Harvest Rain Interns Rock Out With Bye Bye Birdie

The Harvest Rain 2012 first and second year interns, opened their production of Bye Bye Birdie at the Powerhouse to a cosy and encouraging crowd.

Directed by Tim O’Connor, Bye Bye Birdie, at it’s core, is a story of courage to stand up for what you want out of love paralleled with a tale of a famous and dead sexy heartthrob of the time Conrad Birdie (Danny Lazar).

The show opened with Rosie Alvares (Casey McCollow) about to leave her long-term employer, and sometime love interest, Albert Peterson (Callan Warner) and singing the popular song An English Teacher.

Set in the swinging 60’s, this production played amongst a simple set of colourful retro light up boxes as the main feature and plenty of vibrant and wonderful costumes by the talented David Lawrence.

The energy of the interns was infectious. This was evident in the dance numbers, choreographed by the clever Callum Mansfield, in which the performers spun, lept and purposely “over did” their camp perky movements to present the fun young teen-fans of Conrad Birdie.

Particularly well cast were the two lead roles: Warner was charming and goofy in his portrayal of Albert along side McCollow who enchanted as the feisty Rose.

Another mention must go to the role of Ursula Merkle (Morgan Kempster) as the hilarious and nerdy leader of the Conrad Birdie Fan Club.

Yet again, Bye Bye Birdie was another fun and vibrant show from Queensland’s fresh and passionate theatre company, Harvest Rain.