“This show is a love story to musicals, and a celebration of the incredible homegrown talent of South Australia.”
Alana Kaye
4 Stars
The May Wirth at Gluttony, Rymill Park
08 Mar – 10 Mar
Adelaide Fringe Festival
This show is a love story to musicals, and a celebration of the incredible homegrown talent of South Australia.
We’re told it’s also a thank you letter from the cast to the teachers, mentors and family members who believed in them – something I’m sure every creative person can relate to.
Broadway Off-Broadway has been created and produced by Emma Kavanagh, an Adelaide local who’s been touring Europe and performing at the Sydney Opera House. She’s brought together a troupe of professional performers to delight Fringe Festival audiences for the first time with some of their favourite musical theatre songs.
Kavanagh is joined by vocalists Stephanie Cole and Callum Warrender, and dancers Maddie Apacible and Jayden Prelc. The best bit? They are also Adelaideans who began their journeys right here. Talk about a reunion! The cast reminisce about knowing each other for a long time, and how they relish this opportunity to perform together at last.
Prepare yourself for powerhouse vocals across the board. A major highlight is a beautiful duet from Cole & Kavanagh of ‘Memory’ from Cats, accompanied by moving choreography from Apacible. This could well be my least favourite musical ever… but this rendition of its most famous song will stay with me.
Other highlights include Cole’s ‘On My Own’ from Les Misérables, Warrender’s ‘This Is The Moment’ from Jekyll & Hyde, and Kavanagh’s ‘Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again’ from Phantom of the Opera. Prelc tap dancing to ‘In Summer’ from Frozen was also delightful. The 3-piece band accompanying the performers really added another dimension.
The show has been tailored to showcase each performer’s unique talents. I can imagine it was difficult to keep the runtime to 60 minutes, considering how much they all love musical theatre. But I think there’s a good selection of songs that aren’t just from the most popular shows.
A return season “next year” was alluded to that might include some favourites that didn’t feature this year, so stay tuned for that…
The sound balance was a tiny bit off, and there were a few small tech issues during the show I attended. But this doesn’t take away from the moving performances. I do wonder whether, if some of the songs were cut down, it would help with the pacing of the show and they’d be able to fit in more songs. Perhaps an addition of a quick fire medley could up the ante, which is what I thought we were getting after the scene from Company. But I also understand the desire to sing a song in its entirety.
The May Wirth tent was absolutely packed to the rafters for this Saturday afternoon show, which is a testament to the place that musical theatre holds in a lot of people’s hearts.
I’m not going to lie – if you’re not a lover of musicals, you’ll probably be in the minority. But maybe you’ll be converted? And if not, just sit back and enjoy an hour of fabulous music and exceptional local talent.
Tickets: https://adelaidefringe.com.au/fringetix/broadway-off-broadway-af2025
Alana Kaye, Theatre Now
