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Bye Bye Birdie
Presented by: Bustco in conjunction with the Melbourne Fringe
Festival
Venue: Cromwell Road Theatre
Reviewer: Gavin Dean
Date Reviewed: Sunday 20th September
2009
Bye Bye Birdie is a stage
musical with a book by
Michael Stewart, lyrics by
Lee Adams, and music by
Charles Strouse. Originally titled
Let's Go Steady, the
satire on
American society is set in 1958.
The story was inspired by the phenomenon of popular singer
Elvis Presley and his
draft notice into the
army in 1958. The rock star
character's name, "Conrad Birdie," is
word play on the name of
Conway Twitty. Twitty is known as a
country music star but also was one of Presley's rock 'n' roll
rivals in the late 1950s.
The original
Broadway production was a
Tony Award-winning success. The
success of the original production spawned a London production and
several major revivals, a sequel, a 1963 film and a 1995 television
production. The show also became a popular choice for high schools.
Bustco’s production of Bye Bye Birdie was full of youthful
enthusiasm. When we were seated we were looking upon a painted black
and white checkered stage, with someone sitting at a desk with his
back to us.
When the overture began we had silhouetted dancers giving us
different varieties of 50’s style dancing.
Once the opening scene began we find it was Albert Peterson who was
sitting at the desk. Daniel Hearn gave us a very polished
performance as Albert. Daniel has a tremendous voice and a great
stage presence. Katie Sowden played the love lorn Rose Alvarez.
Katie has a great voice and her dancing was very graceful.
Eloise Cassidy was truly delightful as Kim MacAfee. At only 15 years
old this young lady perfectly captured the 14 going on 35 Kim
MacAfee. Arno Vann and Josephine Pulitano played Kim’s parents and
both gave very solid performances.
Maverick De Leon played the role of Conrad Birdie. Maverick was
vocally very strong and also a very capable actor.
The minor roles were all in very capable hands. Standout
performances were Libby Asciak, Rebecca Mignone and Shaun Pirovano.
Directed by Tyler Hess, this was a very well crafted piece of work,
the entire show set in monochrome was very effective, also the use
of 2 scrims either side of the stage, were very well utilized. The
Ed Sullivan Show scene was one of my favorites where the cast played
to the onstage camera, and this image was then reflected onto the
scrim. If Tyler’s directorial debut is anything to go by, Melbourne
has another gifted director in its midst.
Georgia Brooks did a great job in getting the cast sounding vocally
tight and together. Malcolm Huddles orchestra sounded rather thin on
the day, and it was until afterwards I learnt that not only were
there only 4 instruments playing that day, considering there are 12
musicians mentioned in the program. The MD himself was conspicuously
absent as well. I was reassured all would be rectified by this
Thursdays performance.
How refreshing to see an ensemble all dancing together!
Congratulations must go to Ashleigh Gledhill for his
innovative
choreography.
Costumes by Sarah Greed and Tyler Hess were right on the mark.
The lighting design by Michael Brasser was stunning. In such a
limited venue Michael has pulled out all the stops to make this
monochrome show a joy to watch. Brenton Van Vliet has once again
come to the party by providing faultless sound to yet another
struggling company.
This Show was a real treat to see and hear. I was truly saddened by
the lack of patrons on Sunday afternoon. To learn that there had
been virtually no advertising for the show, including no flyers is
an atrocity for Bustco. Every non professional company in Melbourne
is doing its best to survive in these hard financial times, but the
companies must support their own productions. Word of mouth isn’t
enough these days which was proven on the weekend.
I hope that their second week is sold out; this is a delightful show
and should not be missed.
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 has
just finished performing in MLOC's Production of Beauty and the
Beast featuring as Cogsworth the clock.
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