GLOBAL CREATURES brand new Musical KING KONG is an unprecedented production on the grandest of scales.
At the King Kong launch, we caught up with cast and crew for some further information on this amazing new production:
Producer Carmen Pavlovich
“Global Creatures attracted world wide attention with our productions of ‘Walking with Dinosaurs’ and ‘How to Train Your Dragon’. The animatronics we developed … were ground breaking and helped establish our company with a point of difference. … The company is about bringing to life great stories that capture the imagination of audiences worldwide … what could be more adventurous than bringing to the stage one of the most iconic stories of our time – a six metre high gorilla for a leading man who is hairy in more ways than one. We have had King Kong in development for nearly five years now … the entire production has been conceived on a grand scale combining puppetry, circus, projection and an amazing book and score. Our ambition ultimately is to roll this production out around the world but first to Australia. Here we wanted to create a Musical Theatre event and decided to play one city only – what better city than Melbourne.. and what better street than Collins Street to evoke 1933 and what better theatre than the Regent Theatre for an environment of opulence and pure class.
“Creating a new show is like launching a rocket to the moon and all you can do is cling to your creative team for dear life and hope that you will make it there is one piece … we have assembled some of the finest collaborators of our creative industry today. This team is led by Daniel Kramer as Director. I was interested in Daniel …mostly because I felt that he represented the voice of today.”
Director, Daniel Kramer:
“What an honour to work with this amazing creative team and .. to have Carmen Pavlovich trust me at the helm of this production.
“Love and loss are at the heart of the story of King Kong – a story of a young heroic woman who crosses the dark waters and confronts the face of evil itself only to find beauty in his shadow and her challenge to come back and convince the world to see his beauty through her eyes before he and his culture is annihilated forever. It is the tale of two islands – one island where man’s creations scrape the heels of God … another island where man lives in fear of God’s wrath. An adventure, a thriller, a musical roller coaster … of beauty and her beast.”
Esther Hannaford (Character of Ann Darrow):
“I feel very honoured and excited to be around such an amazing team of people! There are world renowned artists from Australia that went into this project and it is such a creative process for everyone.I’m excited for people to go on that epic journey with the character Anne. I’m most excited about that because I feel like it has the opportunity to not only move people but to change people.”
Chris Ryan (Character of Jack)
“This is the first official musical I’ve been involved in. I decided at the beginning of the year that I wanted to sing again and do something musical. So, I told my agent that and then this audition popped up pretty soon after that. The most exciting part about it, for something of this scale, is the collaborative nature of everyone involved. All the actors, performers, Daniel the director and creative music people because they are creating something from scratch. It’s the creation of a role and something for the Muso’s and the creative side is so collaborative you know. Its like you could come in with an idea or say what works and talk with him about it to try and solve the problems so… the actual rehearsal process is unlike anything really. Usually you know, you do what you’re told, there’s not much room to more. This is really collaborative and organic.
Queenie Van De Zandt (Character of Cassandra):
“I’m very excited for this production particularly that it is all Australian-made! I have known of my casting for quite a while, which is kind of funny these days – you know you’re in it but you can’t say anything for ages. So it’s nice to finally have it out and be able to talk about it. It’s been amazing; such an experience. I don’t have to talk it up; I don’t have to do anything. I can just tell the truth because it’s absolutely going to be brilliant! I’m the only person out of the cast that’s actually seen one of the versions of the beast and it is extraordinary … I cried! And I saw the set being worked on and it’s just …‘oh my god’ … so beautiful and that’s really what I think is important to the audience. It’s a love story between two different people – Ann’s love story with Jack of course and then her love story with the beast. I think it’s an incredibly brave Australian production… it is so beautiful. It’s fantastic we don’t need to look outside of Australia, we can do it here!”
Richard Piper (Character of Captain Engelhorn)
“The feeling about it is so up and happy and of course there is a side of excitement. Even we haven’t seen King Kong yet. We haven’t seen the motion, we haven’t seen the Ape yet and – ahh – that’s going to be very exciting for us. I do like the design, I like all the sets. When that monkey leans out over the audience and touches somebody a little bit. He is looking for Anne that includes the audience as well so it’s pretty exciting. It is very great that its based here in Australia, but it’s the biggest production in the world!
Never before seen on stage – KING KONG the Musical is a timeless story brought to life in a ground breaking new musical production exclusive to the Regent Theatre Melbourne which opens 15th June 2013.
