Ben Apfelbaum

MURIEL’S WEDDING THE MUSICAL – YOU’RE NOT TERRIBLE, YOU’RE BACK!

The theatrical slogan ‘Back By Popular Demand’ in the case of MURIEL’S WEDDING THE MUSICAL is not a mere lure but absolutely true.

The initial season at the Roslyn Packer Theatre was over subscribed many times over. Nevertheless this time around it is only playing from July 4 for a strictly limited ten week season at the Lyric Theatre.

At the Media Call where two  numbers were show cased – ‘Sydney’ and ‘Here Coms The Bride’, the set designer and the cast seemed to relish the larger stage area afforded at  the Lyric.

It is also a victim of its own success as the original leads Maggie McKenna and Madeline Jones were spirited away from the 2019 season. Maggie McKenna is appearing in a US National tour of Dear Evan Hansen whilst Madeleine Jones is appearing in the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child show in Melbourne.

Despite Elaine Simpson, the show’s Assistant Director declaring at the Media Call that it was good to be back at the musical’s spiritual home, it did have an ‘off Broadway’ season in Melbourne.

The new leads Natalie Abbott as Muriel and Stefanie Jones as best friend Rhonda received rave reviews from the Melbourne press.

In its initial run it garnered five Helpmann Awards, seven Sydney Theatre awards, the David Williamson Prize, an  Awgie award and an Aria award nomination. This year  the show collected two  further Helpmann award nominations for Natalie Abbott as Best Female Actor In A Musical and Pippa Grandison for Best Female Actor in A Supporting Role In A Musical.

In its debut season, this sunny, warm and poignant musical was the perfect complement to a Sydney summer.  In a cold and sometimes rainy winter the generated heat, laughter, infectious music and dance, and sheer, glittering brilliance will bring  a radiant glow to  banish the winter gloom.

MURIEL’S WEDDING THE MUSICAL opens at the Lyric Theatre on Thursday 4th July, 2019.

For further details visit http://www.murielsweddingthemusical.com

All pics by Ben Apfelbaum

 

Published by Ben Apfelbaum

My photography began when my father handed me the proverbial brownie box camera as a child. As cameras developed I went through Fujica and Olympus range finders graduating to my first single lens reflex camera, the Minolta SRT101, the latter being the greatest facilitator to my growth as a photographer. Digital photography has only added to this. I was a regular contributor to Camera Craft magazine (Australian Camera ) for over three years. During Australia’s Bicentennial year (1988) I made it a personal project to document the celebrations. This culminated in the creation of a book of my photos which was published in 1989. The book was called CELEBRATING AUSTRALIA and came with an accompanying calendar. My works have appeared in a number of publications including the coffee book entitled MY AUSTRALIA (1989), publisher Robertsbridge Severn. This book had a preface by the then Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. I was a co-photographer on a book entitled SYDNEY- DISCOVER THE CITY with text written by Robert Treborlang. Major Mitchell Press was the publisher. Also for two years I was the photographer for calendars celebrating Sydney’s multicultural communities. The two calendars were entitled MULTICULTURAL SYDNEY. My work appeared in a group exhibition held at Sydney’s Town Hall pertaining to the diversity of life in South America to raise money for orphanages there. I have over one hundred photos stored in the New South Wales State Library archive. I had a solo exhibition held in 2007 entitled Ben’s Lens at the Sydney Jewish Museum which celebrated the vibrancy of the Sydney Jewish community. Some of these photos are on the Museum’s permanent display. I have exhibited internationally firstly at the Spruill Gallery in Atlanta Georgia, United States, and in an exhibition entitled Kosher and Co at the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Currently I am a regular contributor to J-Wire and this esteemed publication. To celebrate the opening of a permanent Photography Gallery, the State Library of New South Wales selected 400 shots from its archive of over 2,000,000 images to display in the new gallery. An image of mine was plucked out of the multi million photo archive to be part of the inaugural exhibition.