Australia FINALLY finds its Mary Poppins!

Disney Theatrical has finally found an actress to play "Mary Poppins" in the Australian production. The role will be played by Australian Verity Hunt-Ballard. The article said that the reason why it took so long to find the right person for the role was because she did not apply in the first round of auditions last October, in which more than 650 performers took part. She was playing Frankie Valli's lover in the hit musical "Jersey Boys" at Melbourne's Princess Theatre.

She said, 'I wanted to audition but I felt I couldn't because the show had just opened.'

She has performed in "The Rocky Horror Show" and smaller productions of "South Pacific" and "Oklahoma!", but this will be her biggest role by far. She also won the ATG Curtain Call Award for her role in the acclaimed Australian musical Metro Street.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2010/03/09/1267896791695.html

Updated On: 4/1/10 at 03:34 PM

I think the problem might have been that they were concentrating on a particular type of performer, the spunky soprano ingenue, and the girls they were seeing were perhaps a little bland. There are maybe two "name" women of this type in Australia who tend to get all these sorts of roles and even after all those auditions it seemed as though one of them, Lisa McCune, was still going to end up as Mary.
Verity Hunt-Ballard is surprising casting in that she's very quirky and funny with a belt voice. I had no idea she had the range to sing MARY POPPINS but I'm very excited that she's been given this opportunity because I think she's going to be wonderful.

I think Verity will do superb in the Mary role, i found some articles about her audition in The Hague where they are finishing the rehearsals for the upcomming Dutch version.
As it shows they will use both sides of the stage and it looks a lot bigger.
I hope they will take this to the Australian production as well cause it looks really spectacular

Updated On: 3/16/10 at 07:37 AM