Australian story premieres in New York
New York: It seems like a story unlikely to be told in song, let alone on a stage in Manhattan. But Tuesday night’s musical adaptation of Joan Lindsay’s classic novel Picnic at Hanging Rock will have its world premiere at a 200-seat theater off-Broadway in the heart of Greenwich Village.
“It’s a universal story, but a very specific Australian landscape, character and culture is woven into it,” says composer Greta Gertler Gold, one of the project’s creators. “I’ve never seen this in New York.”
It’s a daunting task: re-imagining one of Australia’s most beloved and important books (not to mention the Peter Weir movie) nearly 60 years later and on the other side of the world.
Gold and playwright co-creator Hilary Bell Picnic for about five years; Bell wrote the script and lyrics, and Gold wrote the music and arrangements. This is their third musical project together after adapting their children’s books. Red Tree And Alphabetical Sydney.
“We always wanted to write a musical for adults,” says Gold. “I wanted to explore something very female-centric and Australian, and I’m always interested in darker genre musicals or unsuspecting stories.”
Picnic It tells the story of three boarding school students and their female teacher who disappeared while having a picnic at Victoria’s Hanging Rock on Valentine’s Day in 1900. Only one of the girls was later found, traumatized, and the mystery remained unsolved.
Gold says the musical draws on portions of Lindsay’s “secret” episode 18, which was omitted from the original book and released after her death, and provides some answers as to what might have happened to the girls.
With permission from Lindsay’s estate and input from Indigenous dramaturg Nick Harvey-Doyle, the musical also reinvents one of the novel’s young male characters, Albert, as an Aboriginal scout.
Most of the cast is American, but former Sydney native Kaye Tuckerman plays governess and maths teacher Greta McCraw, while assistant costume designer Jemima Firestone Greville is another Australian transplant to the Big Apple.
Americans have had to learn the Australian accent, but Gold says it’s not as difficult as it sounds — thanks in large part to a certain anthropomorphic cartoon pup.
“Most young actors grew up with these Bluish – it’s very well ingrained in their consciousness,” he says. “Some of them also watch Steve Irwin’s son on TV.”
For those unfamiliar, Robert Irwin last month won the US edition related to Dancing with the StarsIt was watched by just over 9 million Americans.
development Picnic Creative Australia, Create NSW and Hayes Theater Co also supported, as did the Australian Consulate General in New York and private investors.
Gold co-wrote The Whitlams classic before moving abroad in 1999. Blast the Slots frontman Tim Freedman, as well as one of the band’s darkest songs about lost young men. Charlie No.3.
Interested in New York City’s music scene from a young age, he moved there in his late 20s after a brief tour in Germany with the support of an Australian singer-songwriter.
At the end of the tour, Gold says, “I asked them to fly me to New York instead of Australia,” using the tour money and his cousin’s bed as a springboard to a new life in the big city.
While Australian actors have found success in Hollywood and on Broadway, it’s relatively rare for American audiences to encounter Australian stories. Last year, the New York Public Theater hosted a limited number of shows. Counting and BreakingA 3.5-hour play about multiple generations of a Sri Lankan family migrating to Australia was originally developed by Sydney’s Belvoir St Theatre.
“As a long-time Australian living in New York, it is very gratifying to bring this culture to life on stage here,” says Gold.
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Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political correspondent in Canberra.Connect with: excitement or email.
