24 Hour Musical at 21 hours!

Musical of Musicals - the Musical! Review

‘The Musical of Musicals: The Musical’

I didn’t want to review a show on Friday evening. Instead, I’d been hoping to attend my friends’ “N”-themed housewarming. Lucky for me, I take my reviewing duties very seriously. As the first Mudfest 2011 show I’ve seen, The Musical of Musicals: The Musical certainly did not disappoint. In fact it entirely exceeded my expectations.

TMOM:TM is basically a piece of musical theatre written to (affectionately) rag on musical theatre. The show is five short pieces (satirising/paying tribute to different musical styles from the past century) with the same basic plot: “I cannot pay the rent”. These are driven by five archetypal characters: the ingénue (Emma Hoy), the hero (Jack Brown), the villain (Josiah Lulham), the confidante (Bianca Bruce) and the ensemble (Michael Leaver). Each piece respectively parodies the work of Rogers and Hammerstein (in Corn!), Stephen Sondheim (A Little Bit Complex), Jerry Herman (Dear Abby), Andrew Lloyd Webber (Aspects of Junita) and Kander and Ebb (Speakeasy).

Directors and co-producers Scott Dunsdon and Emma Leaver did a fantastic job of transforming the sometimes vacuous Union Theatre, giving it a more intimate—sort-of cabaret—vibe. I was struck, upon entering the space, by the simplistic set (all black, with a piano stage right and a small rostrum stage left) and the cool instrumental jazz cooing over the speakers. My only criticism of the show is that it might thrive in a smaller space.

As a lover of snark, I was surprised to find there was nothing to snark about in TMOM:TM. The show itself is wonderful, filled with broad humour and sharp insider jokes (yet never losing its wit and cool). Leaver and Dunsdon have opted for a simple vision. This ultimately enhances the show as it allows the concept, and the fabulous actors, to shine. The aforementioned set design is clean and effective. Dunsdon and Leaver are clearly great directors who know how to construct sharp, aesthetically-pleasing blocking. Some scenes (most of A Little Bit Complex and Speakeasy, for example) are concomitantly inspired and referential, giving the show that magical mixture of familiarity and freshness.

The lighting design was one of my favourite aspects. For something that looks so easy to pull off, it’s perfectly obvious when a lighting designer doesn’t know what they’re doing. TMOM:TM’s lighting captured the essence of the show perfectly, while also lifting it from its simple surrounds. It was just totally classy. The simple costume design matched that class, predominately blacks and whites. Another outstanding aspect was the exceptional effort from Simon Bruckard, the show’s sole instrumentalist. Bruckard (on piano) held the show together with an emphatic and impudent performance.

Now, to the actors, who undeniably made the show. Brown, Bruce, Hoy, Leaver and Lulham are clearly all accomplished performers – there wasn’t a botched line or bung voice between them. However, there was so much more than ‘accomplished’ in their performances. Each actor had impeccable comic timing, an extensive vocal range (and appealing, commanding voices), and a wonderful affinity with the stage. Jack Brown made an interesting, engaging ‘hero’. He has a fabulous rich vocal timbre and an easy physicality onstage. Michael Leaver (who voiced the ‘ensemble’) was a stand-out; he shone in Dear Abby and Speakeasy and his comfortable manner (and sweet physical comedy) held the five pieces together. Emma Hoy, whose comedic style has impressed me before, was predictably spectacular. She melds sweetness and maturity brilliantly and makes a complex, charming damsel. She also has some wonderful facial expressions.

Bianca Bruce was an absolute knockout. It’s worth attending the show just to see her performance. She is a gracious, hysterical comedienne with a truly magnificent voice. Her Merman/Lansbury/Channing was particularly on-the-nose. Josiah Lulham was fabulous. He is just totally smooth (and has wonderful physicality) onstage. He made an excellent faux-Emcee in Speakeasy, an absolutely outstanding villain in Corn!, and was just a complete joy to watch. I found that my eye always wandered to him, as he was always doing something fascinating. Another joy was the ingenious Leslie (the “talking program”). As Mudfest is a ‘paper-free’ event, the TMOM:TM team keep you informed during the show via a lucid voice-over (I’m assuming, an un-credited Scott Dunsdon). A couple of stand-out Leslie moments were a soliloquy on apples, and a wonderful crack about Rent.

TMOM:TM holds appeal for musical theatre-lovers (like me) and the general public alike. There are jokes for the masses, and some for those who know the genre inside and out. I attended TMOM:TM on opening night with some 25 other enthusiastic audience-members. TMOM:TM has 4 more performances during the Mudfest period, and I would highly recommend attending one of them. This show is a treasure, and deserves a much larger audience than the one it had on opening night!

The Musical of Musicals: The Musicals is showing at the Union House Theatre at the University of Melbourne from 19-25^th August (as part of the University of Melbourne’s biennial Arts Festival, Mudfest 2011). Dates, times and prices for the performances can be found here. Don’t miss out on this one folks; it’s truly a fab experience!

This review by by Matilda Dixon-Smith (part of Mudfest 2011) can also be read on Your Dripping Egg.

Muddy Month!

It’s the first week of August and the intensity in the Mudfest office is increasing along with a corresponding frenetic creativity. When you put creative types to work – boy can they get the job done, in record time.

Our wonderful Visual Arts Producer has been busy sewing gorgeously colourful quilts for our Mudfest Tramstop Installation. With not much help (yet! contact info.mudfest[at]gmail.com with your wishes to assist) she has been whipping up these warming additions to both the main Melbourne Uni tramstop and the VCA tramstop. This of course is tied together with our sponsorship from the lovely people at Yarra Trams

The festival directors have been busy (as usual). They have had a photo shoot for publicity and have brought us the 10-Day-Party – on tonight! Deals have been finalised with the Mudclub and the centralised production team are all manically sorting out everything that gets emailed their way.

It’s a busy time as we count down to Opening Night, steps are taken to start finalising the Special Curatorial Event; costumes are being sourced for shows; the Arts Lab is bustling with the Operations team painting venue signs; banners are being painted. [Deep Breath!]
Publicity has sent out the Festival Press Release and advertisements have been published in print media as well as facebook events popping up all over the place for Mudfest shows. It is clear not only from our very pretty website that we HAVE A FESTIVAL!

Rehearsals have started for Tastings productions; mentors have been met, cast have been cast and creative teams selected. We know that many shows are well into production and rehearsal and are ticking along nicely as we hit the last two weeks before the festival opening. A few branches have snapped (my own included) for a moment or two but overall the tenacity of this team will be testament in just how amazing this festival will be.

Here meetings have been occurring like mad and we have on board an official Muddy Leaks photographer! Who is incredibly talented and is eager to document the process. Whilst there have been some teething issues in terms of connecting to the Mudfest Main site we are getting to be all set. And at least this is happening two weeks out rather than the night before.

Oh and the 24 Hr Musical Team are after Cast and Creative Team to produce – maximum commitment for minimal time!

Onwards and Upwards Muddy Friends

Love, Lilly

Sponsorship Love

Are they not all darlings?

HALF-WAY THERE!

We have had a fabulous response from would-be reviewers for Muddy Leaks and Mudfest! We are however still looking for more. With such a jam-packed and AWESOME line-up in the program this year we need at least 10 reviewers, and other documentary crew to get out, get involved and totally blog the life of the festival. Not only will this rescource be great for your own writing/reviewing experience but you will be helping both the artists and the organisers of the festival and future festivals. Woo! For prosterity!

So in light of all this, there was a further call-out for more lovely interested people to go into followspot this week. But where is Followspot this week? Hmmmmm.... Not sure. Anyway, please send your interest to muddyleaks@gmail.com and we will be in touch.

Posted on the Facebook Page

Cast/crew opportunities for Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story

Meet Peter: an East Village exec of reputation and distinction. Two kids, a loving wife, a parakeet, a picket fence…

Meet Jerry: he’s been to the zoo. And because of what happened there, he’s going to be on the news tomorrow.
...
…do you want to hear? What Jerry did at the zoo?

Set in an America on the cusp of cultural and spiritual renewal at the dawn of the 60s, when the spirit of revolution was a mere nipping at the heels of the Man in the Grey Flannel Suit by beatniks and burnouts. The 1958 debut one-act play of Edward Albee – author of the seminal Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? – is both bloody-minded and raw: a cautionary tale about the dangers of willful miscommunication.

Positions available: Lighting Designer, Sound Designer, Set Designer/Visual Artist.

Please email director Shannon Loughnane at sjloughnane@gmail.com.

Auditions to follow!

New Authors Welcome

Just a little practice here, to let everyone know that if you would like to contribute to Muddy Leaks it is fabulously easy and you are of course welcome to blog as little or as MUCH as you like. We are also looking for student reviewers because in some news:

EVERY SHOW IN MUDFEST WILL GET A REVIEW PUBLISHED ON MUDDYLEAKS!

We wonder who got this gig?!

Dear Artists,

We’ve got a job for you…and you might get a little muddy.

We want you to design and decorate a tram-stop. Thanks to our partnership with Yarra Trams, we have been given the blank canvas of two prominent tram-stops on the Swanston St – St Kilda line: the VCA and Parkville campus stops.

This year, sustainability is the bee-knees, the popular kid of the festival that everyone wants to hang out with. We are looking for work that is sustainable, creative and incorporates the Mudfest logo in any way, shape or form. Use the logo as your inspiration – let the kaleidoscope of your imagination run wild. Be quirky, be innovative, be challenging, be inventive, be playful – be Mudfest.

Mudfest - the biennial arts and theatre festival at the University of Melbourne - has grown to be one of the largest student-run festivals in Australia due to the huge range of high quality new, interesting and exciting works that are exhibited each year. Are you Mudfest?

This is your chance to transform a tram-stop into a 3D advertisement for Mudfest. It will be launched at the Opening Night Party and will be visible throughout the entire festival, seen by passengers travelling on over 200 trams. This means huge exposure, not just for the festival but also, for you as an artist.

Of course this is as a result of the sponsorship deal. We wonder what will happen, this is totally going to be an exciting publicity opportunity as well as an artistic canvas.

Muddy Leaks Take 2?

Muddy Leaks is UNofficial, UNabashed, UNrepentant, as you might have guessed from the repeated slogan around the site we are also fond of the UN prefix.

In the land that is Melbourne, the home-town of the one and only Julian Assange we are providing a new platform for information. Our pond might be a little bit smaller, but the depths of MUDfest 2011 are no less murky than the wider politics of the world. One often takes for granted the benevolence of a pretty picture but dip your hand into the inviting looking pool and you might feel a little residue of filth. This year, the fact the MUDfest 2011 is even occurring is extra pretty because of the insidious dealings behind the scenes. Out of this dirty, sloppy, muddy sludge there comes Muddy Leaks who is tasked with sharing what is underneath the surface with those looking in.

There also is the very pretty and very gorgeous MUDFEST 2011 - which is what we are actually all about. Although UNoffical we are here to support artists, practioners, crew and patrons in anyway that we can. Use us for your publicity - write a review or a press release for your show. WE WILL PUBLISH IT.

Like us on Facebook.

Love us on Twitter

Follow us on our blog

And contribute to ensuring that despite being a sustainable and endagered species Mudfest 2010 is going to be more beautiful than ever before. Muddy Leaks is headed up by Lilly Pad, but is supported by a variety of Confidential Sources; Insiders; Party-goers; Close Contacts; People In The Know involved in MUDfest 2011.

AND YOU.

Please send reviews/posts/articles/creativity/tips/questions/info/cartoons/recycled cardboard/fan-mail: muddyleaks@gmail.com

Follow Me!

@MuddyLeaks is on Twitter and it is linked to the facebook account and is regularly updated. We will follow you if you follow us and make you look as fabulous and popular as you think you are. Seriously!

In other news, it seems that Mudfest has come across some more "$$$$$"

We will let you know more as and when more information comes to hand!

For - Every - Pond - Has - A - Leakage

Yes, we have dropped the original tagline for one that makes a little more sense. That doesn't mean we don't want to catch the drips before they seep away. So feed us!

MUDfest site is live!

The Mudfest 2011 site is live and boy is it a pretty one. Hats off to the designers. Check out the home-page:

Totally Cute! There are links for applications; Tastings; twitter and also fb. So get linked in with both them and us and stay in touch with the latest in MUDfest news.

Muddy Social

Muddy Leaks is now on Twitter > that is right! You can follow us on Twitter; Like us on facebook AND follow the website. The facebook and the twitter @MuddyLeaks are linked in so updates go to both. If you have a blog of your own please sing up to follow Muddy Leaks – it isn’t a public following on the site and please also pop us on your blogroll.

MUDfest this year is going paper free and in the spirit of this Muddy Leaks is following suit. Green is such an attractive colour, and goes so well with brown. Having said that, here at Muddy Leaks we are still negotiating with all this new-media. If you are an expert or if you dabble in the internets to a greater degree than us muddites (!) then send us an email muddyleaks@gmail.com and let your awesome-ness feed Muddy Leaks technical abilities.