PASSION

PASSION - Silvie Paladino, Kane Alexander & Theresa Borg_editorialLife Like Company is proud to announce a new production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s widely acclaimed, Tony Award winning musical masterpiece PASSION, playing at Arts Centre Melbourne for a strictly limited season in November.

The complex landscape of the human heart is the subject of PASSION, a haunting, intensely emotional musical by the uncompromising creators of Into The Woods and Sunday In The Park With George.

Bold, unexpected and thrilling, PASSION is one of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s most emotional works. Intimate, raw, erotic and dark, it explores universal yet often unspoken truths. The sweeping, romantic score (Sondheim describes it as one long rhapsody) accompanies an intelligent, thought-­provoking book that bears James Lapine’s trademark lyricism and a host of well-­drawn characters.

At a remote military outpost in 1863 Italy, a handsome army captain Giorgio, is separated from his beautiful -­ but married – mistress, Clara. He is forced to re-­evaluate his beliefs about love when he becomes the object of the obsessive, unrelenting passions of Fosca, his Colonel’s plain, sickly cousin.

As with all of Sondheim and Lapine’s works, PASSION requires a cast of accomplished singing actors. Life Like Company’s new Melbourne production features an incredible line-­up of artists including musical theatre star and leading man Kane Alexander (Urinetown, Hair, Les Miserables) as Giorgio.

Popular Green Room Award winning musical theatre star and recording artist Silvie Paladino (Chess, Miss Saigon, Les Miserables) in the role of Clara; talented musical theatre artist and opera singer Theresa Borg (Les Miserables, Cats, The Phantom of the Opera) as Fosca; as well as stage and screen legend John O’May (The Last Confession, The Phantom of the Opera, A Little Night Music) as Doctor Tambourri.

The production also features talented musical theatre performers Mark Dickinson (Hamlet, Chess), Jolyon James (Moonshadow, Shane Warne: The Musical), Cameron MacDonald (Miss Saigon, Jersey Boys), Adam Murphy (Guys and Dolls, The Graduate), Tod Strike (Love Never Dies, South Pacific) and Troy Sussman (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Mary Poppins), who round out the cast in this new production.

Helpmann Award and Green Room Award nominated director Neil Gooding will bring the production to life in Melbourne. “PASSION is a musical theatre masterpiece from one of the greatest composers the world of musical theatre has ever known,” says Gooding.

“The cast that we have assembled is comprised of some of the finest musical theatre performers in Australia, and I can’t wait to see them all breathe life into these incredible characters.”

Musical Director is one of Australia’s most celebrated creative and musical talents, Guy Simpson. Known for conducting a great body of work including The Phantom of the Opera, Love Never Dies and Miss Saigon, Simpson was recently at the helm of The Production Company’s Guys and Dolls.

Life Like Company is born of the team behind Life Like Touring, firmly established as one of Australia’s leading family theatre producers, with their productions touring the USA, Middle East, Asia and Europe. PASSION represents the company’s first major foray into the mainstream adult world of musical theatre, launching Life Like Company with a provocative and captivating premiere production.

PASSION will play for four nights only at The Playhouse, Arts Centre Melbourne from 5 – 8 November 2014. For more information, visit: www.passionthemusical.com.au for details.

Image: Silvie Paladino, Kane Alexander and Theresa Borg – photo by Kashka Jamieson (Verve Portraits)