Chicago comes back to Brisbane in 2009

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Broadway's razzle dazzle smash hit returns to Australia next year.

The show features Caroline O'Connor (Velma Kelly).

Caroline first performed the role of Velma Kelly in 1998 in Melbourne and then in Sydney in 1999, for which she was awarded the Green Room Award (Best Female Artist in a Leading Role) and Mo Award (Best Female Musical Theatre Performer) respectively. In November 2002 O'Connor proudly made her Broadway debut in the role of Velma Kelly at the Shubert Theatre. Her acclaimed Broadway season was extended until March 2003, and she moved with the production to the Ambassador Theatre.

In 2003 she performed the role of Roxie Hart with the London cast at The Baalbeck International Festival in Lebanon.

The musical theatre career of Caroline O'Connor is both extensive and acclaimed. In Australia Caroline has played the role of Anita in West Side Story (Mo and Green Room Awards), Aldonza in Man of La Mancha, and for the Production Company, Fanny Brice in Funny Girl and Mabel in Mack and Mabel. Her West End productions include Cabaret, Me and My Girl, The Rink, Romance Romance and Mack&Mabel in which she played Mabel (Olivier nomination for Best Actress in a Musical). She starred in UK national productions of A Chorus Line, Baby, Into the Woods, Damn Yankees, Showboat and Talent by Victoria Wood. For English National Opera, she played Mae Jones in Street Scene and Hildy Esterhazy in On the Town.

Her Australian productions include the one woman play Bombshells written especially for Caroline by acclaimed playwright Joanna Murray-Smith. She has since filmed Bombshells for ABC Television and toured the play to sell out performances at the Edinburgh Festival (where she won the coveted Fringe First Award), London's West End at the Arts Theatre (for which she received her second Laurence Olivier Award nomination), and at the World Stage Festival in Toronto, Canada. Caroline played Judy Garland in End of the Rainbow (Best Actress Edinburgh Festival, Sydney Theatre Awards, Helpmann Award®), the title role in Piaf (Mo, Helpmann® and Green Room Awards), and the title role in Scarlett O'Hara at the Crimson Parrot, a role especially written for her by David Williamson. Caroline has performed with the Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras, and in 1995 performed for Her Majesty The Queen in a Royal Variety Performance.

Her own show From Stage to Screen has been presented at the Sydney Opera House and was filmed for Australian television. Caroline has recorded four solo CDs and has featured on numerous cast recordings and compilations. Caroline's film work includes the featured role of Nini Legs in the Air in Baz Luhrmann's film Moulin Rouge, and as Ethel Merman in the Cole Porter biopic De-Lovely.



From 19 Mar 2009 - Tickets (inc.fees)$69.90 to $109.90 - School Groups of 12+ from $50.90

Farewell Year 12's

It is with great sadness that we farewell the SENIOR DRAMA CLASS of 2008! Over the last two years, this small group of 'survivors' endured all the challenges they were presented with in Drama commendably, and became a tight-knit group of classmates.

Their intrepid teacher will miss walking into the darkness of the Drama room, never really knowing where they are hiding to create TENSION of SURPRISE for her at the beginning of a lesson.

The Year 12 Drama class of 2008 are a bubbly, friendly bunch, and it has been wonderful to watch their talents develop and their confidence grow over their years of studying Drama.

All the best for your future girls!
Aim HIGH, maintain FOCUS, shoot for the STARS!

SHAKESPEARIENCE

"Shakespearience" was a unified performance from Year 11 Drama students of selected extracts from Shakespeare's tragedies. The evening was a wonderful success, as the Drama students met the challenge of their task commendably.

See photos below.

Guess what! - Reading Shakespeare is GOOD for the brain!
Scientists have shown that reading the Bard and other classical writers has beneficial effects on the mind. They say that their research provides valuable lessons for the education system and for all those who want to keep their minds active.

Works from Shakespeare, Chaucer and Wordsworth challenge readers because of their unusual words, tricky sentence structure and the repetition of phrases.

English professors at Liverpool University who teamed up with neuroscientists armed with brain-imaging equipment found that this challenge causes the brain to light up with electrical activity. Professor Philip Davis, who led the study at the university's department of English, said: "The brain appears to become baffled by something unexpected in the text that jolts it into a higher level of thinking."

So imagine if you commit Shakespeare to memory as our Shakespearience girls did, how brilliantly active your brain would be!

Notice the difference in the two brains below!

















Congratulations to all the Year 11 students who participated in SHAKESPEARIENCE.