Villainous venture for Broadway show

CLASSIC antagonists of fantasy and medieval stories are seeing their time in the spotlight as part of the BallaRat Pack’s latest Broadway to Ballarat production.

Running until Sunday 3 December, the company’s Once Upon a Time: Villains will showcase the iconic big bads of tales past against the backdrop of Kryal Castle’s Jester’s Theatre.

BallaRat Pack founder Reuben Morgan is serving as producer, director, conductor, and a performer in the show and said it’ll be a fun showcase of characters audiences love to hate.

“It’s an exciting opportunity because villains get all the best songs and the best storylines and they’re some of the most popular characters,” he said.

““There’s a loose storyline that connects all the songs, and it’ll be fun to explore not only for our audiences but for our performers.

“There’s some Disney works in there and some lesser-known songs like Brush Up Your Shakespeare, Men in Tights from Robin Hood, songs from Cabaret and Avenue Q and an original song from me.”

With 20 onstage performers and a 22-person orchestra, Once Upon a Time: Villains features more than 20 songs.

Onstage after 12 weeks of rehearsals, Morgan said the two-act show is a sequel of sorts to their original Once Upon a Time production performed in 2021.

“We wanted to do another show at Kryal Castle so it was about how do we follow up?” he said.

“Similar to this, the previous one was an anthology show and it was structured around a mother reading bedtime stories to her son. It was mainly focused on heroes.

“This time, it’s about what happens after bedtime stories.”

Tickets range from $20 for children 17 and under, to $40 adult and can be booked at bit.ly/49PUIPW.