Taking a Bite Out of Dracula: Inside Ghostlight Theatre’s Bloody New Production I recently had the opportunity to attend a rehearsal for Ghostlight Theatre Company’s Dracula. Reagan Warner, portraying the Count, already seemed entirely at ease embodying evil. He observed Van Helsing with a faintly amused, knowing expression, as if Dracula relished just how badly outmatched everyone else was. Warner's low Transylvanian accent added to the menace, complemented by the red eyes, dark features, and some truly wild eyebrow acting. This is not a tragic, glittery vampire lover. Ghostlight Theatre Company is bringing William McNulty’s stage adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula to Beenleigh Theatre for just four performances this October. Yasmin Elahi is producing and directing, while also handling set, costume, and lighting design. She is supported by a talented team: Tomm Burnett as Assistant Director, Dan Pohlmann as Fight Choreographer, Sarah Latter as Choreographer, Christina McMahon as Stage Manager, and Charlotte Horn in charge of SFX Makeup. This dedicated team has much to manage, including fight choreography, blood effects, prosthetic makeup, physical transformations, stunning set pieces, a complex soundscape, ballroom dancing, and even a performer on stilts. Which version of Dracula are we getting? For over a century, Dracula has been everything from a fanged monster and mysterious aristocrat to a seductive antihero, a children’s character who runs a hotel, a classic Halloween costume, and even... Nicolas Cage. Based on Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel, Dracula follows the Count’s arrival in England and the gory consequences for those unfortunate enough to cross his path. As Lucy and Mina fall within his sights, Professor Van Helsing and his allies begin to work out exactly what they’re dealing with and how they might stop him. McNulty’s adaptation condenses Stoker’s sprawling epistolary novel into something more manageable for an evening at the theatre. This is probably wise. “We’d be here for 12 years if we tried to do the whole novel,” Warner says. Ghostlight chose this adaptation because of one important distinction. “Because it was the only one that we found that was classed as a horror and not a gothic romance,” Warner explains. “Part of the idea behind this particular production is to make it disturbing and macabre without adding too many of the romantic elements.” So anybody hoping Dracula and Mina might stare tragically into one another’s eyes while contemplating their forbidden eternal love may need to adjust their expectations. There is desire, Warner explains, but love is another matter. “He’s absolutely not capable of love in this one. Absolutely not.” Warner likens this Dracula more to Nosferatu. He’s predatory, grotesque, and ravenous, but there’s still plenty of personality beneath the fangs. I noticed that in the scene where Van Helsing first meets the Count. Warner shifted from a mysterious, almost amused host into something far more aggressive, while Andrew MacArthur’s Van Helsing held his ground firmly. MacArthur brings a calm authority to the scene, which only seems to encourage Dracula to provoke him harder. “There’s so much gravitas to that role that Andrew brings,” Warner says. In the other scene I watched, Harker and Van Helsing confronted Dracula with a crucifix. Instead of recoiling as expected, Dracula mocked them and kept pushing until the encounter turned physical. And it got loud and bloody very quickly. How do you play a vampire without making him sexy nowadays? “I get to eat so many people,” Warner told me, sounding very pleased with himself. “There’s quite a body count in this show. I pity the poor sucker who’s got to mop the stage afterwards.” Anyone who knows Reagan Warner will know that Dracula isn’t exactly a wild casting departure. He wears almost exclusively black, has long joked about sleeping in a coffin, and has been a fan of the macabre for most of his life. Actually playing Dracula, however, has required more than turning up in his usual wardrobe. “Horror is so difficult,” he says. “The preparation predominantly comes down to how the audience is going to perceive the show. I have to think about how the audience is going to experience it and make sure that it is being conveyed properly.” Much of Warner’s work has gone into Dracula’s voice. “We have discussed the accent at length,” he says. “I think that the accent is inherently a part of the character and his origin. It is probably something I spent the most time on.” Warner is a linguist and admits to being particular about accents. That same attention runs through the production, with the cast looking closely at regional voices, clothing, physicality, and the relationships between their characters. How to freak out an audience without touching them? Ghostlight’s horror plans aren’t confined to bites and blood. Warner says the production uses sensory details designed to unsettle an audience before they quite realise why. “It’s one of the rare shows that employs Theatre of Cruelty techniques,” he explains. “Things that play with the audience, make the audience feel uncomfortable subconsciously, things like scent and sound that you don’t realise is there until it stops, and special effects that will toy with the psychology of a person.” Yes indeed, scent. I sought further clarification but was advised to wait and see. Ghostlight’s soundscape combines classical music, layered voices, unsettling effects, and, naturally, bats. The familiar Toccata and Fugue appears, along with a nod to Swan Lake, which Warner points out plays at the beginning of the classic Bela Lugosi Dracula. “The atmospheric sound has been a big part of this and a big focus, and I think they’ve done a really good job so far.” Sound can tip into haunted-house territory if every entrance, scare, or suspicious moment comes with its own musical exclamation mark. From what I heard in rehearsal, Ghostlight avoids that. The sound designer was constantly tweaking cues, replaying sections, and layering sounds while scenes were being worked around them. Who is going to clean this up? The rehearsal I attended gave just as much attention to the physical aspects of the horror. At one point, Alynta Scott, who plays Lucy, was carefully working through the logistics and movement of a bite. Vampirism requires choreographic direction too. Nearby, Rhys Schwarten as Renfield rehearsed with Alex Andrews, who plays the Child. Having a child performer woven into scenes immediately makes the situation more intriguing and raises the stakes. Warner had only recently seen some of the blood effects when we spoke. “I just absolutely gasped.” Fake blood bags were on every table at rehearsal, waiting patiently for their chance to ruin somebody’s costume. Warner’s own costume includes a heavy, high-quality velvet cape that looks suitably extravagant and very fun to sweep around the stage in. The production isn’t holding back on practical effects either. There will be prosthetics, transformations, physical fights, gore effects, and one performer handling combat while on stilts. Who put this bloody thing together? Along with producing and directing, Yasmin Elahi has designed the set, costumes, and lighting, while the wider team tackles choreography, combat, makeup, effects, sound, and the puzzle of getting an ambitious horror production onto an independent theatre budget. The cast and creatives have been working from shared mood boards and visual references so they’re all inhabiting the same version of Stoker’s world. “We’ve really worked on the aesthetics,” Warner says. “We’ve done a lot of inter-relational work between the characters.” I’ve seen Ghostlight’s past four productions, so I’ve had a pretty good look at the sort of theatrical worlds this company likes building. Their production of The Exorcist remains one of the very few straight horror productions I’ve seen onstage, and I still think about it often. Horror has a different set of toys in a theatre than it does on screen. There’s no camera choosing exactly where you look, no edit to cut away at the right moment, and whatever awful thing is happening is usually only a few metres from your seat. This also happens to be one of several Dracula productions appearing on local stages this year. So, why should audiences make the trip to Beenleigh for this one? For Warner, part of the answer is simply how rarely we get to see horror onstage. “Horror is so seldom done on stage,” he says. “I can only really think of The Woman in Black off the top of my head, and this is adapting a very well-known classic specifically for the stage.” Warner is hardly new to performing either. After years of stage work across almost 100 productions, he arrives at Dracula with plenty of experience behind him, plus a lifelong affection for the character. He’s equally enthusiastic about the people doing it with him. “The cast are phenomenal,” he says. “I’ve worked with many of the cast before and can testify to their hard work and their ethic, and just how good they are to work with.” I only saw two scenes, but there was already plenty happening before the production had put all its teeth in. When I asked Warner to sum it all up, his answer was simple: “Ambitious.” He paused and added, “Dude, I hope it’s good.” With only four performances, audiences won’t have long to find out! Photography: Christopher Sharman Tickets available here: https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1579528 Please note: This show contains strobe lighting, loud noises, horror themes, violence, blood and gore, simulated nudity and simulated firearms. Recommended for audiences aged 16+.

Next to Normal Produced by: Millennial Productions Presented at: Ron Hurley Theatre, Seven Hills Date attended: 26 September 2026 Music: Tom Kitt | Book and Lyrics: Brian Yorkey Director: Taylor Atley Associate Director / Intimacy Liaison: Ellen Axford Musical Director: Victoria Keomahavong Production Manager: Jaime O'Donoghue Stage Manager: Daniel Lelic Lighting: Pavani Wickremasinghe | Sound: Lane Agostinelli Costume: Ned Kelly |Props: Lauren Bensted Mental Health Consultant: Maddison Joyce Photography: Jacob Atley “We haven’t had a normal day in years.” I’d never seen Next to Normal before, but with Millennial Productions’ reputation and this creative team behind it, I knew I was in safe hands. The tissues being sold at the bar should probably have warned me what those hands were about to do though... By the end, I understood why. The Goodman family have spent seventeen years arranging themselves around grief and mental illness. Diana (Morgan Heynes) swings between mania and medication. Dan (Conor Ensor) keeps reaching for the next practical fix, as though enough appointments and reassurance might hold the house together. Natalie (Madeline Harper) retreats into piano and perfection. Gabe (Jackson Hughesman) hovers close to Diana, loving and unsettling in equal measure. Henry (August Cocks) tries to reach Natalie from outside the family’s orbit as her sweetly persistent boyfriend. Diana’s psychiatrists, Dr Fine and Dr Madden (both played by Sam Ford), are entrusted with decisions that can alter the shape of her life. Director Taylor Atley places the Goodmans in a recognisably suburban home where they move around each other on autopilot. Lauren Bensted’s props fill it with the usual family clutter, right down to medication bottles scattered across the kitchen bench. A raised level stretches above the set, creating space for characters who are present yet seem detached from the reality below. Pavani Wickremasinghe’s lighting, including LED strips framing the upper level and doorway, shifts the house between warmth, unease, memory, and the cooler world of treatment while the scenery itself stays fixed. That domestic ‘normality’ feeds straight into “Just Another Day”. Everyone races through the morning, performing the rhythms of a functioning family while the routine is already fraying around the edges. Brian Yorkey’s writing can jump from observational humour to absolutely vicious within moments, and this production embraces that whiplash. “It’s Gonna Be Good” lets the room relax into laughter before “You Don’t Know” tears straight through it with Diana’s rage. Nobody receives the courtesy of one emotion at a time. Morgan Heynes has an enormous task as Diana, vocally and dramatically, and never flattens her into a diagnosis. Her acting keeps Diana mercurial: she adores her family, resents them, reaches for help, rejects it, and describes herself with the beautifully understated, “My mum called me high-spirited” (relatable). Heynes’ control of those shifts is as impressive as her singing. In “I Miss the Mountains”, Diana has reached the point where medication has dulled everything, including the parts of herself she misses. Heynes changes her vocal texture as the song grows, letting rough cries break through the cleaner phrases until the desire to feel anything becomes physical. Later, following ECT, she alters Diana’s entire presence. Her gaze disconnects, her responses arrive differently, and familiar people seem to be standing in the wrong places inside her own life. The contrast is unnerving, showing just how much detail Heynes has built into Diana beyond the score. Jackson Hughesman as Gabe initially appears protective, a son hovering near his mother when she needs him. The gentleness of his character makes his eventual pull over Diana far more disturbing. In “I’m Alive”, Hughesman unleashes a voice full of riffs, height, and rock power, but distress and torment sit underneath all of it. Gabe wants to remain. He wants to be remembered, not erased. Depending on where Diana is emotionally, he shifts between comfort, grief, temptation, and threat. His physical presence feeds that unease. He climbs onto furniture, looms above the family, and draws Diana towards the promise of peace with a magnetic insistence. He occupies the house completely while remaining unreachable to everyone living outside Diana’s reality. And then the production turns Gabe towards Dan. I won't discuss that sequence in detail because I’d like at least one other unsuspecting person to suffer as I did. Ensor and Hughesman’s “I Am the One” had people all around me wiping their faces. Ensor’s reaction strips away years of repression in seconds. Conor Ensor is excellent at showing exhaustion without playing Dan as permanently defeated. Earlier, “I’ve Been” gives him space to admit what maintaining this family has cost him. His support for Diana is loving, desperate, and increasingly threadbare. The production also lets us see the much younger Dan and Diana, full of hope at 22, before parenthood and loss rearranged their lives and love. Natalie is dealing with a different kind of disappearance. She’s gifted, driven, embarrassed by her family, frightened by what she sees happening to her mother, and woefully aware of how frequently she is overlooked. “You tend to miss a lot of things,” she tells Diana. Madeline Harper has a beautiful, expressive voice that rises easily through Kitt’s demanding score. In “Superboy and the Invisible Girl”, resentment keeps cracking wounds open, while “Catch Me I’m Falling” builds into the panic of a daughter asking to be noticed before she disappears completely. And when Diana decides to stop taking her medication, Natalie begins self-medicating. August Cocks brings a welcome softness to Henry, keeping him warm, earnest, and slightly awkward. His “This planet is pretty much broken beyond all repair” philosophy is perhaps not the cheeriest opening gambit for teenage romance, but his scenes with Harper have an easy sweetness that lets Natalie briefly drop the hyper-achiever armour. Their relationship gives the show room to breathe, even as the chaos at home keeps pressing in. Sam Ford’s doubling as Dr Fine and Dr Madden marks one of the production’s more theatrical departures from the Goodman household. Diana’s treatment suddenly resembles a rock concert, her psychiatrist elevated into “Doctor Rock” as medications, diagnoses, and treatment options fly at her. The humour evaporates once those choices carry frightening consequences. Diana needs medical care, yet handing parts of her mind and body over to treatment is terrifying. When the pain of living is unbearable, which is worse: the illness, or what the treatment takes from her? Is feeling nothing preferable to feeling everything? With Maddison Joyce as mental health consultant and Ellen Axford as intimacy liaison, the production approaches Diana’s illness as lived experience rather than spectacle. And Dan and Natalie’s exhaustion, neglect, and fear are given equal weight. Musically, this cast is formidable. Victoria Keomahavong guides a score that barely gives its performers time to breathe, and the layered harmonies in numbers like “Song of Forgetting” are so beautifully controlled. The main issue is sound balance. At points, the underscoring sits too loudly beneath dialogue and lyrics, swallowing lines that carry important information in an already dense story. Still, this is a musical built around people missing things. Diana loses pieces of her memory, Natalie is missed in plain sight, and Dan hides grief from himself. Next to Normal is brutal, but Millennial Productions doesn’t leave us entirely in the dark. “Light” arrives as a beautiful sliver of hope after so much trying, failing, and trying again. Around me, the audience quietly wept and gathered themselves after everything that came before.

Essgee’s Pirates of Penzance Presented by: Savoyards Musical Comedy Society Venue: Iona Performing Arts Centre Date attended: 26 September 2026 Original work: W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan | Adaptation: Essgee Entertainment Director / Set Designer: David Harrison | Assistant Director: Joshua Moore Choreographer: Julianne Burke | Assistant Choreographer: Caley Monro Musical Director: Nicky Griffith Stage Manager: CJ Avery Costume Coordinator: Kim Heslewood Wigs, Hair & Makeup: Lynne Swain Lighting: Gabrielle Burton Sound: Ethan Houley and David Sowdon Photography: Sharyn Hall and Bec Swain “With cat-like tread, upon our prey we steal.” They sing this extremely loudly. Subtlety is nowhere to be found. Gilbert and Sullivan wrote the original nearly 150 years ago. Essgee Entertainment’s 1994 Australian adaptation gives The Pirates of Penzance a poppier makeover while keeping G&S’s musical parody intact. Savoyards takes that already cheeky version and piles on another layer of theatrical mischief. Director David Harrison fills the production with plenty of fourth-wall breaks, audience interaction, and exaggerated movement. The result reminds me of Spamalot and Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Frederic (Oliver King) has spent his young life among pirates (and Ruth, the only woman he has ever known). Then he encounters Major-General Stanley’s many daughters and the poor boy doesn’t stand a chance... Frederic’s sudden exposure to eligible young women turns into a magnificent display of peacocking. He poses, thrusts his pelvis, and behaves like a male bird midway through an elaborate mating dance. The daughters keep spawning from nowhere while he sings, swooning in increasing numbers. It’s like watching The Bachelor set in 1879. King’s singing has a warm, rounded, old-fashioned quality that suits Frederic beautifully, like a romantic operetta lead who has wandered into a Monty Python sketch. Of course, the sole woman Frederic knows before all this is Ruth (Meg Kiddle), his former nursemaid, now considerably older than him and determined to convince him she’s a viable romantic option (totally normal right?). Kiddle sings “When Frederic Was a Little Lad” with a lovely warmth, and her voice suits the more traditional operetta writing particularly well. Ruth is already such an odd character that I’d happily see Kiddle push her characterisation further into the ridiculous. There’s room for more shamelessness in Ruth’s wildly inappropriate pursuit of this bewildered young man. Mabel (Kat Suschinsky) wastes no time staking her claim on Frederic's attention. Suschinsky’s operatic voice sails above the surrounding silliness, while her characterisation has a sweet aggression to it. Mabel can flash a pretty smile while violently elbowing her sisters out of the way. Suschinsky milks the contradiction perfectly. Against the dizzy fluttering around Frederic, her vocal confidence always powers through without fail. Anna Roche-Kelly, Ashlin Cork, and Constanza Acevedo Burckhardt are a ball as Edith, Kate, and Isobel. Decked out in vibrant dresses and blonde wigs, they look like a Victorian girl group ready to bust out “Three Little Maids” if given the chance. Alas, their actual song “Climbing Over Rocky Mountain” demands an extraordinary effort from them all. They’re moving, acting, navigating musical complexity, and keeping their harmonies precise while pretending their brains aren't whirring like crazy. As for the ensemble, the Stanley daughters collectively exude the energy of 24 women vying for a single rose. Jordan Ross’s Pirate King treats the entire theatre as territory available for conquest. Between the swagger, audience play, games with the spotlight operator, and excursions into the aisles, Ross keeps reacting to whatever is happening around him. That gives his comedy a freshly invented quality, even when every beat has obviously been rehearsed. He’s charming, witty, and makes the Pirate King look like he’s having just as much fun as we are. Vocally, Ross’s stunning deep tone reminds me of the Lion from The Wizard of Oz, which completely suits this larger-than-life rogue. His pirates follow accordingly. At one point I spotted an ensemble member running with Jack Sparrow energy, and I momentarily forget which pirate universe we'd sailed into. That’s one of the pleasures of this enormous cast. There is always some piece of character business happening somewhere. In crowded scenes, watching the ensemble becomes its own activity. Everybody has been given permission to build a complete character rather than waiting politely for their next chorus entrance. Warryn James' performance of “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General” is a remarkable display of verbal dexterity, executed with precision by James, the orchestra, and all involved. He zips through it with the cheerful oblivion of a guy who’s just unknowingly dragged a whole crowd through a verbal marathon. Also, I didn't understand a word. Act Two belongs to the policemen. Graham Colenutt leads a squad of glorious professional incompetents equipped with phony moustaches, wobbly legs, elaborate formations, and absolutely no desire to catch criminals. When the Foeman Bares His Steel” erupts into organised “Tarantara” pandemonium, while “When a Felon’s Not Engaged in His Employment” confirms that these men will perform virtually any activity available to them provided it does not resemble policing. Their commitment to doing their jobs as badly as possible is magnificent. “With Cat-Like Tread” sees the pirates boldly claim to sneak around like ninjas, then make enough noise to wake the entire neighbourhood. Throw in a kickline, and any hope of stealth vanishes. Better yet, they keep providing an encore. And another. Ross’s Pirate King grows more exasperated each time the song refuses to die, until his frustration finally shifts toward the maestro, as though she personally has the power to stop this musical hostage situation. The joke is ancient and blatantly obvious, yet everybody commits to it so completely that it keeps getting funnier. Musical Director Nicky Griffith conducts a 22-piece orchestra from upstage, with the musicians becoming part of the personality of the evening. Griffith is acknowledged throughout and occasionally steps outside the usual invisible-conductor role. Her finest act of piracy may be unleashing Pirates of the Caribbean on the audience. The full company’s rendition of “Hail, Poetry” is like finding a beautiful flower in the middle of a food fight. Sung a cappella, it strips away the orchestra and lets the ensemble’s harmonies speak for themselves. For a few minutes, this circus of pirates, policemen, and ladies turns into a very fine choir. Julianne Burke and Caley Monro’s choreography understands that these people should never move as expected. Even when the stage is packed, the movement stays rooted in character. The Act One finale shows just how much coordination sits beneath the apparent disarray, with “Pray Observe the Magnanimity” moving from partnerwork into full-company choreography and carefully engineered mayhem. Visually, Harrison’s set keeps the world bright and theatrical, with ship imagery, lattice structures, and vivid green and red sails. Kim Heslewood’s costumes favour colour over historical solemnity. Pirates arrive in layered, mismatched textures and accessories, while the Stanley daughters resemble a walking box of jewel-toned sweets. Lynne Swain’s wigs, hair, and makeup push the characters another step towards storybook beauty. This is my first time seeing The Pirates of Penzance, and I’m surprised by just how contemporary the comedy can feel. The plot is absurd, everyone is trapped by increasingly dumb definitions of honour and duty, and nobody behaves themselves for more than thirty consecutive seconds. Savoyards gives the silliness room, trusts the performers to commit to it, and lets their large cast behave like they’ve all been invited to the same pirate-themed improv night. Some things simply survive the passage of time.

Les Femmes Venue: The West End Electric, Brisbane Cast: Emma Mylott, Jacinta Gulisano, and Kirrah Amosa Date attended: 27 September 2026 Photography: Leslie Liu Photography (select images) Somewhere between Prince, Hall & Oates, Queen, Usher, the Bee Gees, AC/DC, and John Farnham, I began to suspect that the ladies of Les Femmes had somehow infiltrated my music library. By the time Disco Inferno (my all-time fave disco jam) turned up, I was sure of it! Les Femmes flips the script by giving songs made famous by male artists to the dynamic trio of Emma Mylott, Jacinta Gulisano, and Kirrah Amosa. These powerhouse singers have soul in their voices, riffs for days, and zero plans to let the audience sit still through two acts. The songs weave through tales about the men in our lives: lovers, dads, best buddies, players, charmers, and those mythical “good guys”. It’s a mix of cabaret, concert, game night, and a playlist so well-curated it could win a Grammy for Best Compilation. The pace is a huge part of the fun. Les Femmes rarely lets one song settle for long, instead chopping favourites into a live megamix where one groove slips into another before you’ve even finished getting excited about the first. It’s a musical buffet where Frankie Valli rubs shoulders with Al Green, the Bee Gees, Cy Grant, and a whole bunch more, while the evening kicks off with the epic SMASH version of That’s Life. I recognised it immediately, which made me far too pleased with myself. I love a musical lucky dip! All three women are stars, and nobody gets permanently assigned to “backup singer while the diva has her spotlight moment”. Leads are constantly passed around. One voice takes the melody, the other two slide underneath it, and moments later they’ve switched places again. The harmonies are immaculate, but the trio never blends into one indistinguishable sound. Each singer brings her own colour, and the arrangements are clever enough to showcase that. For example, Emma takes charge of the a cappella ending of Queen’s Somebody to Love, which blew my mind. Across the night, individual lines keep opening into melismas, riffs, and bits of vocal showing-off. I support the showing-off. If you can sing like this, please do! The dad section may be the most accurate musical representation of opening someone’s glovebox and discovering every CD their father has owned since approximately 1978. My Girl, American Pie, Your Song, and Piano Man, of course. You cannot build a dad playlist and escape Billy Joel. The women perch on stools while the songs bleed into each other, turning it into another jackpot of recognition without slowing the night down for a string of earnest ballads. There are, however, plenty of men here who are very much not anybody’s father. The sexier R&B material wakes up a whole different part of my memory. Pony, Versace on the Floor, Sexual Healing, I’ll Make Love to You, and Usher’s Yeah! take me directly back to my clubbing days. The old-school soul and funk material suits these singers’ voices ridiculously well too. James Brown, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, and Stevie Wonder tumble through the mix, providing plenty of rhythmic bite and several opportunities for the trio to riff well beyond what is strictly necessary. Again: I support this behaviour. And praise be, DISCO ARRIVES. September appears among playlist dedicated to the “good guys” out there. The Bee Gees receive plenty of attention, and eventually Disco Inferno enters the building. At this point, Les Femmes may as well have been built specifically to shut me up by giving me everything I want. Disco, funk, old-school R&B, retro pop, and a run through Australian classics including INXS, AC/DC, John Farnham, Daryl Braithwaite, and good old Eagle Rock. Some of these songs I have never heard performed live outside of an occasional tribute act or my ex’s stupid cover band. The music could carry the evening by itself, but Mylott, Gulisano, and Amosa don’t spend two hours planted behind microphones looking reverently into the middle distance. I love the amount of choreography woven through the songs: synchronised movement, mic-stand work, and strutting to keep the performance visually active without turning every medley into a dance routine. They also use The West End Electric venue beautifully. The venue’s smaller circular platform brings the singers right into the audience, which suits a cabaret this playful. Visually, the giant glowing circles and retro bulbs already make the room look halfway between a disco special and an old television variety show. The masculine chic costumes continue the joke: think dress shirts, suit pants bedazzled with sequins, strappy heels, and a halter top made from silk neckties. With all that tailoring, spunk, and their trio power, I’m getting some serious Josie and the Pussycats vibes. The cabaret portions stop the barrage of songs from turning into one very long playlist. Men in the audience are interviewed and sorted into three categories: players, charmers, or good guys. The crowd gets to judge their answers, and stickers are handed out accordingly (which is now their permanent legal classification). Celebrity Tinder has everyone yelling opinions about famous men, while the guy-best-friend discussion produces MY beautifully blunt conclusion that yes, women can have a male best friend, provided he’s gay... Because the trio keeps moving into the theatre rather than staying safely onstage, the audience interaction has some genuine unpredictability to it. Any man within microphone range suddenly looks slightly less comfortable than he did five minutes earlier. Excellent. Abundance is basically the middle name of Les Femmes. The entire night zooms through decades like a musical rollercoaster. I walked away with three new girl crushes, a playlist of songs forcibly reinstalled in my brain, and an overwhelming desire to hit the clubs once more. If Charlie’s Angels ever want to start a cover band, I’ve already found their audition tape! I’d absolutely recommend this one to anyone craving a night of favourites first made famous by men, then reworked, revved up, and sung within an inch of their lives by three seriously impressive divas. You will not be disappointed.

Werewolf Produced by: Binge Culture Presented by: Brisbane Festival in association with Brisbane Powerhouse Venue: Underground Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse Date attended: 24 September 2026 Devisers/Performers: Joel Baxendale, Stella Reid, Hannah Kelly Dramaturg: Ralph Upton Sound Designer: Oliver Devlin Devisers: Karin McCracken and Freya Daly Sadgrove Set and Lighting Designer: Lucas Neal Technical Stage Manager/Operator: Marshall Rankin Voice Artist: Moana Ete Photography: Mouce Young, Lewis Ferris, and Vanessa Rushton “Attention: Multiple new occurrences confirmed. Healthy citizens report to safehouses by sunset.” A lycanthropy outbreak has begun. Brisbane is in lockdown! Binge Culture’s Werewolf drops its audience into a seven-day containment scenario overseen by three Kiwi wardens in charge of keeping everyone in the theatre alive. I'm not sure how to describe this one. It's kind of a ‘had to be there’ moment. Inspired by the social deduction game also known as Mafia, the show borrows its cycle of day, night, suspicion, misinformation, and hoping nobody eats you after lights-out. It feels like an escape room collided with a murder mystery and became immersive theatre. The clever bit is that participation sounds much scarier than it is. Nobody is expected to suddenly invent a monologue about their childhood trauma or perform interpretive dance under pressure. Audience members receive Public Information instruction cards, jobs, props, and occasional things to say or do. Some participation is planted directly into the room through those instructions, while anything extra we throw at the performers is our own fault. This production needs people willing to play, and the crowd at my performance understood the assignment. Suspicion spreads, information gets mangled, people volunteer opinions nobody asked for, and the safest course of action appears to be listening to the loudest person in the room. You know, civilisation. That structure also creates an entertaining uncertainty around your fellow audience members. Is that person behaving strangely because their card told them to? Are they improvising? Are they a werewolf? Am I overthinking this because I have been issued a tinfoil hat? Joel Baxendale, Stella Reid, and Hannah Kelly have the unenviable task of steering all this without making the steering visible. They hold onto the planned shape of the show while dealing with whatever nonsense comes flying back from the room, meeting ad-libs with quick wit without letting the containment scenario drop away. Hannah Kelly is the funniest of the trio in my performance, finding dry reactions to the absurdity around her and knowing exactly how long to sit in a joke before moving on. Stella Reid becomes the default leader, the most reassuring presence of the three. Joel Baxendale is the suspicious one. He is irritating in precisely the way a man trapped in a bunker during a werewolf outbreak should be irritating: just questionable enough that you keep watching him. Together, they fall into a rhythm of bickering, damage control, and increasingly dubious crisis management. These are not sleek government operatives in tactical gear. They have fleece, flannelette, trackies, beanies, crocs, radios, and warden armbands, as though somebody has grabbed three people from Bunnings on a Saturday morning and informed them they are now responsible for national security. Lucas Neal’s set has the same improvised quality. The safehouse is built from reflective black and silver sheeting, plastic screening, hazard tape, folding chairs, storage crates, work lights, and an old radio. It’s visually sparse, yet the technical world around it is doing a huge amount of work. A live camera feed keeps watch outside the safehouse. Radio broadcasts filter in. Lighting shifts alter how safe the room feels, and when night arrives, the production commits properly to darkness. These are full blackouts, including the emergency exit signs, and suddenly every tiny sound has teeth. Oliver Devlin’s sound design has enormous fun with that loss of sight. Howls circle somewhere outside. People scream around you. Doors creak. Things go bump where you cannot see them. At points, it sounds like the opening of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, which is precisely where my brain goes when I'm sitting in pitch blackness waiting to be mauled by a fictional wolf. The jump scares are ridiculous fun. They also demonstrate how little Werewolf needs to physically show us. Once the lights disappear, the safehouse expands inside your imagination. A sound from behind you becomes far more alarming when you have no idea who, or what, is responsible for it. Devlin, Neal, and operator Marshall Rankin manipulate that uncertainty with careful timing, bouncing the show between laughter and genuine tension without losing its homemade emergency-bunker aesthetic. The production began development during New Zealand’s isolation in 2020, which makes its interest in containment, unreliable information, communal behaviour, and deciding whom to trust easy to recognise. Thankfully, Werewolf doesn’t turn into a lecture about misinformation. The ideas sit inside the game. We experience how quickly a room develops theories, backs the wrong person, follows questionable authority, or repeats something until it starts sounding credible. And because the audience contributes so much, no two performances can be identical. That is also the show's biggest dependency. Werewolf wants a healthy crowd and, more importantly, a willing one. A half-empty room full of people determined not to participate would inevitably change its energy. General admission seating also means your experience varies depending on where you sit. The front row is definitely the full-contact zone, while anyone farther back should choose a seat with a decent view of the screen and live feed. So choose wisely. Also, there is a strict lockout. Don't be late. And hold your pee! Werewolf is the sort of immersive theatre I can happily recommend to people who normally hear “audience participation” and begin planning an emergency exit. You are given enough structure to feel safe joining in, while Baxendale, Reid, and Kelly are quick enough to catch whatever extra chaos the room invents. Luckily, I thrive in a crisis.

Title: Gypsy Presented By: Beenleigh Theatre Group Genre: Musical Synopsis: Set during the golden age of vaudeville and the rise of burlesque, Gypsy follows the formidable Rose, a fiercely ambitious stage mother determined to make her daughters stars. When her talented daughter June breaks away to pursue her own future, Rose redirects her ambitions towards the shy and overlooked Louise. Louise’s unexpected journey takes her from the shadows of her sister’s act to becoming the sophisticated and self-assured burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee. Audition Date: Saturday 17 & Sunday 18 October 2026 Audition Time: Saturday 17 October: Adults (18+): Welcome & Brief 11:00–11:15am; Dance Call 11:15am–12:15pm; Vocal/Blend Call 12:15–1:00pm Under 18s: Welcome & Brief 12:15–12:30pm; Dance Call 12:30–2:00pm; Individual Auditions 2:45–6:00pm Sunday 18 October: Adult individual auditions, 10:00am–6:00pm Audition Location and Address: Crete Street Theatre, Cnr Crete and Kent Street, Beenleigh QLD 4207 Audition Self-Tape Due (if applicable): Video submissions close 6:00pm, Saturday 17 October 2026. Audition Requirements: All auditionees must attend the compulsory dance call relevant to their age group. A choreography tutorial will be available on the audition page beforehand and should be learnt to the best of the auditionee’s ability. Only a brief recap will be provided on the day. Wear comfortable movement clothing and suitable footwear such as sneakers or jazz shoes, and bring water. Auditionees aged 18+ must also attend the compulsory group vocal/blend call. For the individual vocal audition, prepare two contrasting excerpts, approximately one minute each or around a verse and chorus/bridge and chorus, in the style of the show and character. Do not sing from Gypsy unless the character breakdown specifically permits a song. Prepare one of the provided acting sides for the character you wish to be considered for. Auditionees may also be redirected or asked to cold read. Ensemble-only auditionees should prepare Side 9 or 10 as applicable, or one of Sides 1–7. Children should prepare Side 8. All roles require a Standard American accent. Audition Registration: Book a Gypsy audition Audition enquiries: info@beenleightheatregroup.com Audition Pack: Gypsy Audition Pack Performance Dates: 5–20 February 2027 Performance Times: Friday 5, 12 & 19 February – 7:30pm Saturday 6, 13 & 20 February – 2:00pm & 7:30pm Performance Location: Crete Street Theatre, Cnr Crete and Kent Street, Beenleigh QLD 4207 Rehearsal Dates: From Sunday 25 October 2026. Promotional photo shoot Tuesday 8 December Bump-in Sunday 13 December Sitzprobe Sunday 10 January Tech from Sunday 24 January Media preview Monday 1 February. Mandatory bump-out Sunday 21 February. Rehearsal Times: Tuesdays & Thursdays, 7:00–10:00pm; Sundays, 11:00am–4:00pm. Warnings: The production contains references to burlesque and striptease, including a tasteful striptease sequence performed by Louise in Act 2. Performer Age: Adult and child performers required. All roles except Baby Louise, Baby June, and Children’s Ensemble must be performed by people aged 18+. Creative Team: Director – Patrick Lockyer Choreographer – Nikki Bovey Vocal Director – Jade Enright Production/Stage Manager – Haylee Barnett Production Website: Beenleigh Theatre Group Auditions Other information: Callbacks will be held Tuesday 20 October 2026. Successful auditionees must become Beenleigh Theatre Group members at a cost of $10 for the 2026 calendar year, payable before the first rehearsal. All cast, creatives, crew, and volunteers aged 18+ must hold, or be willing to obtain before rehearsals commence, a current Queensland Blue Card or applicable Exemption Card. Beenleigh Theatre Group encourages performers from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds, gender identities and expressions, sexual orientations, abilities, neurotypes, and experiences to audition. First Nations artists are strongly encouraged to apply. Available Roles/Character Breakdown: Rose – Female presenting | Playing age 35–60 | F3–C5 | The ultimate stage mother: ambitious, relentless, charismatic, manipulative, loving, and deeply flawed. Rose lives through her daughters and refuses to accept failure, moving between humour, charm, dominance, and heartbreak. Auditionees may perform either Some People or Small World as one of their two excerpts, but not both. Louise / Gypsy Rose Lee – Female presenting | Playing age 22–27 | G3–Eb5 | Rose’s initially shy, awkward, and overlooked daughter. Louise gradually transforms into the sophisticated, witty, and confident burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee. The role includes a tasteful striptease sequence in Act 2. Auditionees may perform Little Lamb as one of their two excerpts. June / Dainty June – Female presenting | Playing age 18–25 | G3–D5 | Rose’s talented and energetic “golden child.” Beneath her cheerful stage persona, June increasingly resents her mother’s control and becomes determined to take charge of her own future. Baby Louise – Female presenting | Playing age 9–13 | Eb4–Eb5 | June’s quieter younger sister. Shy, awkward, imaginative, and frequently overlooked, with glimpses of the confident woman she will eventually become. Baby June – Female presenting | Playing age 8–12 | Eb4–Eb5 | A confident, enthusiastic child star who thrives in the spotlight. She is eager to please and spends much of her childhood performing Rose’s elaborate vaudeville routines. Herbie – Male presenting | Playing age 40–60 | Ab2–B3 | A former salesman turned theatrical agent who becomes Rose’s manager and romantic partner. Kind, patient, dependable, and quietly strong, he loves Rose and cares deeply for her daughters but eventually has to stand up for himself. Tulsa – Male presenting | Playing age 18–30 | F3–G4 | One of the boys in June’s act and her eventual love interest. Charming, ambitious, energetic, and charismatic, Tulsa dreams of escaping children’s vaudeville and becoming a star in his own right. A strong song-and-dance role. Tessie Tura – Female presenting | Playing age 30–55 | Bb3–Db5 | A glamorous, worldly, funny, and unapologetically theatrical burlesque performer who helps introduce Louise to the profession. Her performance gimmick incorporates ballet, so ballet experience is advantageous. Mazeppa – Female presenting; female impersonator considered | Playing age 35–60 | G3–Db5 | A tough, confident, blunt, and intimidating but ultimately supportive burlesque performer. Her famous gimmick combines trumpet playing with a centurion-inspired routine. Electra – Female presenting; female impersonator considered | Playing age 35–65 | Bb3–Db5 | A sweet, bubbly, slightly ditzy burlesque performer whose act incorporates lights and electricity. Although seemingly naïve, she is an experienced professional who understands the business. Ensemble – Various ages and rolesA mixture of named and unnamed, speaking and non-speaking, singing and non-singing roles, including the Master of Ceremonies, Rose’s Father, theatre secretaries, agents, restaurant staff, Hollywood Blondes, stage managers, burlesque performers, and other characters. Children’s Ensemble – Under 18 - Young performers appearing throughout the vaudeville world of the production. Children auditioning for Baby June, Baby Louise, or Children’s Ensemble should prepare Side 8 and are invited to create a big entrance, incorporating skills such as cartwheels, splits, or pirouettes if able.

Title: The Girl on the Train Presented By: Tugun Theatre Company Genre: Psychological Thriller / Mystery / Drama Synopsis: Based on the bestselling novel by Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train follows Rachel Watson, whose daily train journey gives her glimpses into the seemingly perfect lives of the people living beside the railway. When a woman Rachel has been watching suddenly disappears, Rachel becomes entangled in the investigation. Complicated by gaps in her memory and her connections to the people involved, Rachel begins trying to piece together what she witnessed and what really happened. The story explores memory, relationships, manipulation, obsession, and the uncertainty of what can be trusted. Audition Date: Saturday 17 October 2026 Audition Time: 11:00am–3:00pm Audition Location and Address: Tugun Village Community Centre, 414 Coolangatta Road, Tugun QLD Audition Requirements: Request the audition pack through the Tugun Theatre Company website and review the supplied character sides. The in-person audition will focus on script scenes, listening, responsiveness, and chemistry with scene partners. No audition monologue is required. For audition safety, there will be no kissing, simulated intimacy, or simulated violence during auditions. Audition Registration: Register and request the audition pack through: Tugun Theatre Company – Auditions Performance Dates: 5–27 February 2027 Performance Times: Friday & Saturday evening performances – 7:30pm Saturday matinees – 2:00pm Thrifty Thursday, 25 February Performance Location: Tugun Theatre Company / Tugun Village Community Centre, 414 Coolangatta Road, Tugun QLD Warnings: The production contains sexual content and staged violence. Performer Age: Adult performers, 18+. Other information: Tugun Theatre Company is also inviting expressions of interest from people interested in backstage and front-of-house roles. Available Roles/Character Breakdown: Rachel Watson | Suggested playing age 30–45 | A central role requiring an actor able to portray memory gaps and vulnerability without exaggeration. Megan Hipwell | Suggested playing age 25–40 | Requires an actor able to balance charm, guarded pain, and quick changes of tactic. Anna Watson | Suggested playing age 30–45 | Requires genuine warmth, with doubt emerging gradually as the story develops. Tom Watson | Suggested playing age 35–50 | Requires an actor who can make Tom’s charm credible while maintaining an underlying sense of control. Kamal Abdic | Suggested playing age 30–50 | Requires calm, attentive listening while portraying complex personal boundaries. The production is seeking an actor of colour for this role. Ensemble | 18+ | Varied playing ages | Seeking performers with grounded presence, responsiveness, and flexibility.

ROSMERSHOLM Presented by: SEERCRAFT Venue: Albert Street Uniting Church Date attended: 19 September 2026 Written by: Henrik Ibsen Translated by: Charles Archer Directed by: Silvan Rus Sound Design / Organ: Silvan Rus Photography: Benjamin Prindable Photography “The mind is a queer thing.” SEERCRAFT stages Henrik Ibsen’s 1886 psychological drama inside Albert Street Uniting Church, and the building immediately becomes part of the action. I spend the evening surrounded by towering organ pipes, pews, and religious architecture, as though I’ve arrived for a very formal wedding. Then a woman veiled in black walks down the aisle and suddenly it’s giving Corpse Bride. Rosmersholm is the ancestral home of Johannes Rosmer (Dudley Powell), a widowed former clergyman whose wife, Beata, died before the events of the play. Rebecca West (Meg Bowden), formerly Beata’s companion, has remained and is now effectively the lady of the house. Rosmer has left the church and adopted progressive views, much to the horror of his old friend and brother-in-law, Rector Kroll (Silvan Rus). What follows is a dense tangle of politics, guilt, attraction, manipulation, and family reputation. Albert Street Uniting Church is an inspired place to put it. Rosmer can reject his inherited faith all he likes, but director Silvan Rus keeps him trapped inside the architecture of it. Family name, morality, religion, and tradition press inward. Rus plays the organ before and throughout the performance, its sound swelling through a space built to carry it. The piano and organ open Act Two with a morbid quality, like the soundtrack inside Rebecca’s head as life at Rosmersholm begins coming apart. The reverb is gorgeous. The pews are not. Bring a cushion. Your bum WILL hurt. Dudley Powell gives Rosmer an approachable warmth that makes his deterioration difficult to watch. He spends much of the evening one distressing revelation away from tears, and as Beata’s private suffering comes into focus, that fragility escalates into full-blown panic. Rosmer has convinced himself that his bond with Rebecca is innocent, even describing it as a “spiritual marriage”. Discovering what his wife believed forces him to rethink the quiet, lonely battle she may have been fighting while he remained oblivious beside her. Powell absorbs each fresh accusation as though it might finally explain everything. Having rejected one moral certainty, Rosmer is desperate to find another. Guilt gets under his skin and stays there. Powell’s scenes with Meg Bowden are strongest when their behaviour contradicts all that talk of purity. In one exchange, they remain physically separate while Powell circles Rebecca, follows her movements, and watches her with unmistakable desire. Their conversation circles just as stubbornly. These are two people who can discuss the nature of their bond for paragraphs at a time and somehow leave it murkier with every sentence. “Do not speak in riddles!” Bowden first presents Rebecca as warm, capable, coy, and adept at making herself welcome in Rosmer’s home. You understand why he trusts her. She has influenced him deliberately and, at least initially, used that influence in pursuit of her own ideas about status and progress. Whether every action is malicious is harder to pin down, because the woman who starts with a plan develops feelings inconvenient enough to wreck it. As the pressure around Rebecca builds, Bowden’s composure begins to splinter. Confidence gives way to fear and desperation, while her excitement when Rosmer offers her the future she had been steering him towards is complicated by everything she is hiding. She can be elated one moment and cornered the next, each shift registering across her face and body before Rebecca finds the words for it. The visual irony sharpens when she exchanges her heavy black dress for white in Act Two. White might suggest innocence or renewal, except by then the supposedly blameless household is becoming harder to defend. Silvan Rus plays Kroll as initially playful and enjoyably opinionated. His friendship with Rosmer feels authentic enough that their later screaming match hurts beyond the political disagreement. They’re two old friends discovering that they no longer inhabit the same moral universe, both shouting at what may as well be a brick wall. Kroll is also willing to tell Rosmer things nobody else will. “You blind, deluded dink!” may come from nineteenth-century Ibsen, but it lands with modern bluntness. Rus changes tack completely with Rebecca. Their earlier interactions carry a comfortable familiarity; later, every scrap of her charm has been reclassified in Kroll’s mind as evidence of manipulation. “Whom could you not bewitch if you tried?” he asks as their exchanges harden into verbal sparring. Bowden’s fear, Rus’s rage, and Powell’s despair collide as the accusations spill into the open. Alexis Beebe as Madam Helseth spends much of the play looking quietly concerned by the behaviour of everyone around her. Naturally, the maid knows everything. Rebecca skilfully draws gossip and history from her, including Rosmersholm’s peculiar household traditions: children apparently don’t cry, people rarely laugh, and sightings of white horses are regarded as omens. A cheery place, really. Robert H. Wainwright doubles as Ulrik Brendel and Peter Mortensgård. Brendel arrives as a ruined but wildly earnest idealist in need of clothes and money, still clinging to grand ideas despite having very little left to offer. There’s desperation in his conviction that he still has something important left to give. Mortensgård is far more controlled and calculating. As a newspaper editor with political interests of his own, he speaks with greater restraint, and Wainwright’s stillness and intense gaze give him a quiet authority. His shift between the two roles is sharp, particularly when Mortensgård arrives with information that drags Beata back into the conversation. Though never seen, Rosmer’s late wife exerts enormous control over the play. The woman whose suicide he has long linked to what he saw as an irrational state of mind begins to look disturbingly perceptive. The production asks patience from a contemporary audience. Charles Archer’s translation is wordy, and there are stretches where the characters discuss politics, morality, motives, and one another at considerable length. The repetition can slow the tension, particularly in a venue where physical comfort isn’t exactly helping concentration. By the time the characters reach their final decisions, everyone has talked themselves into such a spectacular moral corner that what follows prompts a groan from me. It is all VERY tragic. For my first encounter with Ibsen, though, this is theatre unlike much I’ve seen before. SEERCRAFT uses the church aisles and different levels around the altar well, while the pipe organ deepens the gloom until the whole thing feels almost ceremonially doomed. Rosmer spends the night trying to escape inherited religion and the ghosts of his past while standing beneath an organ inside a church. He never really stood a chance did he? There are no tidy moral lessons or comforting happy endings here. Ibsen strips away respectable appearances until his characters are left facing the secrets and lies underneath them. I’m very glad this was my introduction to his work.

Title: Wolf Lullaby Presented By: VOX Productions Genre: Australian Psychological Drama / Thriller Synopsis: A small boy is found dead in a popular children’s play area, and suspicion quickly falls on nine-year-old Lizzie Gael. As evidence mounts, Lizzie’s mother, Angela, must confront the possibility that her daughter may be responsible and decide whether protecting her child is more important than revealing the truth. Written by Australian playwright Hilary Bell, Wolf Lullaby explores parental responsibility, childhood violence, guilt, morality and the unsettling question of whether evil is innate or created. Audition Date: By appointment on the 25th of October 2026 Audition Location and Address: Applications are being accepted electronically. Applications close at 5:00pm on Sunday 27 September 2026. Audition Requirements: Applicants should request the audition pack from VOX Productions. The publicly available notices do not specify the required monologues, scenes, self-tape length, slate information or other audition materials. The role of Lizzie requires exceptional naturalism, emotional maturity and restraint. The role of Toby is voice-only and must be applied for by a parent or guardian. Applicants should consult the audition pack for the complete audition and submission requirements. Audition Registration: Apply through the StarNow casting listing or contact VOX Productions at hello@vox-productions.com to request the audition pack and application instructions. Audition Pack: Audition packs are currently available by emailing hello@vox-productions.com. Performance Dates: Wednesday 3 February 2027 Thursday 4 February 2027 Friday 5 February 2027 Saturday 6 February 2027 Performance Location: PIP Theatre, 20 Park Road, Milton QLD 4064. Rehearsal Dates: Rehearsals begin 28th of October, 2026. These are on Wednesdays (6:30pm-9:30pm) and Sundays (12pm-4pm). Rehearsals will also occur in January (dates TBC). Rehearsal Location: Lavalla Centre, 8 Fernberg Road, Paddington, 4064 and PIP Theatre Warnings: Contains themes involving: The death and suspected murder of a young child Childhood violence Discussions of evil and criminal responsibility Police investigation Parental separation and family conflict Psychological distress, fear and nightmares Guilt, grief and moral conflict Performer Age: Lizzie Gael: Character age 9; performer must be 16 or older Angela Gael: Playing age 25–40 Warren Gael: Playing age 25–40 Sergeant Ray Armstrong: Playing age 45–60 Toby: Performer age 8–10; voice-only role (parent must apply) Creative Team: Playwright – Hilary Bell Director – Susan O’Toole Cridland Producer – VOX Productions Production Website: Wolf Lullaby – StarNow Casting Listing Other information: Roles are offered on a profit-share basis Applicants should request the audition pack for all submission, rehearsal and production commitments. Enquiries can be directed to hello@vox-productions.com. VOX Productions’ official audition announcement is available on Instagram. Available Roles/Character Breakdown: Lizzie Gael Female-presenting Character age: 9 Performer must be aged 16 or older Bright, imaginative, inquisitive and difficult to categorise. Lizzie becomes the principal suspect after a young boy is found dead. A demanding lead role requiring exceptional naturalism, emotional maturity and restraint. The performer must convincingly portray a nine-year-old without presenting a caricature of childhood. Angela Gael Female-presenting Playing age: 25–40 Lizzie’s mother. Angela is forced to confront the possibility that her daughter may be responsible for a child’s death and faces an agonising conflict between maternal loyalty and moral responsibility. Requires considerable emotional range and the ability to portray fear, grief, doubt and parental love. Warren Gael Male-presenting Playing age: 25–40 Lizzie’s father and Angela’s former partner. Warren struggles to understand Lizzie’s behaviour and the implications of the accusations against her. Requires a grounded dramatic performer capable of exploring parental guilt, denial and uncertainty. Sergeant Ray Armstrong Male-presenting Playing age: 45–60 An experienced police officer accustomed to clear distinctions between right and wrong. The investigation and his interactions with Lizzie challenge his confidence in those categories. Requires a strong, authoritative presence balanced with empathy and moral uncertainty. Toby Open presenting gender Performer age: 8–10 Voice-only role A parent or guardian must apply on the child performer’s behalf. No further character or recording requirements have been publicly provided.

Title: Disney’s Frozen: The Broadway Musical Presented By: Swich Up Productions (SUP) Genre: Musical / Family Fantasy Synopsis: In the kingdom of Arendelle, sisters Elsa and Anna are inseparable until Elsa’s magical ice powers accidentally injure Anna. To protect them both, their parents isolate Elsa and close the castle gates, leaving the sisters to grow up separated from one another. Years later, Elsa’s powers are accidentally revealed during her coronation, and she flees Arendelle, unintentionally plunging the kingdom into an eternal winter. Anna sets out to find her sister, joined by ice harvester Kristoff, his loyal reindeer Sven, and the magical snowman Olaf. When Elsa accidentally freezes Anna’s heart, the sisters ultimately discover that an act of true love may not mean what they first imagined. Audition Dates: Adults: Sunday 15, Friday 20, Saturday 21 & Sunday 22 November 2026 Youth: First-round video auditions due Sunday 1 November 2026; callback workshop Sunday 22 November 2026 at 2:00pm, approximately three hours, by invitation only. Audition Time: Adults: Individual 8-minute audition slots selected during registration. Compulsory dance calls: Sunday 15 November – 12:30pm Friday 20 November – 7:00pm Saturday 21 November – 12:30pm Sunday 22 November – 12:30pm Adult callbacks – Tuesday 24 November, 7:00pm–10:00pm, by invitation only. Audition Location and Address: Adult auditions & youth callbacks: Fire Station 101,101 Limestone Street, Ipswich QLD Audition Requirements: Adults prepare: Two contrasting 32-bar musical theatre selections in the style of the show, approximately one minute each. The panel may only hear one. Songs should showcase vocal ability, storytelling, and connection to character. Bring backing tracks on a Bluetooth-compatible device. No a cappella auditions. Learn one of the supplied short harmony tracks appropriate to your voice type. The audition will assess your ability to independently hold a harmony while singing with others. Prepare one of the supplied acting excerpts. Choose whichever excerpt you connect with most strongly. Acting material does not need to be memorised. Scenes should be performed in a General American accent, unless otherwise specified for a character. Attend the compulsory dance call, with choreography taught during the session. Wear appropriate clothing and footwear. Adult applicants must upload a CV and headshot and disclose all potential and confirmed rehearsal conflicts, including involvement in overlapping productions. Youth – Young Anna & Young Elsa: Submit one continuous, unedited video containing a brief introduction stating the performer’s name, age, height, and character they would like to play. The first 1 minute 30 seconds of “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?”, ending at “Tick Tock Tick Tock.” Perform with an instrumental/karaoke backing track. No a cappella singing or lead vocals on the track. Film horizontally in a well-lit, quiet space with an uncluttered background. Frame approximately mid-torso to just above the head. Ensure the performer’s voice is louder than the backing track. No autotune, reverb filters, or heavy editing. Shortlisted youth performers will attend a supportive group callback/workshop exploring acting, singing, learning material, taking direction, and potential Anna/Elsa pairings. Audition Registration: Adult Audition Registration Youth Audition Registration Youth video links should also be emailed to auditions@swichupproductions.com.au. Videos may be supplied via Google Drive, Dropbox, unlisted YouTube, or Vimeo, with link permissions tested before submission. Audition Pack: Harmony Tracks Audition Scripts Performance Dates: Saturday 29 May 2027 Sunday 30 May 2027 Friday 4 June 2027 Saturday 5 June 2027 Sunday 6 June 2027 Potential additional performances/hold dates: Wednesday 2 June, Thursday 3 June and/or Sunday 6 June evening. Performance Location: Ipswich Civic Centre, Nicholas Street, Ipswich QLD600-seat venue Rehearsal Dates: Rehearsals commence Sunday 7 February 2027. Compulsory production week: Wednesday 26 May – Technical Rehearsal, Thursday 27 May – Dress Rehearsal, Friday 28 May – Dress Rehearsal Rehearsal Times: Sundays – 9:00am–5:00pm, Tuesdays – 7:00pm–10:00pm Youth performers will not be required at every rehearsal or for the full duration of each rehearsal. Their calls will be scheduled in advance and kept appropriate to their involvement. Warnings: The production also includes staged romantic intimacy. Anna/Hans and Anna/Kristoff involve physical closeness and a kiss. An intimacy coordinator will be engaged for the production. Performer Age: Adult cast – minimum 18 years old as at 7 February 2027. Youth applicants for Young Anna and Young Elsa – 9–15 years old. Individual character playing ages and approximate height requirements apply. Creative Team: Director – Hayley Gervais Musical Director – Sally Faint Choreographer – Jennifer B. Ashley Production Website: Frozen Adult Auditions Frozen Youth Auditions Other information: This is an adult production with two youth roles, Young Anna and Young Elsa. Both youth roles will be double-cast, with two Young Annas and two Young Elsas, and performances divided between them. Each youth performer will perform in at least four shows. No roles are paid. The production welcomes performers of all ethnicities, cultural backgrounds, abilities, and levels of experience. For youth rehearsals, a parent, legal guardian, or nominated adult must remain on site to supervise the child. During production week and performances, a dedicated accredited Blue Card chaperone will supervise Young Anna and Young Elsa backstage. Youth casting decisions will be announced by Sunday 29 November 2026. Available Roles/Character Breakdown: Elsa | Female-presenting | Playing age 20s–30s | Mezzo-Soprano/Belt, E3–E5 | The heir to Arendelle’s throne, burdened by magical powers she cannot control. Poised and regal but living with considerable fear and internal conflict. Requires emotional vulnerability and a powerful contemporary musical theatre belt. Anna | Female-presenting | Playing age 20s–30s | Mezzo-Soprano/Belt, F3–E5 | Optimistic, energetic, socially awkward, and driven by a deep desire for connection. Anna has an indomitable spirit despite years of isolation. Requires strong comedic timing and a bright, youthful vocal quality. Kristoff | Male-presenting | Playing age 20s–30s | Baritone/Tenor, A2–Bb4 | A rugged and blunt ice harvester who is more comfortable with his reindeer than people. Beneath his gruff exterior is a loyal and sensitive heart. Requires a grounded folk-rock vocal quality and strong chemistry with Anna. Hans | Male-presenting | Playing age 20s–30s | Baritone/Tenor, A2–A4 | The youngest of thirteen princes from the Southern Isles. Charming, intelligent, and seemingly Anna’s ideal romantic match, but conceals calculated ambitions. Requires leading-man charisma with the ability to transition into a darker, more commanding presence. Olaf | Open gender | Playing age open | Alto/Tenor, approximately E3–Eb5 | The magical snowman created by Elsa and an embodiment of the sisters’ childhood bond. Innocent, warm, optimistic, and funny. Played by a puppeteer, requiring strong physical comedy and a character-driven voice. Previous puppetry experience is useful but not essential. Weselton | Male-presenting | Playing age 40s–60s | Baritone/Tenor, F3–A4 | A Duke from a neighbouring kingdom who is chauvinistic, impolite, and judgemental. Requires strong comic character acting and authoritative bluster. British Received Pronunciation accent. Oaken | Playing age 30s–50s | Baritone/Tenor, A2–Bb4 | The eccentric and jovial owner of Wandering Oaken’s Trading Post and Sauna. Requires high-energy character acting and strong comedic instincts/improvisation. Danish accent. Sven | Open gender | Adult | Non-singing physical role | Kristoff’s loyal reindeer companion. Playful, expressive, gentle, and full of personality, communicating through movement and physical comedy rather than speech. Performed in a full-body costume and requires considerable physical stamina, body control, endurance, and confidence with animal-inspired movement. Puppetry, gymnastics, or acrobatic experience is useful but not essential. Queen Iduna | Female-presenting | Playing age 30s–40s | Soprano/Mezzo-Soprano, F3–C5 | Mother of Elsa and Anna. Compassionate and regal, while concealing her mysterious connection to the Hidden Folk in an attempt to protect her family. Requires strong acting and the ability to convey maternal longing and secrecy. King Agnarr | Male-presenting | Playing age 35–50 | Baritone, B2–C4 | Father of Elsa and Anna. A stern but well-meaning ruler who believes isolation is the safest way to protect his daughters. Requires a commanding presence and authoritative stage demeanour. Pabbie | Male-presenting | Adult/open playing age | Ab2–Gb4 | One of the leaders of the Hidden Folk. Mystical, wise, and deeply connected to the earth’s magic. Requires strong choral blending and soulful solo work. Bulda | Female-presenting | Adult/open playing age | Bb3–D5 | One of the leaders of the Hidden Folk. Mystical, wise, and deeply connected to the earth’s magic. Requires strong choral blending and soulful solo work. Young Elsa | Female-presenting | Playing age 9–12 | A3–E5 | Typically around 145cm or shorter | The elder princess as a child. Bright and poised but already struggling with the expectation to be perfect while suppressing her dangerous magical abilities. Two performers will be cast. Young Anna | Female-presenting | Playing age 7–10 | Bb3–E5 | Typically around 130cm or shorter | The younger princess as a child. Free-spirited, energetic, and devoted to her older sister. She is heartbroken when their close relationship is abruptly severed. Two performers will be cast. Ensemble / Multiple Roles | 18+ | All genders | All vocal types | Versatile singer-actor-dancers portraying the Townspeople of Arendelle, Hidden Folk, Castle Staff, Guards, Coronation Guests, Oaken’s Family, and other featured characters throughout the production.

Title: Newsies Presented By: Communication in Action Genre: Musical Theatre / Youth Production Synopsis: Inspired by the true story of the Newsboys’ Strike of 1899, Newsies follows a group of young newspaper sellers in New York City who take on the city’s powerful publishers. Communication in Action describes the show as a true ensemble production with a large cast, numerous characters, and plenty of featured roles for both girls and boys. Audition Date: Sunday 25 October 2026 Audition Time: Individual audition times are selected after enrolment. Audition Location and Address: Thomas Dixon Centre, 406 Montague Road, West End QLD 4101 Audition Self-Tape Due (if applicable): Alternative times or video auditions can be arranged for students unable to attend the available audition sessions. Contact Jules via the email provided on the Communication in Action website. Audition Requirements: Students must be enrolled and have paid for the Newsies program before auditioning. After enrolment and payment, the receipt includes a link allowing families to select an audition time for Sunday 25 October. An optional two-day Newsies Audition Masterclass is available on Sunday 11 and Sunday 18 October, 9:00am–11:30am at the Thomas Dixon Centre. It covers singing and vocal performance, dance and movement, acting and characterisation, audition technique, confidence, and stage presence. Attendance at the masterclass is not required to audition. Audition Registration: Newsies Enrolment & Audition Information Performance Dates: Saturday 16 January 2027 Performance Times: 2:00pm & 5:00pm Performance Location: Talbot Theatre, Thomas Dixon Centre, West End Rehearsal Dates: Sunday 13 December 2026 Monday 14 December 2026 Tuesday 15 December 2026 Monday 11 – Saturday 16 January 2027 Rehearsal Times: December rehearsals – 9:00am–3:00pm January rehearsal/performance week – 9:00am–3:00pm Some cast members may be required until 5:00pm, with individual call times advised after casting. Students are asked to attend all December rehearsals wherever possible, although Communication in Action can accommodate pre-existing December holidays or commitments if these are disclosed. The 11–16 January rehearsal and performance week is compulsory for all cast members. Performer Age: Open to students in Year 4 and above in the 2027 school year. Creative Team: Director – Tim Hill Choreographer – Justin Anderson Vocal Coaches – Jacqui Devereux & Sophie Moman Production Website: Communication in Action – Newsies Summer Holiday Production Other information: The participation fee is $600 + GST ($660 total). This covers the complete nine-day program, specialist musical theatre tuition/rehearsals, and two performances. Families can pay $660 in full on enrolment or two instalments of $330, with the second payment due by 11 December 2026. The optional audition masterclass costs $150 for both sessions or $75 for one session. Available Roles/Character Breakdown: Jack Kelly - The charismatic leader of the Manhattan newsies. Jack is a streetwise, fiercely loyal dreamer who longs to leave New York for a better life out West. Protective of his fellow newsies, particularly Crutchie, he combines confidence and toughness with considerable vulnerability. A major singing, acting, and movement role requiring strong stage presence and a contemporary/pop musical theatre sound. Katherine Plumber - An ambitious young reporter determined to establish herself as a serious journalist. Katherine is intelligent, quick-witted, resourceful, and confident, and becomes both an important supporter of the strike and Jack's romantic interest. Requires strong vocals, clear diction, comic timing, and chemistry with Jack. Crutchie - Jack's best friend and one of the Manhattan newsies. Crutchie uses a crutch and lives with a physical disability but is defined much more by optimism, humour, resilience, and loyalty. Davey - A bright, responsible newcomer to the newsies who begins selling papers with his younger brother Les to help support their family. Strong singing and acting role with movement. Les - Davey's cheeky younger sibling. Clever, charming, confident, and immediately fascinated by the newsies' independent lifestyle, Les quickly discovers a natural talent for selling papers. The performer should read noticeably younger than the other newsies. Joseph Pulitzer - The powerful publisher of the New York World whose decision to increase the price the newsies pay for their papers sparks the strike. An imposing businessman and Katherine's father who becomes Jack and the newsies' principal adversary. Medda Larkin - A successful Bowery performer and friend of Jack who provides the newsies with support and a safe haven. Warm, confident, astute, and larger than life, Medda is a strong singer with plenty of personality and comic flair. Spot Conlon - The formidable leader of the Brooklyn newsies. Spot has a big reputation despite limited stage time and arrives as an important ally during the strike. Requires confidence and strong stage presence. Wiesel ("Weasel") - Runs newspaper distribution for Pulitzer and has little sympathy or patience for the newsies. He relies on the Delancey brothers as his muscle. Oscar & Morris Delancey - Brothers who work for Wiesel and act as intimidating enforcers against the newsies. Physical character roles that function as antagonists throughout the story. Snyder - The intimidating warden of the Refuge, the juvenile detention centre from which Jack has escaped. Primarily an acting role. Governor Theodore Roosevelt - The Governor of New York and an important figure in the resolution of the newsies' struggle. A featured acting role. Ensemble - Energetic ensemble roles with extensive singing and movement, with opportunities for featured lines, solos, dance, and individual characterisation.

Title: Much Ado About Nothing Presented By: Centenary Theatre Group Genre: Shakespearean Comedy Synopsis: One of Shakespeare’s wittiest and most entertaining comedies, Much Ado About Nothing centres on love, deception, misunderstanding, and the battle of wits between Beatrice and Benedick. Centenary Theatre Group will use Shakespeare’s original text in an updated setting. Audition Date: Sunday 18 October 2026 Audition Time: 10:00am–2:00pm Audition Location and Address: Chelmer Community Centre, 15 Queenscroft Street, Chelmer QLD 4068 Audition Requirements: Each auditionee must prepare, memorise, and perform a Shakespearean monologue of their own choosing. Auditions will also include cold reads from the script. Auditionees should be familiar with the story of Much Ado About Nothing before attending. There are opportunities for male and female performers to be considered for some of the same roles, as indicated by the M/F designations in the character breakdown. Audition Registration: No formal registration process is specified on the audition notice. For audition enquiries, contact Director Alison Lees at AlisonLees4305@gmail.com. Performance Dates: 12, 13, 19, 20, 21, 26, 27 & 28 February 20275, 6 & 7 March 2027 Performance Location: Centenary Theatre Group / Chelmer Community Centre15 Queenscroft Street, Chelmer QLD 4068 Rehearsal Dates: Rehearsals will take place throughout November and December 2026 and January 2027. Auditionees are specifically asked not to audition if they are unavailable for rehearsals during these months. Rehearsal Times: Three rehearsals per week, consisting of two weeknights and one weekend day. Exact days and times are not specified. Rehearsals will take place at Centenary Theatre Group in Chelmer. Creative Team: Director – Alison Lees Production Website: Centenary Theatre Group – Auditions Other information: Some roles may be doubled where necessary. General enquiries can be directed to enquiry@centenarytheatre.com.au or 0435 591 720. Available Roles/Character Breakdown: Beatrice Female | Age 35+ An orphan, cousin to Hero, and niece to Leonato. Benedick Male | Age 35+ A Captain in the Prince’s army. Claudio Male | Age 25+ A Lieutenant in the Prince’s army. Hero Female | Age 18+ Daughter of Leonato. Don Pedro Male | Age 40+ A local Prince and Major in the army. Leonato Male/Female | Age 50+ Local Mayor and parent to Hero. Don John Male/Female | Age 40+ A villain and step-sibling to the Prince. Antonio Male/Female | Age 50+ Sibling of Leonato and uncle/aunt to Hero. Borachio Male | Age 30+ A villain and follower of Don John. Sometimes the lover of Margaret. Conrad Male | Age 30+ A villain and follower of Don John. Margaret Female | Age 30+ Maid to Hero. Ursula Female | Age 40+ Maid to Hero. Balthazar Male/Female | Any age Servant to Leonato. Performer must be able to sing and play an instrument. Friar Male | Age 30+ Local minister. Sexton Male/Female | Age 40+ Local Justice of the Peace. Messenger Male/Female | Young A messenger role.