After much anticipation, Luckiest Productions has revealed Tim Draxl as the final cast member in the 30th anniversary production of Alex Harding’s beloved Australian musical Only Heaven Knows at Hayes Theatre Co later this year.
Helpmann Award and Logie Award nominee Tim Draxl is currently playing Henry Fox on Foxtel’s A Place to Call Home and is known for performances in Channel Seven’s Molly, Swimming Upstream (with Geoffrey Rush, Judy Davis and Jesse Spencer), A Few Best Men (with Xavier Samuel, Rebel Williams and Olivia Newton-John) and a range of other local and international stage and screen productions. Draxl will play the role of Cliff, joining the stellar cast of Matthew Backer (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Blazey Best (Miracle City), Ben Hall (Neighbours) and Hayden Tee (Les Miserables).
“Saying that I am excited to join the amazing cast of Only Heaven Knows would be an understatement,” said Draxl. “To debut at Hayes Theatre Co and return to musical theatre after 17 years in such a poignant and important original Australian piece with such a brilliant creative team is any actors dream”.
Set in the 1940s and 1950s, Only Heaven Knows tells the story of one young man’s discovery of love and life in Sydney. Tim, a teenage playwright, leaves an unsupportive family in Melbourne and arrives amidst the bohemian by-way of Kings Cross in the summer of 1944 where women and gay men are enjoying unparalleled freedoms after five years of war.
Tim soon finds love and a new family in Cliff his ocker lover, Guinea the tough but big-hearted nightclub singer, the flamboyant but sensitive Alan, and proud and fabulous Lana, a poor man’s Robert Helpmann. The Sydney bacchanal soon fades however as the cold winds of intolerance brings in the Menzies era and Tim and his friends must learn to survive hostility in a time before a visible gay community existed.
This production will be a welcome return to Sydney stages. There have been various productions over the past 30 years, most notably the sell-out season at the Stables Theatre in 1995, which transferred to the Sydney Opera House, starring David Campbell as Tim. David’s company Luckiest Productions is behind this new production.
Shaun Rennie returns to Hayes Theatre Co to direct Only Heaven Knows after his highly successful seasons of Rent and You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown and Daniel Edmonds will be the Musical Supervisor, swapping the massive musical for the intimate having recently been Musical Director on such extravaganzas as Strictly Ballroom, King Kong and Dream Lover. Tony and Helpmann Award-winning scenic designer Brian Thomson (The King and I, The Boy From Oz, Priscilla: Queen of the Desert the Musical) has joined the creative team as Set Designer.
Only Heaven Knows
19 Greenknowe Avenue, Potts Point
Season: 26 May – 1 July 2017
Information and Bookings: www.hayestheatre.com.au
Image: Tim Draxl – photo by John McRae