By Jessica Anstice
Cardinia Performing Arts Company worked tirelessly through the coronavirus lockdown to finish more than 200 spectacular costumes and style 100 wigs that will now grace the stage in April.
When Covid-19 shut its production down in its tracks in early March last year, the performing arts company wasn’t deterred from doing what it loves.
Performers continued to rehearse via digital technologies for its upcoming production of the Victorian Amateur Premiere of Priscilla Queen of the Desert – The Musical.
In 1994 an independent Aussie film about two drag queens and a transsexual woman on a fabulous road trip travelling across the desert from Sydney to the Alice became an unlikely worldwide box-office – and Oscar-winning – hit.
In 2006 the stage production premiered at the Lyric theatre in Sydney and has made its way to London’s West End, Broadway now to Pakenham.
With fun, friendship and discovery along the way, Priscilla addresses homophobia and transphobia in the wider Australian community in the late 1990s and the overall need for equality and acceptance in society.
Cardinia Performing Arts Company are celebrating 20 years of producing Music Theatre for the community and Priscilla Queen of the Desert makes the first show of its 20th year celebration.
“We survived a pandemic, held our head high, and have come out stronger than ever, despite this road bump,” Cardinia Performing Arts Company producer Scott Hili said.
Mr Hili has put a lot of love and camp into getting the bus back on the road post Covid.
“In an age of the glossy, beautiful drag popularised on RuPaul’s Drag Race, Stephen Elliot’s Priscilla still stands apart as a home grown Australian Musical,” he said.
“With our non-replica original production of this typical fish-out-of-water tale we continue to address LGBTQIAP+ concerns in Australian society using the arts to address and educate on these values using community theatre.”
“I cannot recommend Priscilla Queen of the Desert at CPAC highly enough. I’ve seen this cast at work and it’s going to be the best re-entry to music theatre after Covid-19 that will be talked about for years.”
