Racheal - Production Date: 21 June – 01 July, 2000
- Production Company: QLD Musical Theatre, Brisbane
- Playwrights: Gilbert & Sullivan
- My Role: Dancer / Ensemble
I had previously mentioned about the difficulty in finding out about auditions for other theatre groups. There was no social media at the time – it would be another four years before Facebook was launched. As a budding actor, now wanting to make more of a career out of performing, I had to find a better way to find out about all these auditions. I was no stranger to technology, having studied computing at school, including programming, and going on to study Computer Engineering after school, so I decided I would start up a free website – and so Brisbane Auditions was created. This website quickly became the main go-to for audition listings around South East QLD and I was often updating the website with theatre and film auditions that had been sent to me. Yes, it gave me the advantage of knowing about all the auditions out there, and no – I never withheld an audition notice for my own personal gain. I only rejected the occasional notice that I felt wasn’t legit for some reason (the early days of spam notices and dodgy auditions).
I’m not sure if starting the website led me to finding out about auditions for The Gondoliers with QLD Musical Theatre (aka QMT), but this was my first musical production outside of the API Theatre which I was very excited to be a part of. I made many new friends, that I still keep in contact with today – Anika Parakh-Morgan (nee Parakh) whom became my singing teacher for a while); Janelle Thomas (nee Johnson); and in particular one of my best friends – Kerri Audsley (nee Newton) whom as I write this memory is celebrating her birthday today! It was interesting learning about QMT’s rehearsal process of a musical theatre show compared to the shows I had worked on previously. There was no right or wrong process – just different methods of approach. QMT was started by local TV personality, Brian Cahill with his wife Denise – both accomplished performers.
The show was performed at the relatively new Brisbane Powerhouse. A very exciting new performing arts venue, but also had its moments. We were in the Visy Theatre, which was ‘in-the-round’ rather than a traditional theatre setup, which was quite interesting, and we had a large cast but a lack of dressing rooms. The lead performers were provided with the few dressing rooms available, and the rest of the cast were setup in a large backstage area. This didn’t bother me too much because we didn’t really have dressing rooms at the API Theatre either – we used a downstairs meeting room area which we used partitions to block of sections for changing.
Like most Gilbert & Sullivan productions, The Gondoliers is a light-hearted, operetta – entirely sung like an opera, but all lyrics are in English. It was a lot of fun being part of the Dance Ensemble. I did have a feeling that QMT had the unspoken rule that if you made the effort to audition, and you weren’t cast in a main role, then you were always cast in the ensemble. I noticed this over a few of their shows I saw – they always had very large ensembles. I felt this was a nice way of giving performers that weren’t so experienced an opportunity to still be part of a fun musical. (I believe they changed this later down the track when they stopped doing G&S shows and started to focus on more mainstream musicals). This was also the first musical I had worked on where we sung with a live orchestra.
One thing in particular that stood out with this show was the unexpected ring of the fire alarm during our matinee performance. I remember the show was stopped and we were all ushered to the outside of the building (around the back) where we lined up until we were given further instructions. We were all still in costume, and the audience seemed to have been taken to another area (possibly around the front) as we couldn’t see them. From memory, the alarm was due to a fault – not an actual fire – so once the all clear was given, we went back in and continued the performance. In all my years performing since (across multiple venues and locations), this thankfully has never happened again.
CAST: Brian Cahill, Doreen Orton, Paul Darveniza, Preston Oh, Marc de Glas, Anita Parakh, Scott Hossack, Debbie McGarrigle, Shelden Mathieson, Benita Stubbs, Harry Cusack, Jillian Wood, Paul Castelli, Keith Pedler, Michelle Lynn, Peter Jordinson, Patricia de Glas, Bill Carr, James Hamilton, Mark Hargroder, David Jackson, David Maclaughlin, Steven Odgaard, Sally-Anne Clausen, Rachel Franklin, Kerry Hargroder, Janelle Johnson, Jessica Hill, Philip Allan, Tamsin Sutherland, Caitlin Boag, Erin Fitzgeral, Susan Lindsay, Connor Livsey, Ella Livsey, James Livsey.
CREW: Deian Ping (Director), Anita Thomas-Campbell (Musical Director), Tamsin Sutherland (Choreographer), Gerard Livsey (Stage Manager), Justine Willsher (Repetiteur), Keith Shutter (Set Design) Carole Hodgson (Lighting Design), Livio Regano, Lynette Pelow, Michelle Pelow, Yyvonne Victor, Doreen Omiros, Joan Odgaard, Brian Cahill, Denise Cahill, Sheena Jordinson, Kerri Newton.
MUSICIANS: Anita Thomas-Campbell, Justine Willsher, Elizabeth Fanning, Andrew Wandell, Kasey Beaumont, Belinda Daveson, Kylie Sampson, Fiona Dyne, Aaron Blair, Rebecca Brown, Aaron Daveson, Paul Peloe, Michael Grieve.
