Update, Nov 18: The producers of Hedwig and the Angry Inch have postponed the 2021 Sydney Festival production and committed to recast the show in response to community feedback. Read more here.
As initiatives like Great Southern Nights are helping to reinvigorate Sydney’s live music scene, the Enmore Theatre, an international touring fave, has seemingly laid dormant since everything locked down. This all about to change however, with the announcement that a brand new production of rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch will open back up the newly refurbed theatre in January 2021.
With a passionate international following, the musical comedy-drama written by John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask follows the story of the titular Hedwig, a genderqueer rock singer who undergoes a what turns out to be a botched sex-change operation to escape to America from Socialist East Germany.
The Enmore Theatre is going into cabaret mode for the show, with table seating across the ground floor and dress circle as well as traditional theatre seating. Multi-award winning Aussie actor Hugh Sheridan is set to star in the new production, punking up the stage in the role made famous by John Cameron Mitchell in the 2001 cult-hit film adaptation, where he reprised his 1998 Broadway role (as well as re-writing the script and directing).
Sheridan is best known for his role in television drama Packed to the Rafters, also starring in the Seven Network telemovie Never Tear Us Apart, based on Australia's most successful band, INXS. He is also no stranger to cabaret, being appointed as an ambassador for Adelaide Fringe in 2017. His casting as Hedwig follows recent revelations about his sexuality, with Sheridan revealing in an October interview with Stellar Magazine that he has had relationships with both men and women, but prefers not to label his sexuality.
Hedwig comes to the Enmore from January 2 - 17. Produced by David M. Hawkins, with fashion editor, designer and stylist, Arianne Phillips joining as costume designer. Phillips earned a Tony Award nomination for her work on the Broadway production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch starring Neil Patrick Harris.
Put on some make-up, turn on the 8-track and pull the wig down from the shelf – Hedwig might just be the heroine we need to lead us into the new year and show us The Origin of Love.
Pre-sale tickets are available via the Enmore Theatre and Showtune Productions here until 7am on November 12. You can also get tickets from Ticketek between 9am on November 9 until 9am on November 12, here. Tickets are selling in lots of two, three and four from $158 for two.
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