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Fame - The Musical
Presented by:
SPX Waterdale Players
Venue:
Riverdale Theatre at Parade College
Reviewer:
Gavin Dean
Date
Reviewed:
Friday 27th
February 2009
Fame the Musical, unlike most musicals, was created as a byproduct
of the extremely successful 1980 movie “FAME”. There has also been a
Fame reality show and the very popular T.V. series of the same name.
Having had professional productions in over 25 countries around the
world Fame the Musical continues to be as popular as when it first
opened in 1988, in Miami, Florida.
SPX Waterdale Players, a relatively new company have launched their
version of Fame the musical to a nearly packed house at Parade
College’s Rivergum Theatre.
Having never been to the Rivergum Theatre I was pleasantly surprised
at how modern the facility was and how comfortable the seats were.
The lighting for this production was designed by Michael Brasser. As
part of Moving Light Productions, Michaels’ design was very good and
appropriate for the production.
The Sound design by Marcello Lo Ricco was fantastic, not a hiccup
all night, everyone who was supposed to be heard was heard! I’m not
surprised he won 2 Lyrebird awards just couple of weeks ago.
Kate Ferguson did a good job with the very 80’s styles costumes.
Love the leg warmers and scrunchies!
The opening of the show had our 6 lead roles in front of the curtain
each of which had a down light on them, singing about how the hoped
to get into P.A. (Performing Arts)
As Carmen Diaz, Bianca Baykara gave us a very solid performance,
filled with the attitude that a young starlet aiming for the stars
has. Bianca has a very strong and commanding voice; I’m looking
forward to seeing her again later in the year in CLOC’s Miss Saigon.
Bianca’s love interest Schlomo Metenbaum was played by Simon Hedt.
Simon’s portrayal of the heart broken student was well captured.
Alexandra Cole as Serena Katz and Maverick De Leon as Tyrone Jackson
were standout performances, both had a sense of honesty and their
respective performances and both had great voices.
Nichlas Kyriacou gave us an energy filled performance as Joes ‘Joe”
Vegas and Toby Polock was very genuine as Nick Plazza. Ashleigh
lreveld, Laura Raiti , Katherine D’Aquino and James Oorloff all
gave commendable performances as the minor leads and all had good
voices.
Leading up the teachers Lucy Brown took command of the stage as soon
as she walked on it and made the part of Ms Sherman her own. As did
the Dancing teacher Ms. Greta Bell portrayed by Claire Tonti-
Filippini.
The sets for this production were very interesting and besides the
painted back wall consisted of two vertical triangle columns and
depending which way they were turned change the location. There were
also a set of stairs which we found out in Act 2 could be wheeled
off stage. Other bits and pieces were wheeled on and off
throughout the show, but why we needed 20 seconds black outs to get
these is place when the cast could have just bought them on as they
came on would have saved us from those terrible dead spots where we
didn’t even have the band underscoring.
Luis Rivera did a good job of directing these 35 performers around
the stage, although I felt that the characters were underdeveloped
and he could have made a lot more of the talent that was presented
to us. Simon D’Aquino, musical director led the orchestra, an out of
tune trumpet is never a welcome sound either on or off stage.
Co-Choreographers Emma Kiely and Leah Osburn showed us that the cast
indeed did have talent and most of them could indeed dance.
Unfortunately I don’t believe the most was made out of the
choreography and I was kept hoping for more, and it was never
delivered.
Overall this was a very enthusiastic cast, brimming with excitement
and all seemed to have a lot of fun performing this piece.
Gavin has been involved in theatre for the past 26 years, reining
from
Geelong
where he played such roles as Jud Fry in Oklahoma! Juan Peron in
Evita, he moved to Melbourne over 10 years ago and has performed in
"Into the Woods as the Baker, Jeffrey in Godspell and Tevye in
Fiddler on the Roof. Having performed in over 30 productions, Gavin
went onto direct Hot Mikado for Nightowl Productions for which he
received a Guild Judges award. Gavin has also directed several
productions for Loyola Musical Society and in June 2009 he will be
performing in MLOC's Production of Beauty and the Beast featuring as
Cogsworth the clock.
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