ROSIE: PURE INSPIRATION!

Rosie To Premiere At The Independent!

Introducing A Brilliant Team...

It was over 5 years ago now that I had the pleasure of being introduced to Peter Stannard and Gay Daniel. It was our first Kings Cross Arts Festival, and Peter played piano for the first public performance of music from 'Rosie' a new musical in the tradition of Broadway. Indeed in Peters own tradition, being the composer of the popular and record holding hit musical 'Lola Montez'.

At that time 'Rosie' was more of a dream than anything else, but years of perseverance against all obstacles (including the composing of  a wonderful concertino, the 'Enthion', which it was my honour to help bring to fruition)  has lead to this moment  where the curtain is about to rise on the stunning cast of 'Rosie'.

The picture depicts the creative team of producer Gay Laurance-Daniel, writer Frank Hatherley, composer Peter Stannard, and Musical Director Lindsay Partridge. I congratulate all connected with this wonderful new project and wish them every success.

Tony Johansen, Kings Cross

TICKET SPECIALS

Plenty of seats for musical theatre lovers at concession prices on sale now. Book now by phoning  9698 5675  to take advantage of this rare opportunity.

love to  see you there, Gay 

INTERVIEW WITH FRANK HATHERLEY

Frank was recently interviewed about ROSIE by David Spicer for a theatre magazine.

Q.  What is it about the story of Rosie that inspired you to write a musical about her?

A. The original inspiration to write a musical about Rose Shaw was producer Gay Daniel's. It was a very good idea. Here was a real Sydney character who for 40 years sang opera and operetta in Martin Place while she sold flowers from her stall. Thousands of ordinary people knew her during the day and a very different lot of rather extraordinary people knew her in her private life. Rosie's Kings Cross flat was famous for its goings-on, its ever-changing cast of bohemian characters. So when Gay asked me to read through her collected research I was intrigued. And when she told me that Peter Stannard was writing the songs I was convinced.

Q.  Was Rosie well known in her time?

A. Definitely - as a key member of the Sydney florists brigade, as an eccentric saleswoman in the centre of town for all those years, and as an inspiration to two or three generations of Kings Cross drop-outs, gays and nonconformists.

Q.  Did you ever meet her?

A. My first job out of high school was as a junior-junior advertising copywriter for a long-gone city department store called Ashleys-Buckingham. Our office was on the first floor of the Strand Arcade and most nights I walked down to the Quay to catch the Mosman ferry home. I clearly remember Rosie singing Vilia from 'The Merry Widow' as she sold her flowers to the passing trade. She had brightly coloured red hair. To my 18 year old eyes she looked far too outgoing and unpredictable, well worth avoiding.

Q.  How much of the musical is fact and how much is fiction?

A. Well, I read everything that Gay had collected about Rosie, press cuttings and newspaper mentions of her death in 1971. One of her young fans (she had many) was Philip Napier who self-published a glowing memoir of Rosie in 1994. It contained some excellent photographs and some interesting basic facts about, for instance, her upbringing in the East End of London. But there wasn't enough narrative or character detail to sustain a full-length drama. I soon realised that there was no way I could bring the real Rose Shaw back to life. I had to invent my own Rosie, in a story with a theme that interested me, with an unexpected narrative and a satisfying high-energy resolution.

Q.  Is the music in the style that she would have liked performing?

A. Probably not. She seemed to have been a bit of a musical snob, much more interested in opera and ballet, in High Culture. It's a great clash, really - there she is, a street person, 40 years on her feet in Martin Place dressed in gumboots and layers of clothes, and at night she would dress in her satins, jewellery and furs, hire a Rolls Royce and sit in her favourite seat at the ballet. The time span of the musical stretches from the 20s in London to the 70s in Sydney, and Peter Stannard made the correct decision in my view not to change the style of music as we move through the decades. It's pure melodic Stannard all the way. (Except we do have a terrific Jitterbug in the 40s!)

Q.  What will the audience take away from the show - in respect to their impression of Rosie?

A. At this unrehearsed, early stage I can only tell you what I hope they'll take away. Our Rosie is a warm, tough, caring, non-judgemental person, who inspires love and affection in Martin Place and Kings Cross. But she has some difficulties in assessing her own talents and the effect she has on those who love her. Our Rosie has inappropriate aspirations - she follows dreams that can never be realised. But she has a hell of a life, an inspiring life - a real Sydney life.

Q.  Geraldine Turner as Rosie - how excited are you to have her as your leading lady?

A. How lucky are we! Of course, everything hung on the casting of Rosie, who is actually never off the stage. She's either telling us about her life or re-living it for us. Actually, I tell a lie, she does leave the stage once in the First Act - to do the world's fastest quick change! Geraldine hardly hesitated, or so it seemed to me. I sent her the script, she could see the songs were by Stannard, and she said Let's go! I could hardly believe it. To hear her read the lines, start to find the character, is a great joy. I have no doubt that she will be wonderful. She will make you laugh and make you cry and fill your soul with happiness. What more could you want from a musical?

Q.  How are the Elizabethan Theatre Trust helping and what is their connection to you or Peter?

A. Peter's musical Lola Montez was the Trust's first musical production. This was in 1959. I clearly remember the big hit song 'Saturday Girl'. The show was very big, an important landmark in Australian theatre history, and is still being revived regularly by amateur companies. And in the 90s the Trust awarded Peter a scholarship to study musicals in New York. So when the revitalised Trust decided to celebrate their 50th Anniversary in 2005, they agreed to mark their new ownership of the beautiful Independent Theatre, North Sydney, by hosting Peter's new musical - Rosie.

The Real Rosie

Sydney has long been famous for  its eccentrics - like serial taxi-jumper Bea Miles and wandering  ‘Eternity Man’ Arthur Stace. And then there was Rose Shaw, Sydney's singing flower girl, pictured at left offering a bouquet of song and blooms for the passing trade.

Rosie sold flowers from her stall  in Martin Place for nearly 40 years. With her voluminous layers of street  clothes, her gumboots and her luridly red hair, she sang aria's as she sold her  flowers. Her inner-city customers loved her for her operatic trills, her  brash and unstoppable good humour.

She died in 1971, though many Sydneysiders  still vividly remember her.

She came to Australia in  1927 after a childhood in the East End of London. Her father was a displaced  Russian Jew; her mother a cockney. Rosie had dreams of singing opera and  dancing ballet at Covent Garden. A Sydney florist was hardly what she planned  to be.

A street trader by day, Rosie led  quite a different sort of life at night. She attended all the best first  nights dressed up to the nines, and her Kings Cross flat in the 40s, 50s and  60s was a notorious magnet for bohemians, gays and assorted Sydney drop-outs.  She often described herself as ‘Mother of All the Queens'.

Geraldine Turner Stars In Rosie: The Musical

Geraldine Turner, one of  Australia’s best known and best loved performers is performing the  title role in the new musical “Rosie”,  opening on Saturday 6th August at the Independent Theatre, North  Sydney.

It was a considerable coup for Flairessence  Productions to sign up such a star for their premiere of this new musical, written  by Sydney composer Peter Stannard and Sydney playwright Frank Hatherley.

“I feel a sense of history  about this musical because Peter Stannard wrote it – he wrote Lola Montez,  one of the great Australian musicals” Geraldine said during a break  in rehearsals today. “It’s an honour to be appearing in his  show”.
Rosie tells the story of Rose Shaw, the vividly eccentric character who  sold flowers from her stall in Martin Place for 40 years. Rosie also had a  bohemian Kings Cross lifestyle. “It’s really important for us  to tell our stories” said Geraldine. “This is a wonderful  story, a wonderful script, fantastic music and the best cast I’ve  worked with in years”.

Says Hatherley: “Rosie was  a huge personality of her time, a real icon of inner Sydney. We needed a  mature performer who could sing dance and act – but also be a  stand-up comedian, because Rosie is never off stage, telling her life  story”.

The team were delighted when  Geraldine agreed to read the script and hear the songs. They say they were ‘gobsmacked’  when she swiftly agreed to lead the acting company of ten.

“Once Geraldine agreed, we  were then able to ask some of the best people around to join us” says  Hatherley.  The cast soon included Angela Toohey, Rodney Dobson, Jillian O’Dowd, and other high-class performers.

Geraldine has previously wowed  theatre-going audiences in musicals (“The Witches of Eastwick”,  “Oliver”, “Chicago”, “A Little Night  Music”, “Sweeney Todd”) operas and operettas (“La  Belle Helene”, “HMAS Pinafore”), plays and films. Her many concert and cabaret performances have taken her across Australia,  Britain, USA, Germany, even Africa.

The Tenacious Producer

In 1995 Gay  Daniel had an idea, a great idea, for a new Australian musical. She  remembered Rose Shaw, the opera-singing flower seller who ran a stall in  Martin Place for nearly 40 years. Thats Gay in the center of the photo, with composer Peter Stannard (left) and writer, Frank  Hatherley. From Gay's background in theatre and the Music Hall at Neutral Bay has grown the conviction that the time is right for a new musical full of the full of the sort of beautiful music that inspired Rose Shaw as she dreamed of the stage while selling flowers.

For the music and songs she turned  to her old friend Peter Stannard. Peter had made a major contribution to  Australian theatre history when he wrote the memorable score for “Lola Montez”,  an Elizabethan Theatre Trust production in 1959. Songs from this gold rush  story had made the hit parade, and the musical is often revived by community  theatre companies.

Next, she rang Sydney playwright  Frank Hatherley in London. Would he care to devise a treatment that would  tell Rosie’s story around Peter’s first handful of songs? “Rosie”  emerged.

Frank returned to Sydney and  wonderful new songs were piling up on Peter’s piano. Years of  polishing, rewriting and reconstructing followed - with readings, concerts, presentations and a full workshop at Taree with Hazel Phillips as Rosie.

Late in 2004 Gay  Daniel saw a great opportunity to move “Rosie”  a huge step forward. The Elizabethan Theatre Trust, who had purchased the  beautiful old Independent Theatre in North Sydney, wanted to host Peter Stannard’s  new musical. And so, on August 6th, ten years after she had the idea, Gay Daniel will be the proud producer of a brand new Sydney musical.

Opening Night Success

Rosie opened to a packed Theatre on Saturday 6th August. Geraldine Turner was magical as the older 'Rosie'. Her experience and presense on stage provided an anchor for the romp through the special life of Rosie, who dreamed of being a star, but lacked both the tenacity to make it big on the stage, and the inability to see that her life as it was was as much theatre as anything else, and as such, she was always a star to those around her.

Jillian O'Dowd as the younger Rosie was the surprise package, her voice clear and beautiful sent shivers up and down my spine at times. It should be mentioned here that Rosie is performed entirely without amplification, a pleasure in an age of weak voices with wireless mics. Jillian needed no artificial boost as her voice filled the auditorium with ease.

But it was Rodney Dobson as 'George' the reluctant artist who had the song of the show according to many, including myself. The song, 'Never Wait Until Tomorrow'  is  a beautiful piece of music that Dobson sings with sensitivity and emotion that powerfully engaged the audience. George, the reluctant anti hero is the sympathetic favourite among Rosie's retinue of lovable friends.

This cast is simply brilliant. The applause at the end and happy smiling faces afterward reward enough for for a  fabulous performance. Congratulations all.

Last Days. Last Performance Next Saturday

Hurry for the last few tickets for this season of Rosie. Show must end on Saturday 3rd September. All good things come to an end and Rosie is no exception. All the memories of a bygone era, and the wonderful character that was Rose Shaw on stage Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, 6 only performances. Don't miss out on this special all Australian musical. Thank you Rosie, you have won our hearts.

Rosie Artwork

Rosie is the story of a singing flower seller. But it is also the story of her relationship with Kings Cross artist's, from Norman Lindsay to George, the reluctant hero.

The theatre foyer appropriately has exhibitions of Rosie related artwork and in the audience was a real life Kings Cross artist, Tony Johansen aka TonyJohansen.com. The Left hand image is a small watercolour done by Tony in the darkness of the theatre of a scene at the beginning of the musical. "It wasn't easy seeing the colours and some of it was kind of guess work, but I could relate to the characters and felt inspired by the performances" he said.

The other image is a digital image made during the same performance, begun during the second act, and perfected later in the studio. Kings Cross artist's  were always bohemians at the cutting edge of modern art. Here is the evidence that the spirit of Rose Shaw and her friends live on in the modern Kings Cross. 

Click on images to enlarge.