Click on each image to read more about the shows.
All Fired Up
La Bella Figura
Banging On The Door
Rosa
ALL FIRED UP
Saturday 10 Sept, The Events Centre, Caloundra, 8pm – Tickets and details at https://theeventscentre.com.
Sunday 11 Sept, Brisbane Festival, South Bank Piazza, 6pm – Tickets and details at https://www.
Friday 23 Sept, Redland Performing Arts Centre, 730pm – Tickets and details coming soon
About
ALL FIRED UP by Rachel Terry and Roz Pappalardo
Take two regional creatives and best mates in Rachel Terry and Roz Pappalardo, inspiration from a series of rocking female 80’s musicians, a few ‘writing trips’ to Port Douglas, and an opportunity to premier the work at iconic city venue, Brisbane Powerhouse, as the show’s ‘out of town try-out’, and what do you get? A cranking and heartwarming rock cabaret telling the story of one woman’s epic mid life crisis solved by a touch of time- travel and a close encounter with her younger self and the favourite songs of her youth – All Fired Up.
Roz Pappalardo, known for her long term music career thanks to women in docs, solo releases, The Soldiers Wife community engagement project, and now Lontano, and Rachel Terry, NIDA trained actor, writer, community engagement specialist, choreographer and director, both live in Cairns, nestled betwixt ancient rainforest and untouched pristine croc inhabited beaches.
The inspiration to write All Fired Up came from their shared experience of growing up in isolated locations, relying on their books, music, dancing and imagination for inspiration, and a question around how the artistic engagements of our youths can impact the people we ultimately become.
A jammed packed show, part rock concert, part energetic dance class, part heartfelt theatre piece, featuring Rachel Terry and her real-life 16 year old daughter, Scarlett Terry, as the protagonists who time travel to tell the story of the power of the arts solving life’s problems, and Roz Pappalardo as your favourite radio DJ “Neon”, life advice expert, and singer of 20 hit songs of the 80’s fronting a powerful live band expertly moving from one musical style to another; this show will inspire, excite and literally have you and all of your family and friends singing and dancing on your seats.
All Fired Up – solving the problems of your world, one 80’s song at a time,
Written by Rachel Terry and Roz Pappalardo
Directed by Rachel Terry and David Terry
Musical Direction by Roz Pappalardo
Choreography by Rachel Terry
Lighting Design by Jason Glenwright
Sound Design by Mick Allen
Production Manager Sam Gibb
Featuring Roz Pappalardo, Rachel Terry and Scarlett Terry
Live Band Tnee Dyer, Thomas Lever, Cameron Nicholls and Mike Turner
Co-starring hand selected community dancers – The Hot Boxes.
La Bella Figura
About
La Bella Figura by Frank Dangelico, Roz Pappalardo, and Kathryn Ash
La Bella Figura (meaning, the beautiful image) is a new musical dramedy by second-generation, Italian-Aussies Frank Dangelico and Roz Pappalardo, and local playwright Kathryn Ash. Get ready to jump into the world of ‘la bella figura’ weaving its often-hilarious magic into the lives and careers of the children of Italian migrants.
Directed by JUTE’s Artistic Director, Suellen Maunder, herself a fourth generation Italian, with set design by Simona Cosentini and Simone Tesorieri, our resident Italian-Australian first-generation migrants, the play unpacks the complexities of being an Italian-Australian; steeped in the fading family legends of immigration, driven by family expectation to do well, and feeling challenged between the notion they have ‘made it’ into mainstream Aussie culture and the need to keep that which is precious and meaningful about their heritage.
According to Roz and Frank, ‘la bella figura’ makes its presence known in all manner of ways, but is essentially about pride in family and pride in heritage which sometimes means ‘keeping up appearances’ and being conscious of ‘how things look’.
La Bella Figura is an authentic theatre experience, filled with warmth, comedy and deeply moving moments. It will have you going from toe-tapping original songs by local composer Rubina Kimiia, to fighting back tears over the poignant storytelling.
Featuring: Roz Pappalardo and Frank Dangelico
Director: Suellen Maunder
Composer/Choir Master/Music Director: Rubina Kimiia
Costume and Set Designer: Simona Cosentini
Set Designer: Simone Tesorieri
Lighting Designer: Jason Glenwright
Sound Designer: Guy Webster
Projection Designer: Nathan Sibthorpe
Choreographer: Rachel Terry
Banging on the Door
About
A ballsy, irreverent, tear-jerking, stupidly funny, Spumante flavoured, folk music/comedy romp through a story of modern fertility. No fancy sets, no tricks of the light, no costume changes – just Roz, her voice, her guitar, a trestle table and a script. Best known as one half of Queensland’s favourite song writing duo, Women in Docs, Roz Pappalardo takes this often taboo subject and shows us another side of it – telling the truth, crying, laughing and singing her god-damned guts out. Funny, poignant and personal, don’t miss Banging on the Door.
Review
Elodie Boal
scenestr.com.au
Monday, 26 November 2018
Roz Pappalardo is a name we should remember. A storyteller of our time, her work can only be described as ‘wow’ and ‘powerfully fragile’. She deserved a sell-out audience, as she holds an influence that gets people right in the feels.
Rosa
About
FEATURING Roz Pappalardo DIRECTED BY Suellen Maunder DESIGNER Alison Ross LIGHTING DESIGNER Tom Willis SOUND DESIGNER Peter Bishop & Roz Pappalardo DRAMATURG Peter Matheson & Kathryn Ash ORIGINAL SONGS Roz Pappalardo.
Roz has embraced an opportunity to tell a story inspired by her family through the medium of theatre and has recorded four of the play’s key songs, with the ARIA award winning talents of Nigel Pegrum at Pegasus Studios, to be released as an EP to complement the production. The show opened Friday 15 July, 2011, to a standing ovation.
“I am thrilled to be working with JUTE Theatre to produce “Rosa”. Theatre is such a powerful platform for storytelling and to able to combine this with my experience in song writing and recording is such a joy and honour,” Roz says.
Roz’s debut work as a playwright, “Rosa”, was borne from a discussion with Suellen Maunder, the Artistic Director of JUTE Theatre, Australia’s foremost regional professional theatre company, following JUTE’s enthralling 2010 production of Blackbird by Megan Samardin.
Roz was moved by the production’s ability to tell the story of a family’s history through a combination of music, song and the spoken word. “Roz came to me and said she would love to write a play that tells the story of her own family’s heritage.”
Suellen says the end result, “Rosa”, ‘is a beautiful story and I expect to see a few tears in the audience but Roz also has such a hilarious way with storytelling that the tears will quickly turn to laughter. Really what you’ll get is this amazing voice that will fill the theatre as you’re taken on this wonderful journey about her grandmother “Rosa”, her Sicilian background and how her family migrated to Australia and settled on a sugarcane farm near Mena Creek in the far north”.
Reviews
Denise Carter
timeOut Cairns Post
17 July 2011
“There are various ways in which to judge a production’s value. How it looks, whether it makes you think and the standard of the performances can all be considered, but the best thing a play can do is to move the audience emotionally.
Then you’re not so much looking at scenery or costumes, or reasoning intellectually about the essence of the play, because you’re almost too engrossed to notice.
So it was with Roz Pappalardo’s performance of her new play, Rosa. The one-act play was part of Two 4 One, a double dish-up by JUTE Theatre in association with Paronella Park.
Pappalardo’s play is loosely based on her grandparents’ love story in their home of Sicily and follows their migration to Mena Creek in Far North Queensland. She is the lost singer-songwriter at the beginning, not sure, as often is the case in moments of people’s lives, if she is following the right path, and so she lands in a world, real or imagined, of her grandmother in Sicily. Pappalardo’s voice is powerful and she sings her original songs with great passion.
The audience seemed mesmerised as she seamlessly flowed from character to character, often at great speed, playing herself, her grandmother and her great-grandmother. So good was her acting, and Sue-ellen Maunder’s direction, that with a minimal set, I could visualise a street scene with all its characters before me, and every scene even though there was only ever one actor on stage.
It’s a moving piece of theatre, about drawing inspiration from the journeys of our ancestors, both physically and emotionally, and Pappalardo squeezed every last drop out of the audience, receiving a standing ovation at the play’s end on opening night.”
Glyn Davies
Independent Reviewer for Arts Nexus
July 2011
“There must be something in the air, or more likely the water, at Mena Creek. It is an enchanting place, an aqueous jewel set against the dark green backdrop of the North Queensland rain forest. Over recent time it has inspired some amazing events – the building of Paronella Park in the 30s, its rebirth after continual cyclonic inundations and a great fire. It was the stamping ground of the young Geoffrey Rush, and more recently has brought forth two captivating musical plays. The latest of these, Rosa, is the creation of well-known singer-songwriter, Roz Pappalardo, who tells in song and dramatic re-enactment the story of her family’s migration from Sicily to a cane farm on Mena Creek.
Filled with Italian exuberance, tinged with sadness and regret, and uplifting at the same time, this is a lovely, lovely piece of musical theatre. Roz claims it is not entirely biographical. Even so, it features an eponymous character called Roz, who travels back to the Sicilian town of Fondachello to relive in part the story of her family’s emigration. The subsequent scenes require the actor Roz to recreate herself, her spirited grandmother as a young girl, and her great-grandmother. She has to slip in and out of past and present, while at the same time offering a musical accompaniment to the action of the play. To say that Roz Pappalardo’s accomplishment as playwright, actor and singer is a tour de force is an understatement. The audience was blown away as was I, by the audacity of the enterprise and the brilliant way it was carried off.
I last saw Roz on stage earlier this year and was impressed with her vocal talent and her acting. While her writing has revealed an entirely new side to her multi-faceted personality, her performance in this play is startling. Though it may seem so, it is not at all easy to play one’s self, let alone one’s teenage grandmother and her mother as well. Yet, Roz slips in and out of these three roles with consummate ease, moving from the exasperated and world-weary contemporary Roz, to the charming and capricious Rosa, seeking romance and adventure, and then in a flash to the comic Italian “Mama” who constantly gives her daughter motherly advice, gesticulates wildly, sprouts Italian adages, and tries to marry her off against her will….”
“Rosa” at your venue
“Rosa” is a 50 min, one woman play. The play focuses on three character’s journeys told through dialogue and original song. The play can be performed using minimal set and light cues, as well as minimal sound design. There is a need within the play for certain sounds cues, so a minimal PA set up is required.
Interested in having “Rosa”? – contact JUTE Theatre Company or Roz Pappalardo, the playwright.
JUTE’s ‘Rosa’ by Roz Pappalardo – Production Excerpts