Billy Elliot The Musical, featuring music by the legendary Elton John, Billy Elliot the Musical is an extraordinary theatrical experience that has captivated audiences around the world. Seen by over 12 million people worldwide and acclaimed by audiences and critics alike, Billy Elliot is the recipient of over 85 awards internationally. Set in a northern town during the miners’ strike of 1984/5, the show follows Billy’s journey from boxing ring to ballet class where he discovers a passion for dance that unites his family, inspires his community and changes his life forever.

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The Midsumma Extravaganza is on 1 Feb at Hamer Hall and you can get tickets from the Arts Centre Melbourne Website. Don’t miss out as it was a sellout in 2019!

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You can book tickets at the National Theatre website.

Here’s some info about the show:

In January 2020, the YABC will produce a brand new production of one of the world’s most popular musicals, CATS.

Based on TS Elliot’s collection of poems ‘Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats’, and featuring an eclectic score by Andrew Lloyd Webber, CATS has enjoyed record-breaking runs in the West End, on Broadway, and all around the world, and later this year will be released as a major motion picture. Taking its lead from the era of the original poems, which were written by Elliot for his children in the 1930s, our new production will evoke England during the Great Depression.

In a crumbling Music Hall, our band of very theatrical Cats will strut and sing and prance and dance as they gather together for the Jellicle Ball.

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More Information from the show website:

In a dark South American prison, two very different men share a small cell. Valentin is a Marxist revolutionary who refuses to betray his comrades. Molina is a window dresser who distracts himself by escaping to a fantasy world of movies starring the glamorous diva, Aurora. Valentin can’t stand Molina’s cinematic fantasies and so draws a line on the floor to stop Molina from coming near him. Surely that will keep them apart.

From Kander & Ebb, the team behind smash-hit shows Chicago and Cabaret, and acclaimed playwright Terrence McNally (Master Class), comes a provocative tale of love, imagination, and the friendship that develops when humanity is pushed to its limits. It’s a powerful and emotive story made famous by the original novel and an Oscar-winning film, brought to life here as a dazzling major musical production for the first time ever in Australia.

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Based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a new play by Jack Thorne. It is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage.

The critically acclaimed play has won 24 major theatre awards in the UK and is the most-awarded production in the history of Britain’s prestigious Olivier Awards, winning a record-breaking nine awards including Best New Play and Best Director. The play opened on Broadway in April 2018 to rave reviews and won 6 Tony Awards including Best Play, 6 Outer Critics Circle Awards, 5 Drama Desk Awards and many more.

It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn’t much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband and father of three school-age children.

While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is one play presented in two Parts, which are intended to be seen in order on the same day (matinee and evening) or on two consecutive evenings.”

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As they say on the MSO website:

This Halloween, get your fill of thrills and chills when musicians from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra perform Evil Dead in Concert, a live-to-film event featuring a special guest appearance by original score composer Joe LoDuca.

The legendary eighties cult classic will be screened in a newly restored format at the Palais Theatre, with a reinvented score brought to life by musicians from the MSO alongside the renowned composer himself on keyboards.

The Evil Dead follows five college students on holiday in an isolated cabin in the woods, where they unwittingly release absolute evil into the world and are forced to fight to survive.

The film is known as one of the most significant cult horror movies of all time, and has generated a massive following worldwide since its release in 1981.

LoDuca’s spine-tingling score – newly reimagined for this show – will be played live by an ensemble of musicians from the MSO, conducted by Brett Kelly. This rare resurrection of the beloved cult classic will come to life in a way you’ve never seen before – in this lifetime… or the next!

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And here’s some further info about the show from their website:

Frank Hampster was a witness at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. He is also a comedian.

In 2016 he wrote the first installment of what has become a four-part series. Only the first two shows could be performed in Melbourne with George Pell in court and potential interference with the legal process. With Pell’s conviction comes the lifting of this restriction. Cardinal Sins: Pell in a Cell is a challenging, heartwarming, emotional comedy in which Frank shares his experience of growing up in Ballarat as a Catholic boy at the worst possible time and suffering because of it.

Unable to be performed in Victoria since 2017, Cardinal Sins is in its fourth year – critically acclaimed, award-nominated, this is a show not to be missed if you are interested in human stories told with honesty and humour, promoting love and hope. Frank vowed to kiss Julia Gillard’s feet for setting up the Royal Commission if he ever saw her. True to his promise, he was the chap who did kiss her feet after Pell’s conviction!

Warning: Contains strong coarse language, some infrequent/low pressure audience interaction, potentially triggering content or themes, including Violence, Self Harm or Suicide, Sexual Assault or Abuse, Emotional Abuse, Sexual Harassment, Misogyny, Sexual References, Mental Health

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And here’s some further info about the show from their website:

From the creators of the smash hit ‘Elixir’ (winner of Best Circus and Physical Theatre award at Adelaide Fringe 2018).

Welcome to ‘Railed’, a western-themed circus spectacular, combining the trademark physical talents, finely chiselled bodies and hilarious comic timing of the Head First Acrobats.

Prepare yourself for when bare chested circus meets bare knuckle bar fights. A racy, heart-stopping display of the finest acrobatics by the most ridiculous storytellers in the circus.

Leave your expectations at home, come to the wrong side of the tracks, and let the HFA boys steal your hearts.

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