Murray Bridge community choir selected for Festival Centre performance
An amateur singing group will take to the stage with the State Theatre Company this November.
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A Murraylands choir will get to perform on one of South Australia’s most prestigious stages this November after being chosen for a production by the State Theatre Company.
Members of the Murray Bridge Community Choir will make a cameo at the Adelaide Festival Centre in a performance of The Heartbreak Choir, the last play by the late writer Aidan Fennessy.
The show focuses on five people who decide to break away from their previous choir on a matter of principle and start their own singing group, with a gig booked and Sangiovese wine to spare.
The State Theatre Company described it as being about grief, community and learning to hold each other up when life strikes the wrong chord.
“The Heartbreak Choir will make you laugh and cry, and hopefully it’ll make you join a choir, because if your heart is breaking, the best thing you can do – it seems – is sing,” actor and director Peter Houghton wrote in the show’s original program in 2022.
“For any of you who have herded the cats of a loved collective hobby, you’ll recognise the joys and frustrations of doing the thing you love with a bunch of people who start off as strangers and end up friends.
“The play is a living tribute to the power of friendship, an affirmation of community, and a poke in the eye for deceit and arrogance.”
Cabaret singer Libby O’Donovan will lead an all-South Australian cast, and a different community choir from somewhere in the state will make a cameo in each of the production’s 18 performances.
That will include Murray Bridge’s choir in the matinee performance on November 28.
Choir director Katie Wicker said she looked forward to seeing her little group of locals up on stage in the Dunstan Playhouse, which seats 600.
“I am really excited (we) get to perform with such a highly respected group as the State Theatre Company,” she said.
“It’s going to be a real proud moment for me to see everyone up there performing.”
- Tickets: my.statetheatrecompany.com.au.
- Join the choir: Email cathysmithmb1@gmail.com, call 0408 336 469 or attend a rehearsal from 5.30-6.30pm on Wednesdays at the Baden Powell Hall on Sixth Street, Murray Bridge.
- More information: For the choir, follow Murray Bridge Community Choir on Facebook; for the production, visit statetheatrecompany.com.au.
