Overview
If watching a stage full of people sing and dance their hearts out is your idea of a great night out, then the next 12 months or so are going to be like musical theatre Christmas. With lockdowns in Sydney and Melbourne set to end, a heap of big musicals have firmed up their Australian dates or locked in their postponed seasons — big shows such as Moulin Rouge! The Musical, The Phantom of the Opera, Jagged Little Pill the Musical, Come From Away and Hamilton — and, in January 2022, they'll be joined by West End and Broadway hit Girl From the North Country.
For Bob Dylan fans, that name will be familiar. It's the title of one of the legendary folk singer's 1963 songs — a tune that features in this musical, naturally. Indeed, the entire show uses Dylan's tracks, including everything from 'Like a Rolling Stone' and 'Hurricane' to 'Slow Train' and 'I Want You', all weaved throughout a story of American life during the Great Depression.
Making its Australian premiere at the 2022 Sydney Festival, and kicking off from Wednesday, January 5 at Theatre Royal Sydney, 108 King Street, Sydney, Girl From the North Country takes place in a guesthouse in the US state of Minnesota in 1934. The story revolves around owner Nick, who is deeply in debt; his wife Elizabeth, whose mind is fraying; and their pregnant daughter Marianne — as well as a bible-slinging preacher and a boxer endeavouring to make a comeback.
Tristram Kenton
Overseas, the musical has enjoyed sell-out seasons since it first debuted in London in 2017 — heading from The Old Vic to West End, next leaping to the US for an off-Broadway run, and then hitting up Toronto, returning to West End and premiering on Broadway before the pandemic in early 2022.
Locally, the debut Aussie season will star Lisa McCune (The King and I, South Pacific), Zahra Newman (The Book of Mormon, Wentworth), Terence Crawford (Escape From Pretoria, 1984) and Helen Dallimore (Wicked, Legally Blonde), with more cast members set to be announced closer to the show's dates.
Girl From the North Country will open at Theatre Royal Sydney, 108 King Street, Sydney from Wednesday, January 5, 2022. For further information or to buy tickets, head to the musical's Australian website.