What Melbourne loved in 2014, part 8

It's an international edition as Karin Muiznieks, Alex da La Rambelje and Yvonne Virsik go travelling.

Karin Muiznieks
cabaret performer and songwriter

Karin: I was invited by a friend to be an extra in a "cabaret video" he was filming. Turns out it was the promotional trailer for the 2014 Adelaide Cabaret Festival. The trailer was being shot in Melbourne, using an entirely Melbourne cast,crew and scenery and heavily featuring artists who live and work in Melbourne. They said that Melbourne had "the right feel" for cabaret. It made me feel kinda triumphant and sad at the same time. It showed me that everybody secretly knows in their hearts that Melbourne is the true centre of cabaret in this country, and yet we are still scrambling to receive the funding and support that other states take for granted.

Why bother shipping out to Adelaide when the soul of cabaret is in Melbourne? I bust my arse to break even here, so I'm also shipping out. See you in 2015, Melbourne. Hopefully, the government and sponsoring bodies will realise what jewels they have in our local scene and not force performers out of town if they want to earn a living.

SM: The Von Muiznieks Family Hoedown was such a surprise. I don't know what I expected, but it surpassed all expectations and created new ones. I laughed myself sick, saw my first bass ukelele and can't believe that they're not being invited to perform everywhere.

Alex da La Rambelje

magician

Alex: My top five theatre experiences in 2014:

5. Max and Ivan, The Reunion (Melbourne International Comedy Festival)

Sharp, hilarious and rich with narrative complexities, Max and Ivan's follow up MICF show was my stand out pick from the festival this year. The guys inhabited a myriad of living and breathing characters, and managed to create some moments of genuine pathos at the end. It's always awesome seeing a high-concept theatre/comedy show at the Comedy Festival.

4. Matilda (RSC)

Joyous fun. It felt totally fresh. The musical numbers flowed organically from the narrative, and when the audience started cheering I realised I was watching damn good writing. Melbourne, just you wait.

3. Monsieur Butterfly (Edinburgh Fringe)

This high-concept stand up show had me standing up in anticipation at the final moment. Alex Horne constructed an intricately woven machine of a show that was embodied in the actual, impossibly complex, tangible machine he constructed on the stage. Using balloons, VHS tapes, pool cues, bowling balls, a potato on a zip-line and lots of other randomly drawn common-or-garden items, he created a machine just like the one he’d always wanted to create in his childhood. 

2. Elephant Room (Edinburgh Fringe)

I went to Edinburgh Fringe with the intention of seeing as many magic shows as I could (I clocked up over 10). This show was a standout – a surreal trip that brought magic and theatre together more seamlessly than I have ever seen. The world of the piece was the Elephant Room, a bizarre limbo land inhabited by three "shadows of magic personalities", who seemed to be reliving former glories that belonged to no particular set time or place. The show elevated common conjuring routines above the mundane and set them in a world that was able to frame the illusions as truly magical.

1. Derren Brown, Infamous (Glasgow Theatre)

I’ve spent the last ten years periodically pouring over every live recording, tv special and written word Derren Brown has offered. Seeing him live was a thrill. He truly commanded the stage. I realised how the skillful, dangerous and ballsy performance techniques I had perceived in his recorded work were in every way real. The man is a god.

SM: I watched him do close up card tricks determined to figure it it out. I couldn't. I know how it's done and I can't see him do it.

Yvonne Virsik
director, Artistic Director MUST

Yvonne: I was lucky enough to start the year in New York and saw loads of shows there, but except for Sleep No More and a great King Lear featuring Frank Langella at BAM – I don’t like the play much, but this was simply and exquisitely staged with a galloping pace – my highlights for 2014 have all been in Australia.

Tonelgroep Amsterdam's Roman Tragedies at The Adelaide Festival was a brilliant experience: three “Shakespeares”, extraordinary performances from powerful actors, a set you could move around on and order drinks from and tongue-in-cheek text via an LED screen announcing how long till the next major character died.

At the Melbourne Festival, I found Roslyn Oades’s Hello, Goodbye and Happy Birthday (Malthouse) playful, life-affirming and profoundly affecting, my only quibble the lack of diversity of expression in the 18 year old “stories” chosen.  And One Step at a Time like This’s Since I Suppose  was a rare and rich experience.

Opus from Circa left me enthralled when a lot of the circus pieces disappointed – not just the music and bodies doing extraordinary things, but the intimacy, humanness and moments of real meaning.

Red Stitch’s Grounded was remarkable in all elements. I found the style fascinating – a touch heightened and gestural – but somehow all the more real and engaging for it. Beautiful work from Kate Cole and Kirsten Von Bibra is surely one of our most underrated directors.

The Defence by Chris Dunstan at MKA’s HYPRTXT Festival was brilliant, bold and uncomfortable, playing with gender dynamics and abuse of power, as did Mark Wilson and Olivia Monticciolo’s Richard II (MKA at Melbourne Fringe) – immediacy to gasp for.

The Good Person of Szechuan at Malthouse Theatre was a delight – alive, cheeky, and chaotic, yet surprisingly clear.

Masterclass with Maria Mercedes at forttfivedownstairs was directed by Daniel Lammin with glorious clarity as was his work The Cutting Boys at La Mama.

In Thérèse Raquin at Theatre Works, Gary Abrahams orchestrated an inexorable build in tension. Some of my favourite moments were Thérèse struggling with her hoop skirt with increasing ferocity in the small apartment.

The City They Burned (Attic Erratic) by Fleur Kilpatrick and directed by Danny Delahunty was wonderfully shaped and horrifying. Violence begets violence has never been as palpably realised for me as when the daughters turned on their father in act two.

Other 2014 memorable theatrical moments include:

Bryony Kimmings handing around cups for people to discreetly trim their pubes into during Sex Idiot.

Realising I had learnt a lot about the experience of being on The Autism Spectrum from the student-created Them Aspies in the MUST Season, and having a bit of a cry at my immense pride in their achievement.

Lloyd Jones impassioned introduction and running amok in When the Cream Sinks to the Bottom at La Mama – “Did he really just do that?!”

Experiencing the beautiful, raw but caressing honesty of Jess Gonsalvez’s Naked at the MUST Container Festival.

The cheer when Sarah Hamilton and Justine Campbell‘s They Saw a Thylacine was announced as part of the 2015 Malthouse Season.

The hoot-inducing moments and technical acrobatics of Calpurnia Descending (Sisters Grimm at Malthouse).

Hanging out with the brilliant participants in The MTC Women Director’s Program.

That’s a fair bit, I know and there are heaps I haven’t mentioned. These are just some of my memorable moments and experiences from over 150 shows in 2014.

SM: Yvonne really tried to donate some pubes to Bryony but it was difficult in jeans. I'd forgotten about that; lucky she mentioned it.

I'm blown away every time I see a MUST (Monash University Student Theatre) show. Student unions are brilliant things and the thought of them disappearing as tertiary education becomes all about money is too depressing. My MUST highlight was getting to meet next year's lot at #NotDramaCamp. I'm excited about the theatre they are going to make.

2103 Favourites

2012 Favourites

Last chance

What to see on the weekend? Here's Friday, Saturday and Sunday night covered.

The Von Muiznieks Family Hoedown
The Butterfly Club
Facebook
Last show tonight

The Melbourne Cabaret Festival is in it's second week and The Butterfly Club is always a favourite place for a show and a drink at the hoarders-dream bar; clutter can be art.

Karin, Simon and Emma (von) Muiznieks are from Essendon, the heart of bluegrass. And as Lativan sibling bluegrass and country pop-cover bands go, there's no one like them.

If you missed that, they're a Lativan sibling bluegrass and country pop-cover band from Essendon. For reals. Beat that von Trapps, Osmonds, Jacksons and von Brady Bunch singers, who aren't real siblings so they don't count.

Singing bluegrass and country classics by the likes of Lorde, Brittney, Adele, Rhianna and Tom (Jones) with mandolin, autoharp and bass ukulele, their hoedown is so much more fun than prancing around a fountain in clothes made from curtains.  Yee-ha!

The von Muiznieks have created a niche that only they can fill and are filling it with great singing, terrific playing and stories that I'd never imagined.

There's development to go but the von Muiznieks are on their way to being something that will sell out Spiegeltents. I loved them so much that I'm ready to chew me some hay, call myself a hoe and wear gingham.


Orphans
Q44
Q44 theatre in Burnley
q44.com.au
Last show on Sunday

Q44 are a new company working in an amazing converted warehouse in Richmond, which is also home to visual artists and a very old white cat.

Like Red Stitch the early years, they are an ensemble of actors working to produce the plays they want to perform.

Their second production is the 1983 play Orphans by American playwright/director/actor Lyle Kessler. The orphans are adult brothers, Phillip and Treat, living in an abandoned council flat in Philadelphia. Treat is a petty criminal and Phillip is housebound due to allergies and trusting that his brother. The fairy Godfather is Harold, a drunk with a briefcase full of stocks and bonds, who's kidnapped by Treat.

It's a bit Freud 101, but the three characters make up for any obviousness in the plot. And see it for the exceptional performances.

With a realism technique that fits the work, Ashley McKenzie (Treat), Mark Davis (Phillip) and Gareth Reeves (Harold) immerse themselves so deeply in the characters that the technique all but disappears. Engaging and real, they each create genuine fear for their character and overcome the awareness of being watched.

Keep an eye on this company.

Kevin Turner's review.

Hypertxt Festival
MKA
On the grace of officials
The defence
Sugar, sugar
Thank you, thank you love
The Tuxedo Cat
mka.org.au
last shows on Saturday

Maverick favourites MKA have taken over the Tuxedo Cat in the city and four new shows finish on Saturday.

All are a bit angry and are preaching to the converted, but if you're not angry about how we're treating refugees, how women are portrayed on stage and screen, and how young women can't see their own beauty then you need to see more theatre made by people who are.

I haven't seen Thank you, thank you yet, but will take an hour off from a party on Saturday night to see it.

James Jackson's reviews.

The defence

Thank you, thank you love

Sugar, sugar

MICF: Eric, Sammy J & Randy, and Ben

MICF
the last days

Eric
Vicious Fish & La Mama
comedyfestival.com.au

Difficult First Album Tour
Sammy J and Randy
Laughing Stock
comedyfestival.com.au

Ben McKenzie is Uncool 
Shaloin Punk
comedyfestival.com.au

Was it only 26 days?

Eric's back!

Last seen in 2009, Eric's a one-person sketch show. He's not a character but a blank page everyman – a white, 40-something, straight, suit-wearing, aging-well everyguy – who performs 27 sketches about such men.

Eric is Scott Gooding who's directed by Scott Brennan, and The Return of Eric is written by Emilie Collyer, Dave Hoskin, Karin Muiznieks, Morgan Rose, Neil Triffet and Nic Vellissaris.

From stopping a PM from jumping to adopting a manchild to heading down the Nepean* to escape hipstergeddon, Gooding changes character on a pin head and gives every Eric the chance to show their heart or fall on their arse. And with so many sketches in less than an hour, Brennan doesn't allow for a second of wasted time and ensures that there are moments to reflect before landing the next joke and meeting a new Eric.

As a form, Eric stands alone. Without the personal reflection of stand up or the safe distance of detailed character, The Return of Eric is able to bite all the hands that feed and to snap at the many worlds where middle aged guys think they are in control.

* As someone who had to head down the Nepean (to escape dick landlords rather than the hipsters), I think Brighton is still doing a good job of stopping the approach to Zone 2.

Sammy J and Randy are launching their Difficult First Album album. You can buy it at their show, Difficult First Album Tour.

With favourite songs and moments from past shows, it's a night for fans to celebrate everything we love about the housemates from Ricketts Lane. If you, somehow, have yet to fall in love with the genius of the bald purple fuzzy guy and his tall skinny friend, this is a chance to catch up on their story but a best of show is never as wonderful as a complete story.

Ben McKenzie is Uncool is about passion, never being afraid to love what you love, and the difference between a nerd and a hipster.

It also has one more night in Brunswick Street's Provincial Hotel. The nerds will tell you to bring your friends and will soon be wearing "I'm as uncool as Ben McKenzie" t-shirts; the hipsters will tell you that the show was only really good back in week 2.

Uncool is Ben sharing his stories about being a nerd. He's so nerdy that there's a card game to choose which stories he tells. With unfinished degrees, <joke> HTML </joke> and a love of Stegosauruses, the Harry Potter books and Doctor Who, I glowed with the warmth of knowing I'm uncool, but Ben proves that I don't deserve to call myself a nerd.

Ben's knowledge and obsessive fandom puts me to shame. He makes me want to read more and stop playing Candy Crush, because it really is a crap game that requires no skill.

Without a hint of cynicism, Uncool is about redefining our definitions of cool and about loving what we love with the kind of passion that would make Fonzie want to be a nerd.

This was on aussietheatre.com.au

MICF: Life Lessons with Michelle and Gemma

MICF
Life Lessons with Michelle and Gemma
13 April 2014
ACMI Game Cube
to 20 April
comedyfestival.com.au

OMG, there's a packet of Pop Rocks in my handbag!

One mouthful. Here I go. I was eight the last time I had them.

Weird and eww!

Just because something is offered (and free), you don't have to put it in your mouth. I should know that because Michelle and Gemma implied this life lesson in Life Lessons with Michelle and Gemma. It was a lesson based on a tin of condensed milk (or maybe one about dating), but the lesson is the same. At least I listened to the one about not snorting them.

Life Lessons is much more enjoyable than eating pop rocks. It's more like a big bag of mixed lollies that includes sherbet and posh-chocolate freckles and lolly teeth. Lolly teeth are ALWAYS funny.

Gemma and Michelle are best friends, even though Michelle likes green and dogs while Gemma likes purple and cats. Having been friends forever, they know each other's faults and have learnt from each other's mistakes and know that the world will be better if they share what they know.

Avoid confrontation and colour coding start us off (being a failure in both, I have to agree), but life isn't so simple and as secrets are told or blurted, the unbreakable friendship is in danger.

With director Karin Muiznieks ensuring structure and keeping an eye on the big picture, the woman are free to play with character and enjoy playing with the audience. There's room to go a bit darker (but that could just be me being a cynical bitch) and to work on the straight/funny tropes and their changing status, but that will come as the show develops. Which I hope it will because I want to see Michelle and Gemma learning more lessons, going on holiday, making a cooking show and continuing to share what they've learnt for years to come.

In the meantime, Life Lessons is fun and gorgeous and explains how platonic spooning will never work and why you should never consider dating a rapper who can't spell.

What Melbourne loved in 2013, part 8

Today, while Mark Wilson is swanning around Europe seeing Shakespeares, Karin Muiznieks talks about finding creative identity as a young woman, and John Paul Fischbach reminds us how wonderful it was to see Yana Alana's gorgeous blue crack.

Mark Wilson

actor

MARK: At time of writing, there are another 25 days in which to see stuff in 2013 – and given how much I've seen this past fortnight in the pleasure garden that is Berlin, this feels a little premature.

Nevertheless:

Firstly, the NEON festival gave the MTC a vibe I’ve never known it to have – so, so alive – which was really fucking wonderful.

But my total number one experience so far for 2013 happened just last week. European efforts at Shakespeare have resulted in the two worst professional productions of Macbeth I have ever seen, one mediocre and one interesting Much Ado, one great Hamlet, one average Hamlet, and the BEST  ROMEO AND JULIET I HAVE EVER SEEN! Schaubuhne, director Lars Eidinger. It was good.

SM: Was it the moment of penetration, the drooling foreplay or the withdrawal? Or maybe pulling the condom off with his teeth? The Adelaide Fringe crowd didn't get Mark's Unsex Me (MKA), but the Melbourne Fringe mob couldn't get enough of it. I saw it twice. 

The first was a pre-Adelaide preview. When Mark put the microphone in his mouth, I scribbled a note: "Go further, we've seen this, shock me". That note was torn to shreds. He went further, I hadn't seen that and I shrieked in shock. 

The next time I saw it, I was in the front row and saw things that made me laugh so much that I had to drink Krupnikas afterwards. 

Karin Danger Muiznieks
cabaret artist

KARIN: I adored so many productions this year, especially 2 Pound Parlour (Revolt), Palace of the End (Theatre Works), They Saw a Thylacine (at Melbourne Fringe) and Summertime in the Garden Of Eden (Sisters Grimm, Theatre Works).

But the biggest moment of artistic clarity for me came from the VCA Masters of Directing graduate showcase. Peta Hanrahan directed and dramaturged an exquisite stage adaptation of Virginia Woolf's A Room Of One's Own. With a focus on women and the creative process, it explored issues of identity, history and female influence in the arts.

I haven't stopped thinking about the show since. It can be very tricky for a young woman to find her own strong creative identity in a world whose values have been decided by generations of men. Peta's work challenged the perception that women need to become like men in order to succeed in the arts, which really shook me up. I wish I'd seen this before I shaved my head!

SM: It's all about Karin's Hot Box. This is the show where I finally saw Karin instead of character. Her characters are great, but it's the personal that makes this show so strong. When you tell your story, it's amazing how many of your audience find that you're also telling theirs.

See what Karin's looking forward to in 2014 at issimomag.com.

John Paul Fischbach
CEO, Auspicious Arts Incubator 

Photo by Susan Schoch Gates

JOHN PAUL: My favourite moment was sitting in the audience of Between the Cracks, Yana Alana's cabaret show at fortyfivedownstairs. I felt I was sharing an experience of being with a true international star on the rise.  She is a national treasure!

SM: Is it wrong that my favourite JP moment was getting a perfect and short answer? This guy helps  artists to understand the business side of "the business"; that is brilliant.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6
Part 7
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13

Part 14

Part 15

Part 16

Part 17

2012 part 1, with links to the rest

5 Pounds of Rep starts this week

5 Pounds of Rep
Owl and the Pussycat
to 14 December
5pound.com.au

Last year, 5 Pound Theatre transformed themselves into Australia's only working repertory theatre for 5 weeks and presented 5 shows in 5 weeks with 5 actors and 5 directors. It was mad and exciting and produced some incredible theatre in a very short time.

And they're doing it again this year with actors Tim Wotherspoon, Freya Pragt, Brendan Hawke, Lelda Kapsis and Keith Brockett.

Week 1:  13–16 November. Noises Off by Michael Frayne, directed by Jason Cavanagh

Week 2: 20–23  November 20-23rd. Because of Reasons by Robert Reid, directed by Petra Kalive

Week 3:  26–31November. Gilbert and Sullivan Cabaret Review, directed by Fiona Scott-Norman with musical director Karin Muizneiks

Week 4: 3–7 December. The Tempest by William Shakespeare, directed by Daniel Lammin

Week 5: 11–14 December. Sex Diary of an Infidel by Michael Gurr, directed by Marcel Dorney

You can book tickets at 5pound.com.au

Goodbye Julia G

Many of us ranted like angry and hurt ranty things on our social media this week, but Karin Muiznieks's social media of choice is song.



What do you do when you'd donate a kidney to ensure that Tiny A doesn't get to sit at the head of the table, but to do so you have to put a 1 or 2 next to Shorty B's name?

What to see at the last day of MICF

It's the last day of MICF! In the middle of the festival, it feels like it'll go on forever and that there's enough time to see every show we want to, but it's over and I'm trying not to think of all the ones I wish I'd seen. OK, I spent the last Saturday of the festival on the couch with some chocolate and a DVD: it was wonderful.

But I know you're all so much more hard core than me, so what MUST you see today?

Great news, you're going to be celebrating amazing, hot, too-funny-for-words women.

And you'd better leave now because it kicks off at 4.30!

First stop is Choir Girl at 4.30 at the Melbourne Town Hall. This show keeps selling selling out, so  they have an extra show on today. Other performers and their artists passes are especially welcome.

Or, the exquisite Hannah Gadsby also has an extra show of Happiness is a Bedside Table at 4.30. This was hands down the best stand up I saw this festival.

Hannah's honesty is heartbreaking and this show is one of the most positive and uplifting pieces of stand up I've seen.  If 4.30 doesn't work for you, her 6.00 show is sold out, but it's always worth trying your luck.

You can have a dinner break now, or, better still, buy a ticket to see someone you've never heard of.

However, at 7.30, you're off to the super gorgeous Tuxedo Cat for Lisa-Skye's Songs My Parents Taught Me.

Lisa-Skye might be sexier than Slutmonster. That's a big call and I don't want to make a choice.

With glitter that celebrates writing degrees, hair colour not found in nature (I felt embarrassed for finally growing my purple out), a retro black lace dress that I want, green tights, blue lippy and an attitude that's more sparklie than the raining glitter, Lisa-Skye's so damn gorgeous, so fucking funny and so delightfully filthy (in the best way possible) that there's no better way to finish off your MICF.

Telling stories about her parents and their friends in the 70s, it's glorious nostalgia for us who remember cheap drugs, driving drunk (and we still thank the universe every day for surviving and not killing anyone) and that the best place for a hetero pick up is a gay night club (at least some things never change).

Lisa's parents told her about inner city Melbourne in the 70s and she finds the parallels with inner city living now, except that we've had to move out a bit, can't afford to buy a house and don't have to wear skinny jeans (unless you want to). With bad advice and stories of her own search for love, lust and the cheapest high, Songs My Parents Taught Me is created and told with so much love that you have to remember that love should always be sparklie, sexy and beautifully dirty.

And, Lisa, give me ten minutes and I can teach to you parallel park.

OR

At 8 pm at The Butterfly Club, there's the just as gorgeous, but slightly less sparklie Karin Danger and her Hot Box.

MICF Review: Hot Box

MICF 2013
Karin Danger: Hot Box
11 April 2013
The Butterfly Club
to 21 April
comedyfestival.com.au

Hot Box.  Karin's got one. I've got one. So do you. It's that slightly awkward place where we feel hot enough to blend in with the crowd.

The first great thing about Hot Box is that it's at the new, super cute Butterfly Club. The club's fluttered from South Melbourne to the city, but has brought every knick knack, figurine and couch along to fill up the vast new space, where there's now enough room swing whatever you fancy and still enjoy a drink made from the nicest bar staff in the city. If you've not been to the old or new club, make Hot Box your first visit. It won't be your last.

The next great thing is cabaret performer and composer Karin.  Hot Box is personal and intimate and leaves her no room to hide behind character.  I've glimpsed her passion before, but this is the first time I've seen it fill the stage, which creates a show that's so much more than a handful of funny songs – and they are very funny songs.

As a performer, Karin is faced with the so-boring pressure of looking "right". I'm not sure that I know anyone who really looks right but, as a writer, I can work at home in my underwear growing excessive body hair to keep me warm as you imagine my glamourous amazonian self hand writing reviews in gold ink. Writing is one of the few professions where we can be total slobs and get away with it. Performers aren't so lucky.

Karin's a no make up, flat shoes, jeans and t-shirt woman working in a fake eyelash, Spanx, starved and sequins world. Her show's about her transition from slob to lady and whether it really made any difference to her life.

Sometime after we're born, we lose that ability to be totally comfortable with our selves. Hot Box is about re-finding that comfort and realising out that hotness is never what's "right" and letting the boundaries of your hot box move and change until it's comfortable. Bring all your friends who umm and err in front of the mirror.

This was on AussieTheatre.com

Review: Musical Works

Musical Works:
Give My Regards to Broady
and
Housewarming
Theatreworks
2 December
to 10 December
www.theatreworks.org.au

Hooray for Theatre Works. Along with their ongoing support of independent artists, they are supporting the development of new Australian musicals with the inaugural Musical Works season. Two developing shows were selected and working under the artistic mentorship of Aaron Joyner, from Magnormos, they have a season in St Kilda.

Give My Regards to Broady is about four friends, a Fitzroy share house and the dream to get off the couch and stay away from Broadmeadows – and break into the arts. It's been around for four years. I saw an early version. There were some terrific songs, but it lacked a cohesive story, was a wee bit self indulgent and its characters were inseparable from the performers. I wasn't keen to see it in the same form again.

But it's rare for a great musical to be a corker on its first or second outing. Until an audience react, it's hard to know what bits need to go. Lucky for us, Karin Muiznieks (writer, composer, producer) and James Simpson (composer) were happy to dump the "let's put on a show" tone and set about re-creating.

And what a change! With a snappy new cast (Claire Healy, Lauren Murtah, Leigh Jay Booth and Joe Kosky), the characters have developed the dimension that leaves them memorable, and helped by some solid direction by Scott Gooding, the story's getting some stakes and now ends on a well-earned punchline. Some old songs have gone, the best ones stayed (like "North Vs South") and new songs have appeared ("Snackulas" was a favourite), which all feel like they belong and generally add to the story.

Placed so firmly in Melbourne, with songs like "Half-built Ferris Wheel", it may not find a worldwide audience, but there are four million people in Melbourne who can potentially love it and can happily indulge in Muiznieks witty and clever lyrics.

If you've seen Give My Regards to Broady, it's so worth a new visit. There's still room for work, but it's well on its way to becoming a quintessential Melbourne theatre experience.

The second Musical Works piece is House Warming by William Hannagan-McKinna and Belinda Jenkin, which is earlier in its development.

This time we're in a share house in St Kilda, but without reference or relevance to place, it could be anywhere. Tommy (Daniel Benge) is home after a backpack around Europe, his granddad died and left him a house, and five friends (Rachel Rai, Elle Richards, Belinda Jenkin, Dave Barclay and Drew Collet) are moving in with their compulsory sexual tension, comparison of crap parents and revelation of secrets.

Musically, the six strong voices create a rich sound and dramatically, the six interacting characters allow for conflict and intrigue. The story's there, but its telling and plotting need work. It feels like it's establishing characters and their problems then jumping to the end. There's room for a lot more guts, more wrong turns and an extra act.

Too many shows never get past their first productions. Which means our theatre industry misses out on some awesome stuff. Like first drafts, first sex and first anything – shows need more experience, emotional distance and a bit of help to get it right. With the support of Theatre Works, both of these musicals are well on their way.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.