Priscilla, Queen of the Desert: the stage musical

A Musical Take on Priscilla, Queen of the Desert to Hit Australia
by Broadway.com Staff

A stage musical version of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, the successful 1994 movie, will hit Australia this fall. The show, titled simply Priscilla Queen of the Desert, is set to begin performances at Star City Casino's Lyric Theater in Sydney on October 7, according to Variety.


And who will be playing Australia...

Seriously, this could be an "Ilya, Darling" for the new millenium. Take a film that draws a good deal of it's vitality from the location where it was filmed and suffocate it in a theater with a painted backdrop.

I toyed with the idea of a musical version of it myself. I just loved the idea of booking a theater down the street from where "Mamma Mia" is playing, so that the line: "I told you no ****ing Abba!" would have special relevance.

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Since over half this movie is a bus trip across the Outback, I'm not sure this is such a great idea. It will take away the wonderful "road trip" aspects of the movie and leave it feeling very "land locked." I don't have a good feeling about this one. Sure the drag numbers would work well in a theatre, but not the actual STORY. Someone forgot about that part. They usually do, when it comes to musicals these days.

Next they'll try to do a stage musical of "Breaking Away."

Some films just don't lend themselves well to the stage.

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Will they, however, sing "Mamma Mia" in the stage version, like they do at the end of the movie?

*sigh* Guy Pearce...if only...

There were some top of the line performers in the workshop and apparently it was a huge success.

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From the Sydney Morning Herald site:

MORE GREASEPAINT

Daarrrrrrrling, what other city but Sydney would host the world premiere of a new musical, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert? The tale of drag queens in the outback is to open at the Lyric Theatre in October in a co-production between John Frost of Sydney and Back Row Productions of London. The director will be Simon Phillips, artistic director of the Melbourne Theatre Company and Tony Sheldon, who stole the show as the ultra camp Roger DeBris in The Producers, seems a shoo-in for the cast, after taking part in a recent workshop in Melbourne. The challenge will be to find three actors who can match the chutzpah of the stars in the 12-year-old movie, Guy Pearce, Hugo Weaving and Terence Stamp.

A more in-depth article

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will they recreate the ping-pong ball trick onstage?????

also, if this does happen and it is halfway decent i would really like to see Lizzy Gardiner create some new fabulous stage costumes.

Updated On: 5/17/06 at 04:19 PM

A lot of the people involved with the workshop are not too keen on being involved with the eventual production because the creative team still wants them to AUDITION, even though they feel that they practically created half the show themselves. SO, there's a little bit of bitterness.

The book is average at the moment and needs major re-working (which i'm sure it will get, or at least I hope). And the score is being dealt with now, with major songs being considered - some of the originals and some new ones that weren't in the film (like "She Works Hard for the Money")

In terms of production design, I trust the team, but it will be very hard

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They have all been asked. Whether or not it will eventuate, I don't know. But regardless of their creative in-put during the workshop or their current "star status", everyone has to audition for the panel at this stage.

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Well - I hope you're right!
When you next hear anything on the grapevine, drop me a PM, i'd be interested to hear whats going around!

I really hope the show does well - because we need to pick ourselves up and brush off the dirt after the disaster that was "Dusty: The Original Pop Diva". ergh...

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Updated On: 5/30/06 at 08:10 AM

The press launch is tomorrow (Melbourne time) so perhaps we'll have the casting announcements tonight - early tomorrow morning at the latest.

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I just looked at the website.

They aren't using any original songs written specifically for the characters or situations?

So, this isn't so much a "New Musical" as it is a "Really, Really Expensive Drag-Show"?

Or, sort of a "Saturday Night Fever" for the new millenium.

I'm disappointed. I think that those characters should sing songs about themselves and not just the disco songbook.

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