Music Theatre Melbourne presents the world premiere of Peter Fitzpatrick and Simon Stone’s new Australian Musical, Castro’s Children, at Gasworks Arts Park this July.
Set in Cuba and America in the early 1960s and 1980s – its story is a universal one. It could be set anywhere, at any time, where children’s lives are displaced by adult wars and ideologies.
Six children – three boys, three girls. Sent away from Havana by their parents in the first year of Castro’s regime, to live among strangers in the USA. Would they ever see their parents or their homeland again? Who would take that gamble with innocent young lives? And why?
The six in ‘Castro’s Children’ are fictional, but they represent the 14,048 real children who were sent out of Cuba under ‘Operation Pedro Pan’ – a collaboration between the CIA and the Catholic Church that changed the lives of those children and their parents forever: some for good; some not…
Directed by Peter Fitzpatrick, the outstanding adult cast consists of Fem Belling, Zak Brown, Madeleine Featherby, Bryce Gibson, Tom Green, Drew Lane, Tod Strike, Noah Szto, Daisy Valerio, Gabrielle Ward, Paul Watson and Laura Wong.
Supporting them is a startlingly talented group of young performers: Stephanie Adamson, Aria Aninipoc, Sasha Babushkin, Kailee Baulk, Bessie Blaze, Elliot Frankeni, Chase Kendall, Scarlett May, Archie Mendelssohn, Lira Mollison, Jaylen Nagloo, Daniel Nunan, Lia Scantlebury, Coco Shelmerdine and Campbell Van Elst.
Music Theatre Melbourne is proud to present the premiere season of this new Australian musical: its score by Simon Stone, is a treasure-house of riches; the book by Peter Fitzpatrick, might make you laugh, might make you cry – but it will certainly make you care.
“Castro’s Children has been an extraordinary labour of love for my musical collaborator, Simon Stone, and for me. The story of Operation Pedro Pan is a compelling one that really needs to be told,” says writer and director Peter Fitzpatrick.
“It may be set nominally in a country a long way away and quite a long time ago, but its complex moral questions are urgent and immediate ones – here, now, and always.”
Castro’s Children
Gasworks Theatre – Gasworks Arts Park, 21 Graham Street, Albert Park
Season: 5 – 13 July 2024
Bookings: www.gasworks.org.au
For more information, visit: www.musictheatremelbourne.com.au for details.
Image: Castro’s Children (supplied)