Adelaide Festival Centre FREE Open Day

Sunday 22 August 10am – 4pm Adelaide Festival Centre

The annual Festival FREE Day is here again. The Adelaide Festival Centre will open its doors and invite all South Australians to take a behind-the-scenes tour of the centre. A huge variety of activities will be available for the public to participate in, and include:

• Behind the Scenes Tours all day. Tour guides will reveal secrets of the intriguing and famous, take you into their dressing rooms and onto the Festival stage itself.
• The chance to learn about sound, lighting and special effects.
• Performances from Indigenous Polynesian and Maori dancers, African percussion troupe Benkadi and traditional Japanese drumming by Taiko Australia.
• Creative kids’ corner, including face painting, puppetry and giant inflatable animals.
• The Silver Jubilee organ in all its glory on the Festival Theatre stage.
• Fuji ACMP Australian Photographers Collection presenting some of Australia’s most outstanding photography.
• Plenty of food and drink options, including wine and cheese-tasting.

The Open Day is a hugely successful event, which saw a turnout of 24,000 people last year. If you’re a budding young arts enthusiast, this is your chance to experience the festival in all its glory and even take to the stage.

The Best Disco in Town – Live 2004
Monday 13 September 2004 Entertainment Centre

If you thought retro was dead, think again daddy-cool. KC & The sunshine Band, Village People, Boney M, Errol Brown, special guest Gloria Gaynor and local cover band Avalanche – performing ABBA’s endless string of hits – are teaming up for one night only for The Best Disco in Town.

KC & The Sunshine Band spent 30 years getting people all over the world to shake their booty and Errol Brown – the lead singer of Hot Chocolate – not only has one of the most distinctive soul voices ever, he was Britain’s first ever black sex symbol.

The Village People don’t even need a plug and, “special guest” Gloria Gaynor – the original disco diva – is showing no signs of slowing down judging by her 2002 hit I Wish You Love.

Don’t mistake this event for so many others which were just designed to drum up a bit of nostalgia. Get your platforms out of storage and spare no expense on the glitter – this is the Real McCoy.

For those of you who lived through this outrageous era – and those of you who wish you did – The Best Disco in Town will be a hit-after-hit extravaganza with the wildest disco lightshow ever assembled.

Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)
17 Sept – 9 Oct 2004 Space Theatre – Adelaide Festival Centre

Constance – a timid academic making slow progress on her long-delayed PhD – deciphers a cryptic manuscript she believes to be the original source for two Shakespearean tragedies. She finds herself transported through time and into the play itself. There, she comes face-to-face with Juliet and Desdemona and tries to turn their poignant endings into those of humour and joy.

On her journey, she comes across an abundance of twists, turns, fights, dances, seductions, wild surprises and humour. Constance ends up finding her voice becoming the mouse with a mighty roar.

Written by Ann-Marie MacDonald and directed by Kim Durban Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) has been a hugely successful production since the late ’80s winning the Governor-General’s Award for Drama.

It promises to be a wild, fantastical farce which exuberantly revises Shakespeare’s Othello and Romeo and Juliet with hilarious results. Intellectually ambitious and engagingly lowbrow its clever wit ensures its purpose stays with you long after the laughter is forgotten.

Slavic Fire
27 Aug – 28 Aug Adelaide Festival Theatre

Slavic Fire promises a night of passion, fire and romance from some of the finest performers to have hailed from Eastern Europe. This amazing journey into these age old-arts will open your heart and soul to the magic of music and dance.

Opening the night are Brahm’s Hungarian Dances. These enormously appealing folk-inspired performances are vibrant and powerful and have captivated audiences all over the world for centuries.

Following the dances is 25-year-old Kristf Barati on his first Australian tour. With some of the most sweeping and arousing music ever written, Barati, without a doubt, is one of the most talented violinists of many generations. In 1996, critics wrote: “Barati took possession of the audience by creating one of those suspended moments when the whole world seems to become still. Unforgettable.”

Smetana’s The Moldau – featured in the recent film Metropolitan – contains more of those comprehensive melodies which will ignite the fire within. And Janacek’s rhapsody – on the life of folk hero Taras Bulba – is evocative and majestic. Janacek’s music has become increasingly popular following its extensive use in the classic art film The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

Andrea Bocelli – Once in a Lifetime
Wednesday 22 September Entertainment Centre

Together with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Italian conductor Marcello Rota and soprano Maria Luigia Borsi, Andrea Bocelli will perform at the Entertainment Centre for one unforgettable evening.

Bocelli – the highest selling classical recording artist ever and international phenomenon – has been hailed as opera’s “renaissance man” for single-handedly breathing new life into the genre.

Whether he is rediscovering the ageless beauty of a Verdi aria or singing one of his passionate songs from his 1996 album Romanza – which amassed a multitude of multi-platinum awards and sales in excess of 15 million copies – Andre Bocelli will have you captivated.

Those of you who are lucky enough – or were quick enough – to have already purchased your tickets to this once-in-a-lifetime event, will relish the sensual beauty and expressive allure that is Andrea Bocelli’s voice.

Broadway to Hollywood
20 Aug – 21 Aug Adelaide Festival Centre

The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra teams up with award winning performers Rachael Beck and Todd McKenney for an evening of music and theatre filled with all the classic hits from Broadway.

Beck and McKenney – having performed side-by-side in stage hits Cabaret and Singin’ in the Rain – share a unique on-stage chemistry that will have you transfixed.

Under the direction of the Maestro of Pop, Tommy Tycho, this spectacular performance celebrates the music of Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Liza Minelli, Doris Day, Dean Martin, Peter Allen and many more stars from Broadway to Hollywood.

With the full force of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra backing the vocal talents of these amazing performers, Broadway to Hollywood promises to be an exciting and unique theatrical experience.

Special theatre offer
For your chance to win a double pass to one of the following performances:
• Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)
• The Best Disco in Town
• Slavic Fire
Phone Katarina at the Police Journal on 8231 0755.