Clancy Hits the Big Smoke: Our Showlab Adventure in Sydney

G’day Outbackers!

Earl here with more exciting updates about Clancy of the Outback: A Musical Adventure!

A few weeks ago, Dylan and I hopped on a plane at the crack of dawn and travelled all the way to Sydney. We were there to present the first 20 minutes of Clancy of the Outback as part of the Hayes Theatre Company’s Showlab program.

If you don’t know, Hayes Theatre Company are one of the leading institutions for developing new musicals in Australia, their Showlab is a day-long workshop where writers, performers and composers are selected to present a short excerpt from their project to a panel of industry professionals, and receive immediate, in-person feedback. When Dylan and I found out Clancy had been selected we were absolutely over the moon and immediately booked our flights to Sydney.

After a day of taking in the sights we met up with a brand new cast of actors (most of whom we’d never actually met in person before) for a whirlwind rehearsal to learn all the songs and get the show up on its feet. We had an incredible cast including Teo Persechino as Clancy, Emily Havea as his Mum, Ursula Searle as Little Bill and Cameron McCredie as Big Bill.

The following morning, we arrived at the Hayes Theatre. It was an incredible day of new musical theatre work; all in all there were 8 shows covering the widest range of source material, from deeply moving works about love to a comedy musical about the ‘succulent chinese meal’ man (if you don’t know who that is, you’ve got some Youtube-ing to do!). It was so inspiring to see so many exciting and varied shows, the future of Australian Musical Theatre truly is bright!

And then it was time for us to show off Clancy of the Outback! The cast were all absolutely fantastic, they had only had two hours to rehearse the day before and yet they performed like they’d been with the characters for months, it was a delight to watch. The response from the audience was just as fantastic, filled with laughter, toe tapping and some singing along. We received incredibly generous feedback from the whole artistic panel at the Hayes including: Amy Campbell, Brittanie Shipway, Zara Stanton, Katherine Thomson, Michael Tyack, Jonathan Ware and Richard Carroll. They not only provided great feedback on the story but gave us a wealth of avenues and opportunities to pursue to get this musical on-stage. We left feeling totally inspired and energised about the future of our little Aussie musical.

We spent the rest of the evening chatting with all the writers who came along, made fast new friends and then it was time to go home. It was an absolute whirlwind of a weekend that flew by faster than Little Bill and Clancy in a Paddock Bomb! We can’t wait to share with you everything we’ve been working on, we have much more in the pipeline for this show and you’ll hear all about it real soon! Until then, keep your eye on the website, follow @clancyoftheoutback and @marshallandmarrows on instagram, and check out a little snippet of the Sydney presentation below!

See ya,
Ya Galah!