Rock Apocalypse - Perth

I've been watching this thread with interest having seen the final matinee and after reading some of the more recent replies I feel like it's time I weighed in. Firstly a few comments on the thread itself. Ben and Tim are correct, several of the replies have not been reviews, they have been attacks. But for the director of the show to get on here and be just as petty ("you’re a third year student and you write this badly?") is not a good way to go. I feel I should also point out "Tim" that if you're going to attack your critics for being anonymous then: a) Maybe you should follow the free registration link yourself. b) You should take note that your supporters are just as anonymous, which to the outside cynic looks a little dodgy. Now. Onto the "review". Simply put, this production was under cooked. It lacked polish. I have never walked out on a show but I honestly came close on doing so during this one. The show was not good, you need to accept that. I will now try to give feedback on where the show was good and bad and ways you might of improved it. A frequent complaint I've seen is the temperature. This is true, the venue was stifling. I was sitting directly under a fan and couldn't feel any air movement. The line that you have no control over the heat is not entirely true. You could of turned the fans up, you could of used a different venue. Or, my preferred option, you could of pushed back your performances until after the air conditioning was fixed in the venue. This would of made everyone more comfortable and given you time to polish the production. Oh, also Tim. If you think the script is a 'turd' then WHY the FRAK did you direct it? It seems the most obvious way to improve this production would of been to start off with a good script that you were actually passionate about. There are a lot of scripts out there, even for musicals. I find it hard to believe you looked through every script available and found this one to be best. Hell, track down some WAPA 3rd year to write you a script. Now. Choreography. Where was it? I saw evidence of choreography in the first and last songs and during the big entry to the institute number. The rest of the time the chorus were obviously standing in a row along the back making it up as they went along. And according to the programme I have, the girl who played Tiff also choreographed, which is confusing to me seeing as in the last song she seemed to be basically watching Dawn to try and figure out what to do. Also, marching on the spot was not particularly entertaining. This was a problem I noticed throughout the production. You had bad use of space and people. Most of the action seemed to center around the back of the stage, pull it forward. The entrances through the audience were an interesting touch and broke it up a little. You also seemed to under utilise your Deadheads. During the last number for instance you could of had the Dead Heads on stage as well, marching beside the 3 or 4 mains. Flow. This play did not. Scene changes felt like they dragged and I have a feeling there was one or two instances of dead stage. From what I can tell there was also a lot of ad libbing going on. This is a problem because it did not flow, it didn't fit a lot of the time (The scene where Tiff is trying to restore Ash's brain and he keeps jumping off the table springs to mind) and it also raises some copyright issues I believe. Which is surprising considering how careful you were apparently being to not breach copyright. Something that annoyed me throughout is that Ash was not mic'ed. He should of had a headset microphone like Dawn. Also, Ash (Ben..?) you need to slow down a bit and work on your projection mate. I found you hard to hear and some of your lines ended up garbled. I also saw you seemingly grinning about your clever ad libs once or twice which annoyed me. Stay in character mate. Tiffany pulled off sultry quite well. I think I'd have to agree that the poison strip tease dragged on a bit, though I did see the symbolism of the song. Tiff, if you read this, I'm sorry but your singing was weak and seemed a bit off key. Maybe spend some more time with the music director? Tim, your Valiant portrayal was pretty good. I didn't really like the death metal style song, but some of your other songs were definetly good and your acting was pretty good. I'm worried that you having to take on the role cost the play in terms of direction though. I remember once scene where the spy character snuck on stage to take photos but was blocked by several other bodies milling around making it.. awkward. Perhaps you could of gotten a director you've worked with before to take over or act as assistant director? On a random note, the flashing homing bug was good. For about 5 minutes. Then it became a distraction, I found myself constantly watching someone's flashing pocket waiting for it to be turned off. On a somewhat similar note, maybe a centre stage set-up for the projector? Off to the side like it was I'm not sure if people had a chance to take in what was going on on it. Dawn was good. Great singing, good acting. I was a little confused by her reactions once or twice, but I suspect this was here trying to respond to another cast members 'clever ad lib'. As someone else commented, the sound operator was terrible. They needed more practice or a replacement. Mic's cutting in half way through verses in a musical is really bad. I also found Asha nd Valiant collecting a microphone from off stage sort of... illusion breaking. Maybe have a dead head run it on instead? Also, a real "BANG" sound effect for the guns would of been good. Make-up and costuming was pretty good, though I'm not sure how appropriate some of the clothing was. What era was this play set in? the only dates mentioned were 58/59 which lead me to believe it must be set somewhere in the sixties. On a front of house note, asking your audience to pay $1 for a cup of cordial on a stinking hot day seems like blatant profiteering. Maybe at least offer free refills or free water? $1 for the cup and all the cordial I can make and drink myself would of been alright. That's all I can think of. I hope you've all learned a lot from this play. I'd also argue that the loss of revenue from pulling the play might be better than the loss of revenue through reputation damage. This really was a dissapointing showing. Better luck next time. -Stuart the non-anonymous