Parade” then Stephen Sondheim’s “Into the Woods”.

In Australia, she has released four albums, featured on “Hey Hey It’s Saturday” and performed a role written for her in David Atkins’s tap extravaganza “Hot Shoe Shuffle”.

A voluble raconteur, she has appeared before at Teatro Vivaldi, the popular restaurant on the ANU campus, flirting outrageously with critics (male) and regular patrons alike while taking a trip down memory lane with tales of rock eisteddfods, forgetting song lyrics, studying in Armidale and, of course, her rapid ascent into the showbiz stratosphere.

Sending up her own sexiness, she became known for a suggestive performance of “To Sir With Love”, for the university lecturer who taught her more than just drama.

Burchmore’s “Legs 11” opened with the classic “Lullaby to Broadway” followed by Sondheim’s “Broadway Baby”, luring the audience into the world of showbiz.

You can fairly bet audiences at Teatro Vivaldi are in for plenty of the same and a few wicked surprises, too.

Rhonda Burchmore, “Broadway Baby”, Teatro Vivaldi Restaurant, October 23-24, dinner and show or show only available, bookings and details to 6257 2718 or vivaldirestaurant.com.au

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Helen Musa

Helen Musa

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