THE news is out. One of the best-known stars of musicals in Australia, Michael Cormick, will be playing the title role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s mammoth “The Phantom of the Opera” at the Canberra Theatre in August next year.

We’ve been waiting for months for confirmation that local company, Free Rain Theatre, will indeed go ahead with the show, ever since director Anne Somes won the bid for the amateur rights to stage this ambitious musical against some strong local contenders. All eyes will be on the process of staging a show that, in comparison to the tiny Courtyard Studio where she usually puts on plays, must feel like a stadium.

Cormick, one of our most admired popular tenors, has sung The Phantom in London, but has also been in professional productions in Australia of “Cats,” “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” “ Sunset Boulevard” and “ Beauty and the Beast, where he played the lead role.” He recently took over from Anthony Warlow as Daddy Warbucks in “Annie.”

The glamorous female lead, Christine, will be taken by Julie Lea Goodwin, who catapulted to fame in 2007 playing Christine to Warlow’s Phantom and later Maria in the national tour of “West Side Story”.

As for the director, that will be former Young Wagga Citizen of the Year and CATS winner, Mark Grentell, a NIDA graduate and a rising star of the theatre, who boasts his own company producing new works from regionally based artists. He also has a swag of professional credits, including work on the new musical “Doctor Zhivago” and the musical “Rock of Ages.”

The musical director will be “CityNews”’s own music reviewer, Ian McLean, and the choreographer will be Jacqui Richards. The dates are August 9 -18, with the strong likelihood of an extension.

Now it’s time for Somes to assemble the rest of her cast, her creatives and a team of backers – we wish her well.