Presented by Pelican Productions
Reviewed 21 January 2016
For a number of years now, Pelican Productions under the leadership of Directors Jen Frith and Kylie Green have held Music Theatre Camps for two weeks in the January school holidays which culminate in a ‘showcase’ at the end. This end result production is mainly for friends and family of the casts to view, but anyone who is interested in the future of musical theatre performance can also attend and should. The amount of young, up-coming talent that abounds in this state alone is staggering and amazing.
This year’s intake of youngsters was so large (approximately 400) that this showcase, A Walk In The Woods consists of 4 casts: Disney, Hollywood, Broadway and West End. The cast reviewed here is Disney, but recognising some of the names of the other casts, this reviewer has every confidence that they shine just as brightly.
High quality vocal coaches Ross Burford, Martin Cheney, Adelaide Clark. David Gauci and Lauren Hanna along with expert choreographers Rosanne Hosking, Aidan Kane Munn, Nina Richards, Bec Schembri and Mark Stefanoff ensure that each and every one of the cast show and prove their talents to the utmost.
A Walk In The Woods is broken up into ‘show’ segments that highlight various musical highs from those shows. The selection not only contains a few standard and ‘must include’ shows such as Seussical The Musical, Into The Woods, Wizard Of Oz and Wicked (but not the over-used Defying Gravity or Popular – Thank Oz!), and the rarely heard (nowadays) Starlight Express, but recent Broadway smashes Something Rotten, Finding Neverland and School Of Rock.
I applaud the inclusion of these last three, except School Of Rock seems a little out of place being more a showcase for the adult role made famous in the film version by Jack Black than the youngsters.
Each and every cast member showed talent, energy, enthusiasm and professionalism to the nth degree. But this reviewer was especially impressed by Daniel Barnett as Nostradamus (A Musical from Something Rotten), Angelique Diko beautifully singing Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Holly Roberts and Emma Kavanagh as Galinda and Elphaba respectively, Harry Fiedler singing Giants In The Sky (Into The Woods), Sean Jackson as J.M. Barrie (Finding Neverland) and dancer Olivia Urbaniak as Peter Pan (and let’s not forget show stealer ‘Teddy’ the dog!)
These Music Theatre Camps are extremely worthwhile for participants and audience members alike.
Long may Pelican fly!!
Reviewed by Brian Godfrey
Twitter: @briangods
Venue: Michael Murray Centre – Westminster College 1/23 Alison Ave., Marion
Season: 21 – 24 January 2016
Duration: 2 hours (including interval)
Tickets: $25 – $35
Bookings: www.pelicanproductions.com.au
More News
