Cast as featured in the original preview season of Mavis Bramston: Reloaded! Brisbane City Hall, October 2006. Geraldine Turner Geraldine Turner's star has shone brightly on the musically theatre stage for the past three decades. Her credit's include "The Witches of Eastwick", "A Little Night Music", "Sweeney Todd", "Into the Woods", "Company", "Chicago", "Anything Goes", "Cabaret", "Kismet", "Oliver!", "Guys and Dolls", "Nöel & Gertie", "Mack & Mabel", "Ned Kelly", "Grease" and "Summer Rain". She has also appeared in operas and operettas including "La Belle Helene", "HMS Pinafore" and "The Mikado"; and plays including "Somewhere", "Rosie", "Inheritance", "The Forest", "Present Laughter", "Don's Party" and "Summer of the Seventeenth Doll". Her many concert and cabaret performances have taken her across Australia to New York, Vancouver, San Francisco, Africa and the birthplace of cabaret Berlin, where critics wrote "Sensational....an earthquake hits Berlin!". Geraldine's television career has varied from dramatic roles in series and television specials to personal appearances like "Spicks & Specks" and "Beauty and the Beast". She most recently appeared in "All Saints" and "Home and Away". Her films include "Careful He Might Hear You", "Summerfield" and the record breaking movie, "The Wog Boy" - all roles she has relished. In the recording world Geraldine is recognised internationally as a Stephen Sondheim interpreter par excellence - being the first artist worldwide to record and release an all-Sondheim album "The Stephen Sondheim Songbook". Other albums include "Torch Songs - And Some Not So Tortuous", "When We Met", "All the Colours of the Rainbow", "Once in a Blue Moon" and cast albums of her stage hits like "Chicago" and "Anything Goes". Geraldine Turner has won several awards including two prestigious Green Room Awards, for her role as Nancy in "Oliver!" and for Reno Sweeney in "Anything Goes", and two Mo Awards for her performance as Mrs Lovett in "Sweeney Todd" , a Gold Mo for "Anything Goes" and an Order of Australia for her services to the arts.
Rowena Wallace With a career spanning 40 years including major roles in series ranging from Division 4, Prisoner, Number 96 and the mini series Power Without Glory to the multi-Logie award winning 'Pat the Rat' Hamilton in Sons and Daughters, Rowena Wallace is one of the most accomplished actresses and best loved stars in the Australian TV and entertainment industry. Rowena moved with her family from England to Brisbane at the age of twelve where her mother took her to dancing lessons and later persuaded her to join a theatre company to overcome her shyness. Rowena began her acting career at the Twelfth Night Theatre in Brisbane playing various parts from Shakespeare to musical comedy, with her work in the lead of the stage production of Calamity Jane, at the age of 17 leading to a role in the landmark Australian TV series You Can't See Round Corners. Her theatre experience to date includes roles in Relatively Speaking (1968), Old Times, (1973), How the Other Half Loves (1978), Stepping Out (1985), A Coupla White Chicks (1986), Bedroom Farce (1987), Blythe Spirit (1989), Follies (2000), The Sound of Music (2001) for the Adelaide Festival Theatre, The Vagina Monologues (2001) and Bench for the Darlinghurst Theatre (2002). In 1985, Rowena Wallace was the first woman to win the Gold Logie since it was opened up to Most Popular Australian Personality. She has also received silver Logies for Most Popular Lead Actress (1983); Most Popular Actress (1984); Best Actress in a Series (1984); Best Lead Actress in a Series (1985). Renowned for her intelligence, candour and down to earth nature, Rowena's 2005 appearance on Channel Nine's health and lifestyle program Celebrity Overhaul endeared her to legions of new fans as she battled physical setbacks to tackle each challenge with grace, courage and dignity. Now based in Melbourne, Rowena is a patron of the Scoliosis association with her public profile continuing to give hope to fellow sufferers throughout Australia. Her autobiography will be published by Penguin in October 2006.
Hazel Phillips Hazel Phillips is a Gold and Bronze "Logie" winner, and has been one of Australia's most versatile and loved performers. Her television career has seen her hosting her own daily national talk show Girl Talk and Strictly for the Birds, as well as appearances on almost every major television series from the original Beauty and the Beast to The Mavis Bramston Show, Number 96, A Country Practice, G.P. and more recently The Wayne Manifesto for ABC Television. She has also appeared in movies such as Belinda and Little White Lies with Mimi Rodgers. Hazel's Musical Theatre experience is extensive with lead roles in The Boys From Syracuse, I Do I Do, Mack and Mabel, Cloudlands, Gypsy and Grease. She was also artistic director for WINGS DINNER THEATRE in Byron Bay for three years, appearing in, designing and directing many productions. She toured Queensland with the Q.P.A.T./Brisbane Festival production of Snapshots From Home, a musical memory of Brisbane at war, and has performed in an extended Season of Nearly in the Box for the Brisbane Fringe Festival with Alan Edwards. Hazel has written several shows for stage and television. Her writing has included a regular weekly column in the Daily Mirror, and she is currently writing her autobiography. In recent years she has written and performed a tribute to Marilyn Monroe called Marilyn and Me which has played around Australia and received rave revues. She also co-wrote the musical Hot Pants with David Mitchell and wrote the shows Fanny Get Your Gun and All At Sea which played to capacity houses on the Gold Coast. In 2005, Hazel Phillips was awarded an OAM for her services to television and she recently performed in the Twin Towns Showroom with her new show.
Karen Crone Karen has been a vibrant part of the professional theatre scene in Queensland since the early eighties, having begun her professional theatre career with the Queensland Theatre Company's production of Annie. Karen went on to appear in numerous QTC productions including Bag O' Marbles, Skin Of Our Teeth, Injected Brecht, Animal Farm, Dinkum Assorted, Julius Caesar, Camille, Little Foxes, Cloudland, Amadeus, Hello, Dolly! and They're Playing our Song. For La Boite Theatre, Karen has appeared in Creche & Burn (in the original production and the 2006 National tour), Way Out West, Away, Fortune, No Strings Attached, Cosi (both the 1994 & 2003 productions) and Raindancers. She won Matilda Awards for both her performances as Cherry in Cosi. Karen's numerous film and television credits include Crocodile Dundee In LA, The Lost World, Medivac, Pacific Drive and Fire II and the comedy short film, The Team. She also directed for QUT in 2004 and Stage and Screen 2004, 2005 and 2006 with the acclaimed Peter Casey the Musical Director for The Producers. In 2005 Karen appeared in Twelfth Night Theatre's production of Dad's Army and Run for Your Wife as well as playing the role of Bobcat Barb in the Queensland Music Festival's A Midsummer Night's Bobcat in Mt Isa. She also directed A Tribute to Frank Sinatra, My Way for Twelfth Night Theatre. Karen is also Artistic Director of IZIT? Entertainment, which is one of Queensland's most successful entertainment companies.
Andrew Davidson Andrew is a Directing graduate of the National Institute of Dramatic Art, and a Music graduate of the Longy School of Music in Boston. His recent credits as musical director include the Ensemble Theatre season of "I Get the Music in You", starring Queenie van de Zandt, the return season of "Boyband", starring Amanda Harrison, and the Sydney premiere of Mathew Frank & Dean Bryant's "Jumpin' the Q", starring Simon Burke. Andrew wrote the songs for Rebel ("The Wedge") Wilson's hit comedy, "The Westie Monologues", and the soundtrack for Tommy ("Holding the Man") Murphy's "Bendy". He also wrote the score for the Shakespeare Globe Centre's "King Lear", starring the Seven Network's Matthew O'Sullivan. On the cabaret circuit, Andrew has had the good fortune to work with Tamsin Carroll, Sharon Millerchip, Eddie Perfect, Hayden Tee, and Kaye Tuckerman. He has accompanied performances at venues ranging from the Butterfly Club in Melbourne to the Sydney Superdome. As a theatre director, Andrew's 2005 Adelaide production of Mozart's "The Magic Flute" was hailed by State of the Arts magazine as "a theatrical coup". Radio Adelaide remarked, "Davidson has done Mozart a great favour". Other directing credits include Caryl Churchill's "Vinegar Tom" for the Actors College of Theatre and Television, Tennessee Williams' "Suddenly Last Summer" for the Australian Institute of Music, and the Australian premiere of Tony Kushner's "The Illusion" for Sydney Grammar School. While at NIDA, Andrew directed the Australian premiere of Tennessee Williams' "Life Story" and assisted John Clark on his farewell production "The Grapes of Wrath". Andrew undertook a secondment with Opera Australia. Andrew is the recipient of a Helpmann Family Scholarship, a Nadia Boulanger Scholarship, and a Young Australian Achiever Award in the Arts.