REVIEW: Equinox - Brisbane State High School

EQUINOX: A BRAND NEW MUSICAL

Presented by: Brisbane State High School

Venue: QUT Gardens Theatre

Date Attended: 11 September 2026

Book, Music & Lyrics: Malcolm Hume

Musical Director/Conductor: Jane Iszlaub

Stage Manager: Aimee Gust

Assistant Directors: Gabrielle Quin and Eliza Moore

Design Lead: Charlotte Pezaro

Vocal Coaching: Naomi Thurlow

Choreography Leader: Jess Zeibell

Photography: Jeffrey Zhang

“Wake, work, eat, sleep, repeat.”

Aboard the spaceship Persephone 1, that motto is company policy. Brisbane State High School has chosen to fly in a new direction for its 2026 musical production. Instead of handing its cast a familiar musical with an established soundtrack and multiple bootlegs to study, the school premieres Equinox, an entirely new sci-fi musical by Malcolm Hume. We get aliens, workplace oppression, rich people complaining, fighter-pilot jocks, and corporate propaganda that's out of this world.

Seven months into Persephone’s maiden voyage, humanity’s latest batch of colonists is heading towards a new life on Equinox. Corporate assures everyone that the ship is state-of-the-art. The wealthy passengers disagree, largely because the catering isn't up to their gourmet standards. The Flight Crew are sulking because their extremely expensive fighter jets are tragically sitting around gathering space dust. The Staff are exhausted, underpaid, and trapped in an endless loop. Meanwhile, nervous junior navigator Ensign Rensom discovers that the ship is off course, and nobody in charge seems particularly interested in listening to her.

Malcolm Hume cites the class farces of Gilbert and Sullivan as inspiration, and I can see the family resemblance. Every character has their own agenda, social groups travel in packs, authority figures are absurd, lyrics come thick and fast, and the plot gradually ties itself into a knot of competing schemes. This time, though, the operetta has been launched into space and plugged into a synth-rock score.

And that score does not make life easy for anybody. The timing is hard. Rhythms shift, lyrics tumble over each other, entrances demand precision, and some of the time signatures appear to have a personal vendetta against these teenagers. The nine student musicians in the pit (two pianists, guitar, bass, drums, saxophone, two trumpets, and trombone) handle it confidently under Jane Iszlaub’s direction.

Isabelle Harris gives Ensign Rensom a nervous physicality from the beginning. She’s discovered a potentially catastrophic navigational problem and would very much prefer that somebody else fix it. Isabelle holds tension through her posture and delivery, making Rensom appear to shrink around the bigger personalities before slowly coming out of the shadows and finally taking up space. “Alone Out Here” lets her work through that anxiety vocally, while keeping Rensom recognisably determined.

Isabelle's duet with Adina Stephen’s Alien Sibling 3479, “To See the Stars”, brings their voices together beautifully, with lovely harmonies underneath all the curiosity of two characters trying to figure each other out. Adina brings a softer presence to Sibling 3479, including “One Percent”, which looks at the surviving humans with unexpected tenderness. The Alien voices have their own bizarre flavour too, sung offstage in a solemn monotone that sends my brain somewhere between Jesus Christ Superstar chanting and We Will Rock You futurism.

Peyton Pule’anga has plenty of fun with Captain Bromard’s dramatic tendencies while finding a sweeter side in “Perfect Little Dome”. Bromard’s grand dream is hilariously relatable: forget commanding humanity through deep space, she would quite like her own dome where nobody can schedule a meeting, send an email, or ask her for anything. Deeply valid...

Lucie Le Saveant gets one of the score’s juiciest numbers as scheming Lieutenant Carvolth, and she has the voice to sink her teeth into it. “That Uniform” turns villainy into a full production number, with Lucie controlling the bodies around her through puppeteer-style choreography. Even better, she choreographed the number herself! Carvolth doesn’t need to explain how she sees everyone else when she can physically arrange them like pieces on a board.

That creative ownership extends throughout Equinox. Individual songs have their own student choreographers, which I don’t see particularly often in school productions, and I love the idea of handing students that responsibility. Erin Savage choreographs the regimented “Wake, Work, Eat, Sleep, Repeat”, Darcy Viles takes on “A Reasonable List of Demands”, Kyra Ryan handles “A Modest Proposal” and “Bromard’s Torment”, Jemma Hart-Phillips choreographs the opening and finale, and Lydia Du and Mary Mac Geraghty tackle the rapid-fire “Just Say Yes”.

Nikhil Cheriyapath leads the Colonists’ complaint department as Grandall, surrounded by passengers in extravagant clothes, sour faces, and noses held higher than everybody else’s. His diction is particularly useful during “A Reasonable List of Demands”, where grievances arrive at speed, and his voice comfortably leads the motley band of wealthy space Karens around him.

Heidi Cesnik’s Corporal Porkins looks permanently one workplace request away from collapse. She throws her whole body into Porkins’ frazzlement, racing through duties as though the survival of civilisation depends on somebody finally getting the laundry done. “Don’t You Want to Be Free?” gives Heidi room to open up vocally after all that stress, and Porkins finally gets some proper breathing room.

Brandon Barnes as Melwick leads the Flight Crew, who are basically the ship’s jocks: athletic, excitable, and deeply disappointed that nobody has required them to dramatically save the day in their fighter jets yet. Brandon gives Melwick the right amount of irritating swagger for someone who’s spent far too long waiting for an excuse to use the expensive toys. “Fly By” goes all in with full choreography and even a tap break!

Visually, Equinox achieves a lot with fairly modest materials. Cardboard scenic pieces and LED strips outline the ship, while bright coloured lighting shifts the mood and throws stars around the theatre. The projections are a great addition for imagery and context, while the surtitles help enormously when voices come from offstage and the musical textures get crowded.

There are rough edges, of course. Equinox is long, and its plot is carrying a lot of ideas: Rensom’s navigation crisis, the Alien breach and body-swapping, Carvolth’s ambitions, Bromard’s spiralling, the staff uprising, the colonists protesting, corporate pressure, and the flight crew all want space. The costume changes and transitions also leave occasional patches of empty stage. I’m forgiving here because this is a high school production premiering an original musical from scratch, but tightening those gaps would help the story maintain momentum instead of having to rev itself back up.

The line I kept thinking about afterward was: “You are worth more than you produce.” Equinox keeps circling questions of status, labor, privilege, and what happens when people are valued according to their usefulness or position. It’s also interested in what changes when they start looking across those divisions at each other instead. Most excitingly, these students are the first test pilots to try any of this material. There’s some turbulence, sure, but that comes with premiering a brand-new musical hurtling into unknown territory.