SYDNEY TO HOST WORLD PREMIERE OF

STRICTLY BALLROOM 

Following last September’s announcement that Australian producers Global Creatures had obtained the much sought-after rights for a live musical version of Baz Luhrmann’s film Strictly Ballroom, New South Wales Premier Barry O’Farrell today announced that the stage musical will have its world premiere and first run in Sydney at the Lyric Theatre from September 2013. The premiere season will be supported by the Government of New South Wales through Events NSW.

“Last week we announced Sydney was chosen for the Australian Premiere of The Addams Family. I said we’d bring major events back to Sydney – here’s the proof.

“This is in addition to the recent and highly successful first run of Doctor Zhivago, as well as Legally Blonde opening in Australia in June 2012.

Mr O’Farrell said we are getting runs on the major events board and further enhancing the NSW Events Calendar.

“We will ensure that Sydney, the gateway to Australia and NSW, remains number one when it comes to securing and hosting major events in Australia,” Mr O’Farrell said.

Originally devised in Sydney at NIDA, creator Baz Luhrmann said the decision to premiere Strictly Ballroom in Sydney was a natural one for a quintessentially Australian story with global appeal. 

“Of all of my shows, Strictly Ballroom is the most personal,” Mr Luhrmann said.

“From escaping into the world of competitive ballroom dancing as a child, and my mother going on to be a dance teacher, through to the formative moment at the National Institute of Dramatic Art when a group of talented students and I brought together the classical myth of triumph over oppression and placed it in this world of suburban theatre, the first production of Strictly Ballroomwas born,” he said.

“That little act of truth and defiance, born as a 40 minute student play, went on to win a competition in communist Czechoslovakia, was revised at my first theatre company and was extended, and finally was transformed into the little film that danced all around the world. A journey like this is likely to happen once in a creative person's lifetime, if they’re lucky. 

“It's a simple show, with a simple truth, and a simple heart, that seems to have grown and grown and now completes the circle of its journey, returning to the city where it all began, Sydney, as an all-singing all-dancing musical production," Mr Luhrmann said.

CEO of Global Creatures and producer of Strictly Ballroom Carmen Pavlovic echoed Baz Luhrmann’s delight at the decision to open the production in Sydney.

“As a company committed to creating world class work in Australia and then taking it to the world, we could not be happier that Strictly Ballroom will open in the city where it all began. Our partnership with Baz Luhrmann is consistent with our strategy to create new experiences for audiences and we are excited that Strictly Ballroom will provide a chance for the whole city to engage with the creative development of the show’s journey back to the stage.”

Ms Pavlovic praised the work of Events NSW and the NSW Liberals & Nationals Government in securing the production for Sydney.

“We have been impressed by the pro-active and collaborative approach shown by Events NSW in making the dream of a Sydney opening for Strictly Ballroom a reality.”