The musical will be performed from October 1-9 as part of Sydney's celebrations leading up to Mary MacKillop's Canonisation. More details to follow soon!
The girls' secondary college
World Premiere performance of the full musical at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre was a hit, with an audience of over 2,000 from all around Australia. Rachel Vidoni played the role of Mary, and her powerful rendition of Mary's ballads was deeply moving. The other lead roles displayed strong acting and singing skills and the supporting actors and chorus were extremely professional in how they managed the pressure of performing in a large venue to a large audience.
The Three Shearers were perfect as the comic relief characters, with an improvised reference to catching sheep flu an example of their talent for comedy! Without any prior performances to work off, the Director Timothy Davey came up with some great staging ideas, including a dramatic approach to the hanging of Fagan, and Robyn Carroll displayed a MacKillop-like calm and fortitude in managing around 200 cast and crew. The opening contemporary Aborginal dance number was mesmerizing, and the costumes and makeup were amazing - it felt like being transported 100 years back in time. Many of the crew (led by the teenager Patrick Bojanic) and orchestra (conducted by Karen Woolford) were also students, and for some the involvement in the show counted towards their music industry studies.
A shortened one-hour concert performance of the musical was performed at Central Hall (Australian Catholic University, Melbourne) to World Youth Day pilgrims and locals. The childrens' chorus consisting of Anton, Olivia, Finn and Lili were a hit, and Jacqui Moore's beautiful rendition of Mary's ballads received many compliments. Richard O'Shaughnessy once again proved his acting skills playing numerous supporting roles, and Michaela Philp kept the story together as the narrator.
Demonstration Recordings
2007
For the five demo tracks on this website, Sally McKenzie recorded the part of Mary, with Richard O'Shaughnessy playing Father Woods and other characters, and Xavier Brouwer the characters of Alexander MacKillop and the death-row criminal Fagan. Libby O'Shaughnessy sang the part of Flora MacKillop, and the kids, Anton, Olivia, Finn and Phoebe did a great job as the kids chorus.
