After regaling us with an exciting digital program over the last few months of web-only wilderness, the Riverside’s National Theatre of Parramatta is lighting up once more to welcome audiences' bums back to their seats, in a suitably safe, spaced-out way.
And what better way to get us whooping with delight once more than with a vivacious Australian musical? Enter, stage right, The Things I Could Never Tell Steven. Written by composer Jye Bryant (Captain Moonlite, The Velveteen Rabbit), a Western Sydney local, the Steven in question does not appear. Instead, this humorous and heartfelt one-act revue is an ode to living life out in the open, as Steven’s mum, dad, wife and his ex share what they wish they could tell him.
Directed by Anthea Williams (Flight Paths) it corrals an incredible cast in one-time Wicked Glinda Helen Dallimore, Legally Blonde star Elenoa Rokobaro, two-time Green Room Award-winner Ian Stenlake (Mama Mia, Oklahoma) and The Rocky Horror Show’s Adam J Rennie, with a little pizazz from with music director Ben Kiehne.
National Theatre’s Joanne Kee says they’re thrilled to welcome theatre fans back to Parramatta, especially with so many musical luminaries warming up their considerable vocal chords. “I’m looking forward to having so much talent in the room. It’s also a little ironic that we chose to program a music theatre piece where the four characters never meet, thus there are no interactions on stage, perfect [lockdown] programming, yet our incredibly talented designer James Browne has managed to capture an intimacy and coherence for our star-studded cast.”
You can find out more and book tickets here, with the show running from November 5-14. It’s been a long time coming, but thank goodness Steven is finally here.
All about those musicals? Look into Pippin at the Lyric too.
