News
What a show! Fintona’s first musical production since 2005, Xanadu, thrilled our Fintona community with four performances in May. This long awaited event brought together a fabulous group of students and staff from across the School and took over ten weeks to create this celebration of song, dance and acting. The process was both fun and challenging but all the hard work was worth it come opening night.
What a show! Fintona’s first musical production since 2005, Xanadu, thrilled our Fintona community with four performances in May. This long awaited event brought together a fabulous group of students and staff from across the School and took over ten weeks to create this celebration of song, dance and acting. The process was both fun and challenging but all the hard work was worth it come opening night.
Musicals are endeavours of enormous complexity but working with John Batterham, Andrea Mina, Lochlan Erard, Tanya Bail, Elliot Strand, Tony Keeble and Paige Thompson to lead this show was immensely enjoyable right from the start. We shared a vision for what Xanadu could become with the many talents of our students, all of whom were appearing in their first full-stage musical production.
Fintona students are special. As teachers we see their many skills every day in the classroom but in a musical we see not just their creative talents but, just as importantly, we see their kindness, their interpersonal maturity and their joy in learning. We feel so lucky to be part of a community of such dedicated, kind and creative learners. The cast and musicians embraced the challenge of Xanadu, spending many hours grappling with choreography, harmonies, cues, blocking and all four together and did so with great humour and encouragement for one another. Whether they were a performer, in the band or in the backstage or technical crew, it has been a pleasure to go on this journey with them and see each one achieve such personal and collaborative success.
Creatively, directing and designing Xanadu has involved drawing influence from Olivia Newton-John herself, the undeniably bad 1980 Xanadu film and Ancient Greek mythology. Every week, it was so much fun to see the cast members bring their characters to life in this magical, Californian- Ancient Greek-rollerskating world.
And now as I reflect on those ‘magical’ weeks of rehearsal and performances, I could not be more proud of what we achieved together and, like many of the cast members, look ahead to what might come next. Maybe Fintona won’t need to wait so long for its next musical!
Bronwyn Bye
Drama Learning Leader
