AS excitement mounts in Canberra about coming blockbuster productions – professional and Pro-Am – of “Sweet Charity,” “Mary Poppins” and “Jesus Christ Superstar,” questions are being asked around town as to whether we might not have enough musicals to satisfy the Canberra public.

Earlier this week, Stephen Pike at the Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre, The Q, unveiled further plans for productions “Grease”  and Stephen Sondheim’s “Company,” the latter  featuring a genuine all-star local cast put together by Everyman Theatre.

Unwittingly  caught up in this debate were the recently announced stars of Free Rain Theatre’s March production of “Mary Poppins”, Shaun Rennie and Alinta Chizdey.

Neither of these seasoned young professionals knows anything much about what goes on in the Canberra theatre scene, but each has a different background with Pro-Am productions, as “Citynews” discovered during a morning chat last week.

Rennie, who gets to play Bert in the production was last in Canberra to perform in “The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber,” directed by Stuart Maunder. In that  production he was on stage with Chizdey, who gets to play Mary Poppins.

Although a graduate of the NIDA musical theatre course devised by Avigail Herman, winner of the Sydney Cabaret Convention 2003 and nominated for a Manhattan Association of Cabaret Award for “Best Male New York Debut” in 2004 Rennie’s background is in amateur theatre in  Bankstown and he understands the different impetus.

“It’s different working in Pro-Am theatre, there’ s great joy when it comes to community theatre,” Rennie tells me, “it reminds me of my history, of where I started.”

The way Rennie sees it, when it comes to Canberra and works with some of our most talented Pro-Am performers,  he hopes “it will be a two way street.” In his view, there are many good performers out there who have for family or personal reasons or  because of another career beckoning, have opted to perform on the stage part-time.

As well, he says, observing teenage  Canberra actor Ben Burgess, eyeing him off as he sings a song and dance man number in the role of Bert, young performers may learn something from working with people like him. In fact, he says, when he was Burgess’s age he was  looking enviously a professional actors getting to play a role like that.

Chizdey’s  background is different, with a training background at the Howard Fine Acting Studio in Melbourne. She’s had some wonderful parts, performing in “Mamma Mia”  with Rennie at age 18 and more recently playing Magnolia in “Showboat” and Anita  in “West Side Story” (her favourite musical) and has  the impression that a show like “Mary Poppins” will be very exciting for local audiences because “a lot of touring shows don’t come here.”

The role of Mary has “a lot of mystique to her,” so she’s been looking at her back story and reflecting that a lot of modern parents are too busy working to show the necessary discipline and love for their children. In other words, while playing Mary Poppins is going to “bring a lot of joy and fun”, there is a serious side to it too.

Free Rain Theatre has done well to engage to such up-to-date actors as Rennie and Chizdey, but with an impressive line up of creatives, including “CityNews” music writer Ian McLean as musical director and a supporting cast of considerable distinction, it’s bound to be a lively rehearsal period.

“Mary Poppins” at the Canberra Theatre, March 12-29, 2015, bookings to Canberratheatrecentre.com.au or 6275 2700.