2021 is a significant year for Aspire, the Newcastle-based Catholic schools organisation that helps to train young people in acting, singing, playwriting and developing theatre shows that have people of all ages watching intently.
August 10 will mark the tenth anniversary of Aspire's development as a major creative arts institution, with the quality of its shows attracting large audiences to those presented in Newcastle's Civic Theatre.
The shows also include references to things that are happening in the world around us. So it's not surprising that this year's Civic show is called The Masked DJ and has some of the characters wearing face masks. The characters' actions and reactions also bring out the metaphorical masks we all wear at times to pretend to be something we aren't.
The Masked DJ, whichwill have five performances at the Civic Theatre between July 21 and 24, has 140 years five to 12 students from Catholic schools between the Central Coast, Newcastle, the Hunter, and the Lower North Coast taking part, with 43 on stage as actors, singers and dancers, some of the others working backstage, and a student team as the technical crew, developing costumes, props, and backdrops.
The show includes 18 songs, some written by the students, plus background music that ranges from classic tunes to contemporary sounds and will help to bring out the natures of the people.
Two of the main characters are played by senior students Hayden McDonald, who is 17 and a student at St Francis Xavier's Senior College in Hamilton, and Caitlin Price, 15, who attends St Bede's Catholic College in Chisholm.
Hayden is Gus Turntables, who is regarded by those that know him as a DJ phenomenon because of the scripts he puts together. But, as Hayden notes, Gus is secretly a fraud because he pays other people to write the scripts for him.
Caitlin's character is Katie, a trainee DJ and a member of a blundered family. While she is attracted to Gus, she initially sees him in a very imaginary way. And Gus tells Katie what she wants to hear, rather than what is really happening.
Caitlin points to Katie as feeling like an outsider because she doesn't see herself as having talent. But eventually she realises that you shouldn't pretend to be someone else and hide behind a mask.
The script was put together by Anna Kerrigan, a teacher who is Aspire's artistic director. Ms Kerrigan incorporates incidents suggested by students in the scripts. The quality of the writing is shown by the fact that Miss Kerrigan has won CONDAs for some of her scripts. This year, Aspire also appointed a musical director, Jessica Lopez, who will further develop the music component, with the aim of putting together a diocesan-wide concert band and thereby expanding the music component of Aspire.
The Masked DJ has 11am performances at the Civic daily from Wednesday, July 21, to Friday, July 23, plus 7pm shows on Friday and Saturday, July 23 and 24.
Tickets - $36, concession $26, under 19 $21, family (two adults, two children) $92, groups of 10-plus $31, school group members $13.50. Bookings: 4929 1977.
ANOTHER major school show, Grease: The Musical, that was to have had performances at the new Callaghan College Performing Arts Centre in Jesmond from July 22 to 30, has been postponed until further notice.
The production, the first to incorporate students from the three Newcastle Callaghan campuses at Jesmond, Waratah and Wallsend, had to be postponed to meet Department of Education and NSW Health guidelines.
The popular musical, which looks at the friendships, romances and adventures of a group of high school kids in the 1950s, has recently been adapted for school presentations.
Theatre Reviews
The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds
Maitland Repertory Theatre, at its theatre. Ends July 25.
AMERICAN playwright Paul Zindel's family relationships play has been popular since it was first staged on Broadway in 1971 and won many awards, including the year's Pulitzer Prize for Best New Play. And this production shows why it has people laughing at the characters' interactions.
The story is set in a New York apartment that used to be a vegetable store, with the documents and newspaper pages stuck on the large windows indicating that it hasn't always been a family venue. And the abusive single mother, Beatrice (Aimee Cavanagh), makes it clear why her two daughters, Tillie (Maddison Lamb), the younger one, who is still at school and has a passion for science, and boy-crazy Ruth (Kaysia Dowie), whose efforts to make her life better have her mother unsmilingly denying her, aren't happy about living with her. The characters, who also include a voiceless elderly woman, Nanny (Dimity Eveleens), who boards with Beatrice for a high price, make this an engrossing show under the direction of Maria Bardakos.
Bunyips
Young People's Theatre, Newcastle, at its Hamilton theatre. Ends July 25.
THIS play, adapted from a novel by Newcastle's Callan Purcell, is an amusing look at the experiences of 6th class school students as they prepare under the guidance of a new and very different teacher to move to high school. Director Nicholas Thoroughgood and the two alternating casts make the students' experiences very real and amusing, with briefly projected images having watchers of all ages laughing loudly as they show students reacting to others actions.
