By Lauren Mitsak of Stanwell Park Arts Theatre (SPAT)
Riversong is this year’s SPAT Singers Show, compiled and directed by our musical maestro, Lindy Sharp. Performances will be held on Saturday, June 21 and Saturday, June 28, both at 7pm. There will be a Sunday matinee on June 29 at 2pm. A welcome drink will be served on arrival for the two evening shows, followed by a three-course meal for the incredible price of $40 per person. It’s BYO for those who would like wine or beer with their meal. The matinee performance is $30 with light refreshments served after the show.
This annual show is loads of fun and a crowd-pleaser with musical numbers ranging from the sublime – showcasing beautiful voices accompanied by piano, flute, recorder, violin, accordion, and saxophone – to the ridiculous, with lots of audience participation. As there are only three performances with seating limited to 60 people per night, and 80 for the matinee, it is imperative to book early. To buy tickets, visit the SPAT website.
Peter and the Wolf
In this exciting collaborative project, musicians from the Wollongong Conservatorium of Music (the Con), along with a few of our own talented musicians, will stage the children’s classic, Peter and the Wolf. The Con’s Mikaela Wu will conduct and SPAT’s Matt Dickson will direct. Sally Wilson, part of the Con troupe, will supply the puppets, who are the performers in this piece, and someone from SPAT will be the narrator. The orchestral suite was composed by Sergei Prokofiev in 1936 to encourage children’s interest in music. Birds are represented with flutes, cats with clarinets, ducks with oboes , and wolves the French horns. The people in this story are also represented with specific instruments: hunters with woodwinds, trumpets, timpani and bass drum, the grandfather with the bassoon, and the hero Peter with strings.
Four performances will take place over the last weekend in August and the first weekend in September, and two of these will be matinees.
Playmates (Improvisational Theatre)
SPAT will host Playmates this year on October 25. This is an annual event run by Luke Berman in which several theatres enter their improv teams to compete for the crown of number one. SPAT will form a team in the next few months and set out the dates and practice times. This is the perfect fun forum to test your acting skills. You don’t have to memorise any lines, but you do have to be alert, present, quick thinking and a team player. Look for more details next month.
