IN yet another coup for Canberra Theatre boss Alex Budd, it was announced late this morning (March 7) that the theatre has secured the Bob Dylan musical, “Girl From the North Country”, for an August-September season after it runs in Adelaide and Melbourne

The announcement preceded the official subscription season preview to take place this evening, but one of the stars of the show, Lisa McCune, was on hand to help Budd talk up the show, which has been billed as a play for now, for coming out of lockdown.

The announcement comes in the wake of two postponements (now to 2023) of the 9/11 musical “Come From Away”, to which the Dylan show has been likened by many.

Described in his review of the Sydney season by “CityNews” reviewer Bill Stephens as “very much an ensemble show”, it features a heavyweight line-up of serious actors, including McCune, Zahra Newman, Helen Dallimore, Peter Carroll and Terence Crawford and Greg Stone.

Everyone knows who wrote the 22 songs in “Girl From the North Country”, but the script is by celebrated Irish playwright Conor McPherson, after being approached by Bob Dylan’s record company, reimagined the songs of Dylan and created a play set in 1930s Depression-era Minnesota, specifically Duluth, the city of Dylan’s birth. But McPherson and Dylan never met.

The story is set in a boarding house and the songs reveal the characters’ inner lives so that, rather than being a conventional musical, this is a play with music where the focus is on the boarding house individuals backed by a small, live band using simple acoustic instruments of the era.

The plays features famous songs such as “Hurricane”, “Like a Rolling Stone” and “All Along The Watchtower”, but as well there’s “Duquesne Whistle”, the newest Dylan song in the show, and a host of others, such as “Sign on the Window”, “Forever Young” and “Every Grain of Sand”.

“Girl From the North Country”, Canberra Theatre, August 25 to September 3. Bookings open March 10 here or 6275 2700.