Tag Archives: Enda Markey

Defying Gravity

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Theatre Royal, February 13

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Sutton Foster and Aaaron Tveit in Defying Gravity. Photo: Robert Catto

 

It sounded pretty special on paper but high expectations were far exceeded in Defying Gravity, an electrifying concert featuring the songs of Stephen Schwartz that sent me home walking on air.

Produced by Enda Markey, the show was beautifully crafted in every respect and the love that swelled from the audience was well and truly deserved.

For starters there was the stellar cast: two of Broadway’s hottest stars Sutton Foster and Aaron Tveit, West End star Joanna Ampil, Australia’s own David Harris and Helen Dallimore, as well as Broadway legend Betty Buckley making a guest appearance in the second act. They were all wonderful but Foster and Tveit completely blew me away. The chance to see them on the Sydney stage was a gift.

The meaty program was extremely well put-together featuring songs both very well known and less familiar including numbers from Schwartz’s musicals Pippin, Godspell, The Magic Show, Children of Eden, The Baker’s Wife and, of course, Wicked, along with numbers from Disney animated films such as Pocahontas, Enchanted and The Hunchback of Notre Dame on which he collaborated as lyricist with composer Alan Menken.

There was a good mixture of solos, duets and group numbers and lovely changes of pace from roof-raising numbers performed with the magnificent 15-piece band under conductor Guy Simpson to moments of quiet restraint such as Foster’s spellbinding rendition of When You Believe from The Prince of Egypt with solo guitar (Daniel Maher) and Cold Enough to Snow from the movie Life With Mikey movingly sung by Tveit accompanied on piano by Michael Tyack.

The choice of songs clearly illustrated Schwartz’s skill as a songwriter: a fine lyricist able to tell a story succinctly in song and convey a strong sense of character, emotion and empathy, as well as a catchy tunesmith.

Trent Suidgeest’s stage design was simple but had enough sparkle for the occasion with hanging strings of silver flakes as well as silver dusting the stage. Smoothly directed by Andrew Pole, the choreography of the performers on and off stage (as well as in several songs) was deft, as was their linking material, while the inclusion of comments from Schwartz on screen added insight to his career and process including his songwriting mantra: “Just tell the truth and make it rhyme”.

It was fascinating to see how the number The Wizard and I from Wicked gradually evolved from a song initially entitled Making Good.

The band was excellent and the sound was terrific (System Sound, Julian Spink and David Tonion).

Defying Gravity: The Songs Of Stephen Schwartz

David Harris, Helen Dallimore, Stephen Schwartz, Aaron Tveit, Betty Buckley, Sutton Foster and Joanna Ampil in Defying Gravity. Photo: Robert Catto

And then there were the performers. Sutton Foster, whose many Broadway credits include Millie Dilmount in Thoroughly Modern Millie, Broadway starlet Janet van de Graaf in The Drowsy Chaperone, Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes and the title role in Violet, has a voice to die for: bright, clear, silvery and soaring. She can belt to the heavens as she showed with Defying Gravity, which had the audience on their feet screaming, or rein it right back in heartbreaking fashion as with I’m Not That Girl.

Tveit was also sensational. Star of Broadway shows Catch Me If You Can and Next to Normal, he played Enjolras in the 2012 movie of Les Miserables and Danny Zuko in the recent Fox Grease: Live. His lovely, light tenor soars effortlessly, he charms with a cheeky smile and twinkle in the eye, and he has a great sense of comedy. He knocked it out of the park with Proud Lady from The Baker’s Wife and hammed it up delightfully in All From the Best from Godspell with David Harris.

Harris was also in fine voice. Known here for his performances in shows including Miss Saigon and Legally Blonde, he is now based in New York. Exuding a natural ease on stage, he gave a beautiful rendition of Corner of the Sky from Pippin and got a huge response from the audience with the sexy duet Endless Delights, performed with Helen Dallimore.

Dallimore, who originated the role of Glinda in the London production of Wicked and whose credits in Australia include Blood Brothers and Legally Blonde, showed her comic chops with Endless Delights, Popular from Wicked and It’s An Art, a song by a waitress from the musical Working.

Joanna Ampil, who has a lovely soprano voice, charmed with songs including Lion Tamer from The Magic Show, That’s How You Know from Enchanted and, most particularly, Colours of the Wind from Pocahontas.

Betty Buckley performed three songs in the second act: No Time At All from Pippin, in which she starred for several years, as well as Chanson and the gorgeous Meadowlark from The Baker’s Wife, bringing the audience to their feet. Schwartz actually wrote The Baker’s Wife with Buckley in mind but despite six auditions she didn’t land the role – a disappointment so devastating it consumed her for years as she explains with wry humour.

The show ended with Schwartz taking to the stage to perform Day By Day with the full company – an uplifting and touching end to an incredibly special event, which once again had the audience on their feet.

Earlier in the day, I saw Schwartz in conversation with Leigh Sales, a terrific interview about his career and craft, which only added to my appreciation of the concert.

All in all, a big thanks to Enda Markey for producing Defying Gravity. It was a little slice of musical theatre heaven. Pure bliss!

Sutton Foster Defies Gravity in Sydney

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Sutton Foster discusses coming to Sydney for the Stephen Schwartz concert Defying Gravity, the scars she drew on for her Tony Award-nominated performance in Violet, musicals Hamilton and Fun Home, dream roles and playing younger in Younger

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Broadway star Sutton Foster. Photo: Laura Marie Duncan

 

When producer Enda Markey approached Broadway star Sutton Foster about performing in Sydney, his timing couldn’t have been better. Foster had just agreed to teach musical theatre masterclasses at a summer school in New Zealand.

“So basically the reason I’m going (to Sydney) is because I was already going to be here,” she says on the phone from Christchurch. “I’ve never been to Australia and I’m so super-excited.”

The two-time Tony Award winner (for her performances as Millie Dilmount in Thoroughly Modern Millie in 2002 and Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes in 2011) will headline a concert called Defying Gravity, featuring the songs of composer/lyricist Stephen Schwartz whose credits include the musicals Wicked, Godspell and Pippin among others, as well as lyrics for the Disney films Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Enchanted.

The impressive line-up also features Broadway legend Betty Buckley (Sunset Boulevard), Aaron Tveit (Enjolras in the 2012 Les Miserables movie and Danny Zuko in Fox’s Grease Live), West End star Joanna Ampil (Miss Saigon) and Australians David Harris (Miss Saigon, Legally Blonde) and Helen Dallimore (Legally Blonde, Glinda in the West End production of Wicked).

“Aaron and I have never worked together, we just know each other through the business, the same with Betty. We know each other through mutual friends so I’m looking forward to working with both of them on this,” says Foster.

Schwartz meanwhile is a good friend but Foster has never been in one of his shows, though she has performed songs of his including Defying Gravity in concert. “I’ve worked on some of his material but some of the songs that I’m going to be singing are songs I’ve never sung before so it’s brand new material (for me) so I’m super-excited. I’ve been working on the material while I’ve been here in Christchurch. I’ve been looking back into his catalogue and it’s really exciting,” she says.

Schwartz will attend the three concerts at Sydney’s Theatre Royal this Friday and Saturday and also do an onstage “in conversation” interview with Leigh Sales at midday on Saturday.

“That adds another level of pressure,” says Foster with a laugh, “but it will be fun to have him there. I think it’s going to be a great evening.”

Performing in concert is “a different sort of expression” to performing in a musical, says Foster.

“I don’t have to paint myself green! And you are allowed to take songs a little out of context and personalise things a little bit, which I enjoy. As an audience member, you hope to see a little bit of the character but you also get to learn a little bit about me as well, hopefully. I can bring a little bit more of myself to the songs. I try to do that anyway but in a concert setting I like to take things a little bit out of the expected from what you might see on stage.”

Sutton Foster - photo credit Laura Marie Duncan

Sutton Foster. Photo: Laura Marie Duncan

Foster was born in Statesboro, Georgia and raised in Troy, Michigan. She began dance classes at age four and at ten was “dragged” (as she has put it in previous interviews) by her mother to audition for a local production of Annie, landing the title role.

She made her Broadway debut as an understudy for Sandy in Grease in 1996. Her big break came in one of those fabulous showbiz twists of fate. Offered a role in Les Misérables on Broadway (she had been understudying Eponine) or an ensemble track in a new musical adapted from the 1967 movie Thoroughly Modern Millie, she chose the latter in which she would also understudy the title role of Millie Dilmount.

When the show was struggling during its try-out season at La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, Foster was plucked from the ensemble to replace the leading lady. She subsequently played the role on Broadway, won a Tony Award and a star was born.

Foster has now performed in 11 Broadway shows, won two Tonys and also received Tony nominations for her performances as Jo March in Little Women, Broadway starlet Janet van de Graaf in The Drowsy Chaperone, Princess Fiona in Shrek The Musical and, most recently in 2014, the title role in Violet.

The New York Times described her portrayal of Violet as “a career-defining performance”.

Known for her bright, silvery voice, her sunny smile, her goofy comic skills and red-hot tap dancing, Violet showed a different side of Foster.

Written by composer Jeanine Tesori (Fun Home, Shrek The Musical, Thoroughly Modern Millie) and writer Brian Crawley, Violet is based on a short story by Doris Bett called The Ugliest Pilgrim about a young woman who takes a Greyhound bus from North Carolina to Oklahoma, hoping that a televangelist can heal a disfiguring scar on her face, gained 12 years earlier when the blade flew from her father’s axe.

“It was definitely the most emotional thing I’ve ever done and the most vulnerable and exposed character I’ve ever played,” says Foster.

“It’s fascinating to see friends and colleagues and audience members who would come backstage who were so moved by it. Everyone can relate to her story. We all have scars: some you can see, some you can’t. I related to her. I don’t have physical scars but I definitely have scars from my upbringing and (the show is about) how we overcome them and how we learn to love ourselves scars and all. The show for me became incredibly healing. I was able to overcome personal things – that’s when theatre and the arts is at its best when it can change you. I felt changed by playing that character.”

While not wanting to go into too much detail, Foster says: “I had a rough relationship with my mom. It was hard and it was something I had to face as an adult and something that I needed to come to terms with and forgive her. It’s all complicated. In a weird way with Violet, her father hits her with an axe and it’s pretty cut and dry – he doesn’t do it on purpose, it was an accident.

“My mom only knew what she knew. She did the best she could raising my brother (performer Hunter Foster) and I, and we all had to come to terms with it and allowing it to be OK. I always joke it’s a bottle of bourbon and a whole day to go into all the details of it but all that stuff was very useful (in playing the role).”

(In 2014, Foster told The Los Angeles Times: “For a long time, my career and what I wanted to be as an actor was fueled by her – to please her and make her proud of me.”)

Foster may just be being polite but she sounds genuinely thrilled to hear that Sydney audiences recently had the chance to see a small-scale production of Violet because performer Samantha Dodemaide was so blown away by the show and Foster’s performance in it when she saw it on Broadway that she returned to Australia wanting to play the role.

The production, by Blue Saint Productions in association with the Hayes Theatre Co, played at the Hayes in December and won Best Independent Production of a Musical at the 2015 Sydney Theatre Awards. It now has a season at Melbourne’s Chapel Off Chapel (March 3 – 20).

Asked about the buzz that Hamilton – Lin Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop musical about Founding American Father Alexander Hamilton featuring a racially diverse cast – is generating on Broadway, Foster says: “It’s worthy of all the buzz. I’ve seen it twice. I saw it off-Broadway before it opened and then I saw it right before it opened on Broadway and it’s exciting. It’s one of the most exciting things I’ve seen for a long time.

“I will say personally that two of the most exciting pieces of music that I’ve experienced are running simultaneously, which are Fun Home – which won the Tony Award last year – and Hamilton. I think they are both groundbreakers.”

(Fun Home is a musical adaptation by Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori of Alison Bechdel’s memoir about a young lesbian woman discovering her sexuality, and about her relationship with her gay father).

“There’s a song in Hamilton about how lucky we are to be alive right now and I feel that way about how lucky I am to be alive right now when so many exciting things are happening in musical theatre: exciting voices and risks, which are groundbreaking (in terms of) race and sexuality, really making statements that I think are so important. It’s really awesome,” says Foster.

As for dream roles, she says: “I’m a huge fan of new work so I would say that hopefully the dream role hasn’t even been written yet. But there are certain iconic roles. Some day I’d love to play Mama Rose in Gypsy. It doesn’t matter where it is, it doesn’t have to be on Broadway, it could be anywhere, it’s just a role I’d love to do. Also, Charity in Sweet Charity or the Baker’s Wife in Into the Woods. Those are probably my top three, I guess.”

In recent years, Foster has made a move into television appearing in Bunheads and now the US series Younger, in which she plays a 40-year old single mother, desperate for work, who pretends to be 26 in order to land a job with a publisher. She begins shooting series three in June.

“It’s a really nice change of pace,” she says of working in television. “I’ve been amazingly lucky – I say that as I knock on wood – to have worked in the theatre for 23 years, which is awesome. It’s all I ever wanted to do. So to learn something new and explore a whole new way of communicating and telling stories, and learning how to be on a television set as an older person – I’ll be 41 in March – is exciting. To be in the midst of my life and trying new things is exciting.”

Foster herself is married to screenwriter Ted Griffin (Ocean’s Eleven) having previously been married to Christian Borle (Smash, Something Rotten!).

Asked how she feels about aging, she says she hadn’t really thought about it until doing press for Younger when everyone asked her about it.

“I completely understand because the show is about ageism and navigating that in the work place. Being a performer I haven’t experienced that yet. Maybe that will happen but I feel more content and happier now than I’ve ever been. I’ve no desire to go backwards. I’m very much looking forward to what’s ahead.”

So no botox or plastic surgery? “Never say never but I guess I feel right now I want to age gracefully and naturally. I’m a pretty natural gal so I can’t imagine (it). I don’t like the idea of anything fake. I try to live a pretty authentic life and I think that goes for my face as well. So for now, I’m embracing the wrinkles and everything else that’s happening and hopefully I can remain youthful from within.”

Defying Gravity, Theatre Royal, February 12 at 8pm & February 13 at 3pm and 8pm. Bookings: Ticketmaster 136 100

 A version of this story appeared in the Daily Telegraph on February 11

Blood Brothers

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Hayes Theatre Co, February 10

Blake Bowden, Bobby Fox and Helen Dallimore. Photo: Kurt Sneddon

Blake Bowden, Bobby Fox and Helen Dallimore. Photo: Kurt Sneddon

Blood Brothers, the hit musical by Willy Russell (Educating Rita, Shirley Valentine), premiered in Liverpool in 1983 then ran in London’s West End for 24 years.

Last staged professionally in Sydney in 1994, the show’s reputation and popularity goes before it – so much so that this new, small-scale production, produced by Enda Markey in association with the Hayes Theatre Co, extended its season before it even opened. Days after opening it was almost sold out.

Though there is room to plumb a deeper well of anger and emotion, it’s a lively, well-staged production with some lovely performances.

Set in Liverpool, Blood Brothers tells the story of fraternal twins, separated at birth when their mother Mrs Johnstone can’t afford to keep them both. Persuaded by the well-to-do Mrs Lyons, who she cleans for, to secretly give her one of the babies, the boys grow up on different sides of the track but become best friends without knowing their true relationship. However, the class difference and their love of the same woman have tragic consequences.

Russell wrote the show as a furious response to the growing divide between rich and poor in Thatcher’s England – something still depressingly relevant. Its great strength is a powerful narrative with an authentic working class voice, while the folk/pop songs have simple, catchy melodies. Russell uses repetition in the score quite effectively though a Marilyn Monroe motif eventually feels over-worked.

Andrew Pole directs on an ingenious set by Anna Gardiner that swings open to reveal interiors, with the tight four-piece band led by Michael Tyack hidden backstage, while her bright costuming brings colour to the dark, depressing world she creates.

Helen Dallimore is a warm, vital Mrs Johnstone. She captures her resilience but could do more to convey the toll taken on her by the terrible knocks and stresses she endures – though her rendition of Tell Me It’s Not True is heartbreaking.

Christy Sullivan, Erin James, Helen Dallimore, Bobby Fox and Jamie Kristian. Photo: Kurt Sneddon

Christy Sullivan, Erin James, Helen Dallimore, Bobby Fox and Jamie Kristian. Photo: Kurt Sneddon

As the twins, who age from seven to young men, Bobby Fox and Blake Bowden give beautifully judged performances, managing to convey a convincing connection between them, despite being worlds removed.

It’s hard to play children without being gratingly twee, but Fox and Bowden, along with Christy Sullivan who plays their close friend Linda, do a terrific job here.

Fox exudes a knockabout, streetwise energy as Mickey, the youngest of the unruly, poverty-stricken Johnstone brood and his descent into depression is powerfully done. Bowden brings a gentle, earnest sweetness to Edward who is brought up by the posh Lyons family. Both are in great voice, and vocally suited to their characters.

Sullivan shines in a moving performance as Linda, the girl they both love, and the scenes between the three of them have a powerful dramatic and emotional force.

The scenes featuring the well-to-do Lyons played by Bronwyn Mulcahy and Phillip Lyons feel less authentic, though this is in large part to do with these characters being more sketchily written. But all the cast – which also includes Erin James and Jamie Kristian – work together well as a tight ensemble, while Michael Cormick is a suitably ominous presence as the narrator who speaks in rhyming couplets, foreshadowing the tragedy like a Greek chorus, and sings with great assurance.

Lyrically and musically, Blood Brothers isn’t the most subtle or sophisticated of musicals but it has a gritty simplicity that goes straight to the heart, leaving many in the opening night audience in tears at the end.

Blood Brothers plays at the Hayes Theatre Co until March 15. Bookings: http://www.hayestheatre.com.au or 02 8065 7337

A version of this review ran in the Sunday Telegraph on February 15

Not a Launch: Hayes Theatre Co 2015

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Hayes Theatre Co, September 29

Blazey Best, Hilary Cole, Mike McLeish and Cameron Holmes as the Truswell family in Miracle City. Photo: Kurt Sneddon

Blazey Best, Hilary Cole, Mike McLeish and Cameron Holmes as the Truswell family in Miracle City. Photo: Kurt Sneddon

“It’s not a launch,” said David Campbell. “It’s just a release of information.”

Whatever it was, it was a great way to introduce the Hayes Theatre Co’s program for the first half of 2015 with performers on hand to sing numbers from the shows featured, and to give us a preview of the final shows for 2014.

British director Neil Rutherford introduced Beyond Desire, the new musical for which he has written book and lyrics, with music by Kieran Drury, which will play at the Hayes from November 21 to December 13.

Beyond Desire is an Edwardian murder mystery, inspired in part by E.M. Forster’s novel Maurice, which Rutherford described as “Downton Abbey meets Hamlet”. It will feature contemporary music inspired by the period, with influences of Elgar and Debussy. The score will be performed by a six-piece orchestra.

Nancye Hayes, who plays a housekeeper, sang an amusing number about family secrets, in costume complete with a tray of tea and sandwiches. It will be the first time Hayes has performed at the venue named after her. After that performance, I can’t wait.

The 2015 season begins in January with a production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Next to Normal by Geelong’s Doorstep Arts (January 8 – February 1). Introduced by the company’s founding director Darylin Ramondo, the production will feature Natalie O’Donnell as Diana, the suburban mother with worsening bipolar disorder and delusional episodes.

The cast will also include Alex Rathgeber and Anthony Harkin. O’Donnell performed I Miss the Mountains in which Diana sings about missing the dizzy heights of her non-medicated state.

In February, Enda Markey produces Blood Brothers (see related feature) with a fabulous cast led by Helen Dallimore, Michael Cormick, Blake Bowden and Bobby Fox. Running February 6 – March 8, Dallimore gave a taste of things to come with a medley of Easy Terms and Tell Me It’s Not True.

In May, Neil Gooding presents Dogfight with music and lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, and book by Peter Duncan, all still in their 20s.

Based on the 1991 film starring River Phoenix, it tells the edgy story of three young men on their way to Vietnam who attend a “dogfight” the night before they leave at which they compete to bring the ugliest date, out of which emerges an unusual love story.

The show premiered off-Broadway to generally good reviews in 2012 and was staged at London’s Southwark Theatre in August to more mixed reviews.

Johanna Allen, who will play the prostitute Marcie, sang a number called Pretty Funny, performed in the show by the leading lady Rose. Dogfight runs May 1– 31. Gooding said that Pasek & Paul will hopefully come to Australia towards the end of the season and conduct some workshops and masterclasses.

Meanwhile, Miracle City by Max Lambert and the late Nick Enright plays at the Hayes from October 17 to November 16. The keenly anticipated revival of the musical, which had a brief work-in-progress season at Sydney Theatre Company in 1996, will be a brand new show directed by Darren Yap.

Described by Campbell as “a shitload of fun”, Miracle City is inspired by US televangelists Jimmy and Tammy Bakker. Telling the story of the Truswell family, it is set in real time during a live-to-air evangelical television show.

Blazey Best, Mike McLeish, Hilary Cole and Cameron Holmes who play the Truswell family performed the song Miracle City, a very funny, jaunty, gospel hoedown in which they sing about the Christian theme park they are building. The song was the first they wrote, said Lambert, but didn’t make it into the original show.

It was a spectacular way to end the evening and a fantastic teaser for Miracle City.

Sweet Charity, the Hayes’ inaugural, sellout production, which won three Helpmann Awards, will tour in 2015. A Canberra season has already been announced for February with other dates to be confirmed.

Details can be found at www.hayestheatre.com.au

Blood Brothers at the Hayes

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Michael Cormick, Blake Bowden, Helen Dallimore and Bobby Fox. Photo by Kurt Sneddon

Michael Cormick, Blake Bowden, Helen Dallimore and Bobby Fox. Photo by Kurt Sneddon

The Lion King is now the top-selling musical of all time but only three musicals have played in London’s West End for more than 10,000 performances – and Blood Brothers is one of them.

Written by Willy Russell (Educating Rita, Shirley Valentine), Blood Brothers ran there for more than 24 years, becoming London’s third longest-running show after The Phantom of the Opera and Les Misérables.

There hasn’t been a professional production in Sydney for 20 years, but Blood Brothers is about to make a return, with Enda Markey producing it at the Hayes Theatre Co in February.

The show has attracted a top-drawer cast headed by Helen Dallimore (Wicked in London, Legally Blonde) as Mrs Johnstone, Michael Cormick (Mamma Mia!) as the narrator, and Blake Bowden (South Pacific) and Bobby Fox (Jersey Boys) as the twins Edward and Mickey.

The cast also includes Bronwyn Mulcahy as Mrs Lyons, Phillip Lowe as Mr Lyons, Christy Sullivan as Linda, Jamie Kristian as Sammy and Erin James as Donna Marie. Andrew Pole directs with Michael Tyack as musical director.

Blood Brothers began life in 1982 as a school play, before debuting as a musical in Liverpool the following year. It tells the story of fraternal twins separated at birth when their mother, Mrs Johnstone, cannot afford to keep them both.

Growing up just streets apart they become best friends, despite being divided by class, but fall for the same girl, with tragic results.

Boisterously funny and gut-wrenchingly sad with an authentic working class voice, the show is full of sweet, simple melodies that hit a nerve.

Blood Brothers was last staged in Sydney in 1994 with a cast including Delia Hannah and David Soul. A 1988 production starring Chrissie Amphlett is now part of Australian theatre folklore because a young Russell Crowe was sacked for head-butting Peter Cousens, his on-stage twin.

Markey has loved the show for yonks. “I saw it when I was nine and it was one of the most defining theatre-going experiences of my life,” he says.

In 1997, he worked on an Irish production as an assistant to Rebecca Storm, who played Mrs Johnstone.

“It’s such a great show. I believe that it’s among the top five musicals ever written in terms of the way it’s structured and its characters. There’s no fat on it. When I was looking for a project to produce I was thinking ‘what was the show that if someone else produced it I’d be devastated?’” says Markey.

Cormick, who plays the narrator, has seen the show three times. “The first was in London with Kiki Dee and David Soul,” he says.

“I remember walking out at interval thinking ‘this is fantastic’. But at the end I couldn’t speak for 10 minutes, I was that emotional. I thought then: ‘one day I would love to play the narrator.’”

Bowden has never seen the show live but was just as emotional when he watched a recording of it recently. “I got completely hooked,” he says. “I laughed the whole way through, it’s so funny, but I think I cried about three times as well.’

Dallimore auditioned for the show in London four years ago and saw it then.

“I loved it. It’s beautifully written. (Mrs Johnstone) is really a gift of a role, a bit of a bucket list role I think,” she says. “As a mother it’s going to be quite a harrowing experience to go through every night but there are a lot of laughs in it as well and she’s got a real warmth and humour.”

Markey, who is presenting it with a cast of nine and four musicians, believes that it will sit well in the intimate 100-seat Hayes Theatre.

“It was written for an intimate space, though not quite as intimate as this. (Russell) wrote it as a school play, then they expanded it for the Everyman in Liverpool, which was a 300 or 400-seater,” he says.

“It was only when it became a hit that they pumped a lot of air into it for the West End. So I think the Hayes brings it back more to where it started.”

The Hayes burst onto the Sydney musical theatre scene in January with a stunning production of Sweet Charity, which won three Helpmann Awards including Best Director for Dean Bryant.

For the four leading players, the chance to perform in a musical at the Hayes was part of the appeal of Blood Brothers.

“It really is the hottest new spot and it felt like it happened overnight actually and that Sydney really embraced it,” says Bowden who performed his cabaret show Mario there recently.

“Sweet Charity let everyone know that really you can do anything you want there, with The Drowsy Chaperone afterwards and all those cabaret shows. It’s a malleable venue that now has this street cred,” says Fox.

“I think it’s the perfect place for (Blood Brothers),” says Cormick. “I’ve been looking for a project to do there so when this came up I thought, ‘this is feel absolutely right on both levels.’ I think it’s perfect that it’s in a small, intimate theatre but this piece is very much about storytelling. You don’t need very much more than the actors.”

“It’s amazing how a different energy can transform a space: the emotional energy and passion of the people behind it,” says Dallimore. “It’s been there forever and it’s always been a great little space but it’s just got this magic in it now. There is a buzz as soon as you walk in.”

As a producer, Markey believes that the Hayes is an invaluable addition to the musical theatre scene.

“I think for larger musicals the Hayes is really important because it allows the industry to thrive and to nurture new talent and to be a little bit more daring. I think we really need it and as we’ve seen the public have just embraced it.”

Blood Brothers plays at the Hayes Theatre Co, February 6 – March 8, 2015. Bookings: hayestheatre.com.au or 8065 7337

A version of this story ran in the Sunday Telegraph on September 28