REVIEW: From Up Here - Footlights Theatrical Inc.

From Up Here

Presented by: Footlights Theatrical Inc.

Venue: Crete Street Theatre, Beenleigh Theatre Group

Date Attended: 7 August 2026

Written by: Aaron Lee Lambert

Director: Andrew Engelsmann

Assistant Director: Pagan-Leigh Camilleri

Musical Director: Alex Angus

Set Design and Construction: Ian Johnson

Lighting Design: CJ Avery

Sound Design and Operation: Levi Rayner

Stage Management and Props: Pagan-Leigh Camilleri

“From up here, there is perspective.”

From Up Here is a small contemporary musical following five strangers whose lives cross on the Brooklyn Bridge. Some are there by chance, some are looking for perspective, and some are considering whether to jump. Over the course of a year, connections form, circumstances change, secrets come out, and each return to the bridge seems to shift something for them.

The musical itself is quirky, earnest, a bit cheesy, and then suddenly much heavier than you expect. The songs tend to come in short bursts rather than huge showstoppers, with reprises, underscoring, and transitions constantly weaving these stories together. With only five performers, there is absolutely nowhere to disappear on that stage. Each carries their own story, dramatic material, solo work, and individual vocal line, before those five voices come together in some seriously intricate harmonies. What impressed me most, though, wasn’t simply the singing. It was their phenomenal acting.

Emilia Povey as Jill makes one of the strongest early impressions as a highly strung young woman who interrupts Alan’s workday with a pregnancy crisis. Emilia has excellent comic instincts, especially when Jill’s thoughts start racing much faster than she can process them. Her number Positive is wonderfully silly (especially once she starts hurling pregnancy tests in Alan’s direction). Jill could easily stay the kooky comic character of the group, but Emilia reveals something much more vulnerable underneath. Her later solo Being Eleven, reflecting on childhood and her father, is beautifully simple, carried by her clear, bell-like voice.

On the receiving end of all that chaos is Mark James as Alan, a businessman far more comfortable discussing work than emotions. With his suave manner, polished New York accent, constant phone calls, and approximately twenty things happening at once, Mark looks increasingly horrified by how exactly he ended up involved in Jill’s predicament. The Life of Riley captures that frantic energy perfectly (with the band bubbling underneath), as work, family, responsibility, and ambition all start colliding. Mark handles the escalating pressure with great comic timing. Because if we don’t laugh at it, we’ll cry... Later, that polished facade begins to crack, and And Then Alan exposes the vulnerability and regret underneath all that productivity.

James Bird’s Dan arrives at the bridge with a camera and a project to photograph strangers. He has a romantic soul, an obvious fascination with people, and a tendency to notice beauty before practicality. James brings an easy warmth to Dan, particularly opposite Lisa Alsop as his partner, Emily. Their duet This Camera is very cute, with Dan admiring Emily so completely that he puts her on a pedestal. Literally. James is also sent into some impressively high vocal territory and handles those upper notes with confidence. There is a real sweetness between Dan and Emily, which only makes things more painful once we understand what she is keeping from him.

Lisa Alsop carries some of the heaviest material in the show as Emily faces a terminal illness while desperately avoiding what it means for both herself and Dan. Her logic is painfully understandable. If she distances herself, keeps things inside, or pushes him away, perhaps she can spare him some of what is coming. Lisa allows Emily to be angry, frightened, withdrawn, and occasionally difficult without trying to make any of it pretty. Facing mortality doesn’t suddenly turn somebody into an inspirational poster. Running Out gives her room to finally let that anger burst through, while Emily’s Choice turns inward again as she considers what trying to “free” Dan might actually take away from both of them.

A quieter form of grief comes through Leo Bradley’s Henry, a recently widowed man who brings an entirely different perspective to the bridge. Leo gives him a gentle calm that contrasts beautifully with the panic, avoidance, ambition, and romantic optimism around him. “Sometimes confiding in a stranger is easier than facing your fears,” he tells Emily. That idea sits right at the heart of From Up Here. These people repeatedly say things to strangers that they can’t say to the people closest to them. Sometimes there’s freedom in talking to someone who arrives without history, expectation, or judgement. Of course, those supposedly insignificant conversations aren’t always insignificant after all.

The ensemble work is particularly satisfying whenever all five stories collide musically. I loved the recurring dream sequences, where each character describes increasingly strange dreams before their individual thoughts lock together in deliciously dissonant harmony. With only five singers, there is no chorus around them to bulk out the sound or quietly rescue a harmony that has wandered off somewhere. The resulting group passages are some of the loveliest moments in the score.

The four-piece band deserves heaps of credit too. Under Musical Director Alex Angus, with Alex on piano, Harry Argent on reeds, Danny Kwok on violin, and Alivia Kenwrick on cello, four musicians create an impressively full sound from their corner of the theatre. Alex also pulled double duty by arranging the score herself.

Andrew Engelsmann’s direction keeps the actors and their relationships firmly at the centre of the story. With so much emotional ground to cover, the performances need to feel natural rather than overly theatrical, and Andrew gives them plenty of space to listen, react, and let those quieter character shifts land. Ian Johnson’s design suggests the Brooklyn Bridge rather than attempting to recreate it, using raised levels and seating to give these strangers different places to stop and temporarily enter each other’s lives. Levi Rayner’s sound design adds distant traffic beneath the action, a small touch that keeps New York moving around them even when these characters stop.

There is plenty of heavy material here: terminal illness, grief, depression, loneliness, pregnancy, regret, and mortality. Yet From Up Here never becomes relentlessly bleak because connection keeps sneaking in. A photographer notices a stranger. A grieving man listens. A work-obsessed businessman unexpectedly becomes someone’s support person. Someone says exactly what another person needs to hear without realising how important it might become. And life keeps moving.

The show wears its heart openly, and some of the songs happily lean into that particular brand of contemporary-musical cheesiness. Its compact structure works in its favour, with short songs, quick ideas, and very little getting between the audience and these five performers.

Footlights Theatrical has taken an unknown little musical and trusted its cast to carry it through acting, storytelling, and ensemble singing. I went in expecting the music to be the main attraction. Instead, I came away thinking about the people. Five strangers, five very different lives, and a bridge that gives them somewhere to stop long enough to actually notice each other.