St Michael s Grammar School. Performing Arts Program

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St Michael’s Grammar School

Performing Arts Program

2013

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Welcome

St Michael’s Performing Arts program has always been renowned for its impressive level of creative achievement. The School currently provides each student with the chance to participate in an unrivalled program encompassing all areas of the performing arts, including drama, music, dance and stagecraft. Staged at several major theatrical venues around Melbourne, St Michael’s productions are frequently praised for their professionalism and spectacle. Students who choose to study Performing Arts at St Michael’s choose from a variety of performance-related disciplines, including costume design, stage design and management, and creative writing. Professional support and guidance from experts in the industry is provided at each stage of the process.

Over the years, Performing Arts at St Michael’s has expanded to involve not only current students but also Old Michaelians, many with invaluable experience. The program thus gives students the chance to study with professional set designers, choreographers, actors and technicians. The students’ passion for their art, combined with the expert training they receive at the School, helps make each St Michael’s production a unique work of art.

Our superb young artists have poured all their passion and expertise into the 2013 season, and we are looking forward to seeing the results of their labours. For many, the practical performing arts experience gained at St Michael’s is the ideal preparation for a lifetime of creative endeavour.

Mr Simon Gipson

Head of the School

2013 is a year full of contrast, both in terms of content and new and exciting projects. Our return to the Malthouse Theatre for the Year 10–12 Musical, The Wedding Singer, signals another year of events in landmark venues across Melbourne. An exciting inclusion for 2013 is a new event,

Winter Music, that highlights the extraordinary talent of our chamber musicians who will be performing in the intimacy of the Salon (19 June at the Melbourne Recital Centre), as well as the return of the Concerto Concert (23 April at BMW Edge). We will also be sending our first contingent of musicians on the inaugural China Tour, which will include performances in Beijing, Xian and Hong Kong in July.

There is contrast, also, between the plays and musicals in 2013, as we seek to challenge and inspire students and audiences alike. From the local student production to the international Dancing at Lughnasa by Irish Playwright Brian Friel, students will work with some of the finest practitioners and technicians in Melbourne.

There is much to look forward to, and I warmly invite you to share in the movable feast of entertainment this year.

Dr Chris McGillen

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Student Production

Experimental

Directors Ruby Rees-Wemyss (12H) Ruby Stewart (12H)

Dates 6 – 8 February, 7.30pm

Cost $20 Adult, $10 Concession, $50 Family

Venue St Michael’s McLellan Hall (Drama Studio)

4 Chapel Street, St Kilda Of all the experiences our students have at St Michael’s, this project is identified as both the most challenging and the most rewarding. It is an entirely student-directed play with minimal input from staff.

Twilight Concert

Family Friendly

Directors Performing Arts Faculty

Date 28 March

Venue St Michael’s Grammar School 25 Chapel Street, St Kilda Now in its sixth year, the Twilight Concert continues to provide a performance opportunity for bands and choirs from across the School, as well as a unique family event for the wider community to enjoy. The Friends of the Arts has a key role in supporting this event, which provides a wonderful way to finish Term 1. Highlights include performances by the Big Band, Harrison Choir and a student-run rock band.

Free

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Concerto Concert

Family Friendly

Director Mr Pat Miller (OM 1998)

Date 23 April, 7.30pm

Venue BMW Edge

Federation Square, Melbourne

Concerto Concert has been a fixture of the program since 2008, and has grown into one of the peak experiences for aspiring musicians. The project allows selected soloists to perform part or all of a concerto with the backing of our Grigoryan Orchestra. Featured soloists for 2013 are Alex Simpson, Grace Fryer, Alastair Weng, Walt Isaacson and Rupert Buesst, who will perform a diverse range of works from Mozart to Rachmaninoff.

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The Wedding Singer

Year 10–12 Musical Experimental

Directors Miss Natalie Calia Ms Suzanne Jenner

Music Director Mr Luke Steward

Dates 9 – 10 May, 7.30pm 11 May, 1.30pm and 6.30pm

Venue Malthouse Theatre 113 Sturt Street, Southbank After the highly successful 2012 production of West Side Story, our immediate challenge was ‘where to from here?’ We take a very long-term approach when picking material for this pinnacle event on the program. The Wedding Singer offers a lighter subject matter that allows the students to have plenty of fun!

This highly successful adaptation follows the challenges of Robbie Hart, a wedding singer, who lives with his grandma Rosie in

Ridgefield, New Jersey. Full of great music from the 1980s, this production is sure to please.

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Winter Music

Family Friendly

Director Mr Pat Miller (OM 1998)

Date 19 June, 7.30pm

Venue The Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre Cnr Southbank Boulevard & Sturt Street, Southbank

This new event for 2013 focuses on the many chamber groups we have across the program. Featured soloists include Aidan McGartland and Tristan Buesst, as well as a number of works for small orchestras.

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Year 10–12 Performing Arts Festival

This Festival has gained a reputation over the past 20 years for providing a diverse range of opportunities to students in the senior years. Past productions include A Streetcar Named Desire, Dangerous Liaisons, Jane Eyre and Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching towards the Somme.

Cost per show

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Dancing at Lughnasa (Brian Friel)

Experimental

Directors Ms Annie Fiume Ms Sarah Merry

Dates 17 – 19 July, 7.30pm 20 July, 6.30pm

4 Chapel Street, St Kilda Set in the summer of 1936, in the small Irish town of Lughnasa, the play depicts the late summer days when love briefly seems possible for three of the Mundy sisters (Chris, Rose, and Kate) and the family welcomes home the frail elder brother who has returned from a life as a missionary in Africa. However, as the summer ends, the family foresees the sadness and economic privations under which they will suffer as all hopes fade.

The Dance Project

Experimental

Director Ms Taryn Johnston

Dates 25 – 26 July, 7.30pm 27 July, 3pm and 6.30pm

Venue Gasworks Theatre 21 Graham Street, Albert Park

The Dance Project highlights the depth of talent we have at St Michael’s in Dance. Year 7–12 students are provided with the opportunity to work with external professional choreographers in a range of styles.

Arsenic and Old Lace (Kesselring)

Experimental

Directors Mr Sam Lucas Mr Brendan Cian

Dates 31 July – 3 August, 7.30pm

4 Chapel Street, St Kilda

Arsenic and Old Lace is a play by American playwright Joseph Kesselring, written in 1939. It has become best known through the film adaptation starring Cary Grant and directed by Frank Capra. The play is a farcical black comedy revolving around Mortimer Brewster, a drama critic who must deal with his crazy, homicidal family and local police in Brooklyn, NY, as he debates whether to go through with his recent promise to marry the woman he loves. His family includes two spinster aunts who have taken to murdering lonely old men by poisoning them with a glass of home-made elderberry wine laced with arsenic, strychnine, and ‘just a pinch’ of cyanide.

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Music at the Centre

Family Friendly

Director Dr Chris McGillen

Dates 27 August, 7.30pm

Venue Melbourne Recital Centre Cnr Southbank Boulevard & Sturt Street, Southbank Music at the Centrecelebrates the journey of our young musicians from their first hesitant steps in Junior School to musical confidence in the senior years. After the successful Festival of the Sisters of the Church Schools concert in Dallas Brooks Hall in 2012, we return to our home away from home: the Melbourne Recital Centre. Be prepared for a few surprises this year with a change in format.

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Aladdin Jr.

Year 6 Musical

Music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice, book adapted and additional lyrics by Jim Luigs, music adapted and arranged by Brian Louiselle.

Family Friendly

Director Ms Sally Bray

Music Director Miss Grace Nicastro

Dates 12 – 14 September, 7.30pm

Venue Gasworks Theatre

21 Graham Street, Albert Park This project is a highlight for Year 6 students at St Michael’s. Disney’s Aladdin Jr. is a one-act, seven-scene theatre musical adapted from the animated Disney film Aladdin, which is an adaptation of the folk tale Aladdin. This project has a special place in the program, as it involves all students in the year level.

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Year 7–9 Performing Arts Festival

This is the third time the Year 7–9 Performing Arts Festival has been staged, mirroring the senior event. This year, we are proud to present a play and a musical.

Cost per show

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Beauty and the Beast Jr.

Family Friendly

Director Miss Emma McDonald

Music Director Dr Chris McGillen

Dates 10 – 11 October, 7.30pm 12 October,3pm

Venue Gasworks Theatre 21 Graham Street, Albert Park Disney’s Beauty and the Beast is a musical with music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice, and a book by Linda Woolverton, based on the 1991 Disney film of the same name. This adaptation retains all of the well-known songs from the full Broadway show.

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In Love with Julia (richard Baines)

Experimental

Director Ms Anne Browning

Dates 17 – 18 October, 7.30pm 19 October, 3pm

4 Chapel Street, St Kilda

In Love with Julia centres around a group of high school students putting on a production of Romeo and Juliet. Arguments break out, interruptions abound, actors fail to show and the tech crew are unreliable! But somehow this unlikely bunch of teenagers and their neurotic drama teacher pull off a striking version of the Bard’s greatest love story. Shakespeare’s text springs out of true love confessions and stage fights become real as tensions bubble over. Irreverent and touching, In Love with Julia reveals Shakespeare in a fresh, contemporary and hilarious new light.

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Booking Information

Visit the website events calendar for full and current listings as well as ticket bookings –

www.stmichaels.vic.edu.au/news/events/

Performance start times

Please check start times as some performances may be subject to lockout. Tickets must be collected no later than 15 minutes prior to the commencement of each performance.

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25 Chapel Street, St Kilda Victoria 3182 Australia Telephone +61 3 8530 3200

stmichaels.vic.edu.au