Lynch Paterson launch a ‘Season of Stories’
A main stage musical, a rock opera, an operetta, a concert, a South-East Queensland tour, a cabaret and a ballet – Lynch & Paterson’s 2021 season has announced there is something for everyone.
Part concert, part season launch, Lucas Lynch and Samantha Paterson revealed the “Season of Stories” at their razzle dazzle event at the Princess Theatre last Friday night. If the concert launch was anything to go by, the 2021 season is going to be filled with local talent, excellent music and quality theatre for anyone to enjoy.
The night began with a series of performances from shows intended for the company’s 2020 season, cancelled thanks to the COVID-shutdown. This included Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Send in the Clowns’ and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Take That Look Off Your Face’.
Of course, while this was a great warm-up act, the audience was more interested in what they had to look forward to rather than what COVID had denied them.
As such, the 2021 season will begin with a South East Queensland tour of their concert ‘A Morning With Bernstein’. Highlighting this production, Paterson sang the Bernstein classic ‘I Feel Pretty’, and announced this production is set to tour in February.
Lynch & Paterson will also return to the Princess Theatre for a second season of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta ‘The Pirates of Penzance’ with director, Michael Nunn, aiming to “explore ways in which some of the jokes, when it comes to the role of women, have aged”. The return season will begin in March.
Next on the docket is a concert to celebrate the “stalwarts of musical theatre repertoire”. ‘The classics of Rodgers and Hammerstein’ promises to keep us entertained from a beautiful morning to some enchanted evening. The hills are sure to be alive with the sound of music when this production takes off in May (pun intended).
From the moment Lynch began to play the iconic Andrew Lloyd-Webber overture it was apparent what was coming next. Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s rock Opera ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ is headed to the Princess Theatre in July. Director/Choreographer Maureen Bowra promised to honour the 51st anniversary of the original concept album by making a show that is “less theatre, more musical”. The buzz is sure to be happening when this show takes off next year.
Then we have what might be the biggest gamble of Lynch & Paterson’s 2021 season – the Australian ballet premiere of Ludwig Van Beethoven’s ‘The Creatures of Prometheus’. Lynch & Paterson both admit it is a big risk for them to produce “a ballet nobody has ever heard off” but Lynch jokes that “it helps me get my doctorate so it’s worth it.” With Choreography by Jayden Grogan and musicianship by the Cadenza Chamber Players, they will know if the risk has been worth it when it premieres in August.
Following this, the penultimate show of the season is an original cabaret by Lynch. ‘Lovestruck’ is described as “a comical and poignant look at modern life, love and relationships” and if the number they performed at the concert is anything to go by, this show is sure to be just that. The number, which Lynch swears is not based on his own mother, details the meeting of your new boyfriend’s mother and all the passive microaggressions that go-on between the two women in a straight man’s life. The cabaret hits audiences at the Sideshow in September.
Concluding the vibrant season, is the seminal Broadway classic ‘Les Miserables’. Paterson gushed that she has ‘dreamed a dream’ of doing this show with Les Mis being her “favourite musical ever”. She hopes she can bring justice to the classic when Lynch & Paterson produce it next November.
Formed in 2015, Lynch & Paterson aims to close the gap between community and professional theatre in Brisbane by maintaining a “strong pro-am model” and their 2021 season will be no exception.
For more information and to buy tickets to Lynch & Paterson’s 2021 season, visit their website.
