With Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story on Stage having left the Queensland Performing Arts Centre’s Lyric Theatre, it is the current Australian production of Anything Goes which has taken its place for a very short run of just three weeks.
Prior to its Opening Night last Tuesday, I had the fortune of attending a media call for the show – where I was able to spend some time speaking with the show’s director Dean Bryant. You can read a transcript of that interview below.
First of all, can you share a bit about your history in musical theatre?
Sure. I graduated from WOPA, which is the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, when I was 20. While I was there studying musical theatre acting, I also wrote musicals, one of which went to off-Broadway a couple of years later called Prodigal. I started directing with a show called The Last Five Years, that I got nominated for a Helpmann for, and then just worked up bit by bit. I was the associate director on Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, which I look after all round the world now, and then just started working for the Melbourne Theatre Company, producing my own stuff. I did a Sweet Charity last year that won me the Helpmann Award for Best Director, and now I have Anything Goes on.
And when you started your education, did you ever expect you’d be taking the director role and winning Helpmann Awards?
Well I don’t think I even knew what a Helpmann Award was when I started studying. I think I thought I would be successful because I think everyone at that age goes “Well, I would like it to work out”, and then actually as you get a bit older you go “Oh shit, maybe its not going to work out”. And then you keep working and working, and things pay off if you are lucky and work hard.
How’s your experience bringing Anything Goes to Australian audiences been so far?
It’s been amazing doing Anything Goes in Australia because its such an old show. I knew it as a kid at 15, and I loved it. But, when I started doing it this time around, I was like “Is it too old fashioned now?”, I just worked on it and kept it as pacy as possible, used the best performers I knew, and by the time I got it to audiences in Melbourne it suddenly felt like: “Wow, this is exhilarating”. People love seeing old fashioned stuff if it feels new.
Why do you think Anything Goes has been able to stand the test of time?
I think what’s great about Anything Goes is the music. Everyone either knows or feels like they know Cole Porter’s famous songs. Because you hear them in movies as you grow up, people sing them in bars all the time – its always in the periphery of things we know. So to see them live done by brilliant performers, and then to see great comedic performers working at the top of their game, its exciting.
So with Anything Goes being performed worldwide, what do you think makes this Australian cast stands out?
Well I think we’ve been lucky in that we have the best people who can do the triple threat thing that is musical comedy. Caroline O’Connor works all round the world doing this. She was born to do this vaudevillian tap stuff. Todd McKenny has trained every since he was a kid to this sort of stuff. So every performer is actually perfect at the thing that it is they do. And I think there is something about casting – they say that casting is 70% of a Director’s job and its true, if you cast the right people you can let them play around and do what they want to do and explore, and it all comes together – and then my job is just to keep them in the same world. So I think that just their sheer talent and charm is what makes this work so well.
As this is not the first leg in Anything Goes’ Australian tour, what has been the most memorable experience for you in this tour?
Now that’s a tough one. Well, there’s the memorable things such as the exhilaration of that first night in Melbourne. Opening Night in Melbourne, people stood up and gave a standing ovation half-way through the tap number, and I’ve never seen that before. So that was really cool. It was pretty funny the other night in Queensland when Claire went to pull Alex’s beard off and pulled his entire microphone off, and then it wouldn’t come off, so he had to run off with the beard. Todd was supposed to grab the beard to try and make Carmen laugh, but there was no beard, so he sort of had to look around, grab her and drag her off stage. That was funny.
With Anything Goes having already completed a couple of preview sessions in Queensland, what do you think the response from Queenslander’s have been like so far.
It’s been really interesting. Queenslanders, I have noticed this on other shows I have done here, really love comedy. So because this is a comedy, it builds and builds and you get huge laughs at QPAC. I think that’s what I have noticed most… there are big laughing audiences. So give them a great comedy and they will have a great time.
So advice do you have for those looking to enter musical theatre?
Train as much as you can. Go to dance lessons as young as you can, go to singing lessons, and put yourself in musicals – do your high school musicals, do your amateur musicals, go and study at WOPA or VCA if you think your quite serious about this, then after you have graduated get yourself out there. Do unpaid work, do concerts, put on cabaret’s – just keep showing people that you exist and then people will notice you.
Since you have the experience in the field, how about those looking to take on your role?
If you want to become a director, its almost the exact same advice. Go study somewhere, but mostly just put shows on. All you have to be to be a director is to say “I’m a director”, choose a text, find a way to put it on and then just keep doing that again and again. Eventually if you are good, someone will notice you. Another great way is to go be an assistant director to real directors. I did quite a bit of that early on, and that has definitely led to the jobs I am getting now.
My final question is, are you excited about the next few weeks in Queensland?
Yeah, I am really excited to bring a fresh but old fashioned family show to Queensland. I think that is exactly the market for it. And I just think it is so great to give people a joyful time in a city that has a summery-winter, they might as well come and have a blast here.
You must be glad that you’re up here during Winter now?
I’m so glad. I was walking around in shorts and t-shirt on Sunday and like “This is the best!”.
Thank you very much for your time!
Special Thanks
I would just like to pass on my thanks to Dean Bryant for taking the time out of his busy schedule on opening day to speak with me about Anything Goes.
I would also like to thank the marketing/publicity teams at IP Publicity and QPAC for helping organise this Q&A interview.
