Theatre and musicals in Melbourne this week

Shakespeare famously wrote in As You Like It that, “all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Thanks to producer, actor, writer and director David Meadow, that holds truer now than ever before in these midsummer-dreaming days of lockdown. He has assembled actors from across the globe to perform Shakespeare’s beloved history plays from their living rooms as a series of livestream events spread across four months. Dubbed the very Game of Throne’s sounding Age of Crowns, it’s a collaboration between St Kilda’s Alex Theatre, Melbourne actors’ company Circle in the Sand and the International Actors Ensemble. The latter is a band of merry players who met at Shakespeare’s Globe in London in 2015 and who and hail from no fewer than 14 different countries. The show must go online. Taking a bow on Monday April 27 at 7pm AEST, Karlis Zaid plays the war-hungry king in Richard II. From then on there’s a new play every fortnight, cycling through the Henriad and The War of the Roses plays, plus some much-needed comic relief from the power-hungry plotting and bloody battles with The Merry Wives of Windsor. Coming to a close with Montgomery Sutton as both Richard III and the Duke of Gloucester on August 31, in a reversal of the Shakespearean tradition of men playing the female parts, Amy Bradney-George will portray King Henry VI. Seton Pollock plays the wayward Hal, with Jonathan fuller rounding out the main cast as both Henry IV and Bolingbroke. The rest of the ense

Melbourne musical theatre fans have had to wait a long time to see the celebrated stage version of Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel Fun Home. It won the Tony Award for Best Musical back in 2015, but it won’t be until this year that we’ll finally get to see why this story of a young woman’s discovery of her own sexuality, and her difficult relationship with her funeral director father, has captured so many hearts and minds. Local musical theatre dynamo Dean Bryant (behind award-winning tours of Sweet Charity and Little Shop of Horrors) will direct a new production, starring Lisa McCune and Muriel’s Wedding the Musical’s original Muriel, Maggie McKenna. It’s an autobiographical work following Alison Bechdel, played by three actors from childhood to adulthood. Jeanine Tesori’s sweeping score and Lisa Kron’s book and lyrics have been lavished with praise – when it opened on the West End in 2017, Time Out London declared it the best new musical they’d seen since Hamilton – and the pair became the first female team to win the Tony for Best Original Score.