Thank you for joining me on this photographic retrospective of the stage productions of the last half-decade. It has been an absolute blast revisiting musicals from this year such as Chicago the Musical and Muriel’s Wedding the Musical to favourites of mine such as Strictly Ballroom the Musical, Little Shop of Horrors and The Sound of Music. With yesterdays post being a compilation of photos from the last five years… you may wonder what the grand finale will be for this series. Well, it is not photographic to say the last.
From photography to videography, this New Years Eve special provides a video retrospective for a number of stage musicals featuring content never before posted on The Otaku’s Study / The Theatre Sphere. Most of this footage was not captured originally for a whole-song compilation, so isn’t perfect. But it was a real blast getting to revisit some of these fantastic shows of the last few years.
The Rocky Horror Show
Performed in 2018
Presented by The Gordon Frost Organisation, GWB Entertainment and Howard Panter Ltd
Starring Adam Rennie as Frank n Furter and Cameron Daddo as The Narrator
This production of The Rocky Horror Show saw stage performer Adam Rennie take over Craig McLachlan early in its season. While unfortunately, the producers did not retain Rennie for the second half of their 2018 Rocky Horror tour, gotta admit he was absolutely fantastic in the role! Below are two songs from the show – Time Warp and Sweet Transvestite.
Time Warp
Sweet Transvestite
Kinky Boots
Performed in 2017
Presented by the Michael Cassel Group
Featuring Toby Francis as Charlie and Callum Francis as Lola
Performed while Australia was having the debate around same-sex marriage laws (which received support during the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey and passed in parliament), Kinky Boots was an incredibly uplifting and fun production that in my opinion, Australia needed at the time. With two fantastic leads and an equally fantastic supporting cast – this was one production from Michael Cassel Group I will not be forgetting any time soon. Below are two songs from the production, the before-interval song Say Yeah! and the closing number Raise You Up.
Say Yeah!
Raise You Up
The Wizard of Oz
Performed in 2017
Presented by John Frost and Suzanne Jones
Featuring Lucy Durack, Jemma Rix, Samantha Dodemaide and Anthony Warlow
The most notable thing about The Wizard of Oz‘s most recent Australian tour by John Frost and Suzanne Jones was its casting. They brought in Lucy Durack and Jemma Rix as the roles of the “Good Witch” and “Bad Witch” – with the pair having performed as those characters previously in Wicked back in 2015. Below are three songs from the musical – the iconic Somewhere Over the Rainbow, an updated version of Merry Ol’ Land of Oz and the new-for-the-musical song Red Shoes Blues.
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Merry ol’ Land of Oz
Red Shoes Blues
The Sound of Music
Performed in 2016
Presented by Andrew Lloyd Webber, David Ian, John Frost and The Really Useful Group
Featuring Cameron Daddo, Amy Lehpamer, Marina Prior, Jacqui Dark and Lorraine Bayly
While this series has already covered The Sound of Music in its own post, going through my archives I found this recording of Do-Re-Mi which I never used on this site. Therefore to conclude this series, please enjoy the recording of Amy Lehpamer (Maria) and a group of talented Queensland children perform the iconic song.
