The adored cinematic piece is brought to the stage in the deft hands of its creator, Baz Luhrmann.
Ever since 1992, Australians and the world alike have fallen in love with auteur Baz Luhrmann’s first big feature film, ‘Strictly Ballroom’. The deeply Australian tale of the dancer who falls in love with a girl from the wrong side of the (dance) tracks, and their ultimate defiance of all the sweaty, overly made-up dramatists is one that it seems everyone is familiar with – and to many it remains Luhrmann’s greatest piece yet.
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Now, more than two decades later, Luhrmann has revived and reignited our love for the movie via an extravagant stage show that has already done the rounds of Melbourne and Sydney, and will wrap up its tour in Brisbane this September. And, knowing Luhrmann’s penchant for the ‘over-the-top’ when it comes to theatricality, it is destined to be quite a spectacle.
Melbourne performer Thomas Lacey was wrested with the job of stepping into Paul Manchurio’s shiny shoes, but it seems that he has been loving the process every step of the way. “When I first saw the calls to audition, it had everything I love – it’s got singing, acting, ballroom dancing – and just straight away I said ‘I’ll do it’,” says Thomas.
Thomas Lacey © Hugh Stewart“['Strictly Ballroom'] was like one of the big three movies we used to watch as kids. Being a dancer and all, as I grew up there were kind of three [dance] movies – ‘Step Up’, ‘Dirty Dancing’ and ‘Strictly Ballroom’. So I knew I wanted to be a part of it.
“There is this pressure that came with the role, because you know it’s Baz’s baby. He’s crafted this piece that has really stood the test of time and we really wanted to create a production that was worthy of all its history. We’ve always stayed true to the film, just added bits and pieces to make it better. We had a two-week workshop in Sydney, just to see if it would even work, and then we had three-months of rehearsals to bring it all together.”
Peppered with eponymous costumes from Catherine Martin and choreography from original choreographer John O’Connell, ‘Strictly Ballroom The Musical’ is a reunion of sorts. Re-fusing a wildly successful creative team to work on one of the pieces that made their names.“We’ve had some top-range people helping us,” says Lacey. “People like Baz were really hands on during the whole process, and making a new show was incredibly hard. We were chopping and changing and even now we're cutting bits out and changing it. It's been such a massive process.”
After a successful run down south over the past two years, the team’s last stop will be the Queensland Performing Arts Centre, where the show will run from September to mid-October. Thomas, who combines stage performing with his ongoing role on ABC’s ‘Dance Academy’, is looking forward to some well-deserved rest and respite as the show wraps up. But he's clearly enamoured with the work that the ‘Strictly Ballroom’ team have created.
“We spent some time in Sydney, and now we're back in Melbourne and then we're up to you guys in Brisbane. It'll be close to two years. We're finishing it up in Brisbane, and after that I’m definitely taking a holiday.“On behalf of the company we're very excited to get up to Brisbane, we've had amazing runs in Melbourne and Sydney and even though we're only there for a short amount of time, we would love everyone to come and see our special show. Outside the theatre in Melbourne we've got all the banners that say things like ‘joyous’ and that's how the audience walk out. It's one of those story-lines that's familiar to Australia, and people love it. It's a very fun musical.”
‘Strictly Ballroom The Musical’ plays Her Majestys Theatre (Melbourne) until 26 August and Queensland Performing Arts Centre 9 September – 15 October.
