By Brendan JaenschFriday 22 Mar 2024Hope BreakfastEntertainmentReading Time: 4 minutes
Handa Opera’s West Side Story returns to Sydney Harbour for an exclusive four week run with the iconic Harbour and the Australian night sky forming its backdrop.
Key points
- Musical Masterpiece West Side Story returns to Sydney Harbour this March for a four-week run.
- Billy Bouchier makes his debut lead role, playing Tony in the production.
- “The one word that comes to mind is ‘uniqueness’. This show is larger than life. Our stage is two and a half times bigger than most main stages in Australia,” Billy said.
Billy Bouchier who plays the lead role of Tony, joined Hope Brekky’s Brendan and Danniebelle this week to chat about the show and in true Brekky style, stayed for a game of ‘3 Second Rule’.
The show returns bigger and better than ever. “Expect grandeur, expect excitement. It’s the classic Romeo and Juliet tale, so there’s really something for everyone,” Billy shared.
With the stage positioned above Sydney Harbour and the Opera House, and the Sydney Harbour bridge completing its backdrop, the biggest main stage in Australia comes to life in a modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet. West Side Story returns in an electrifying, larger than life, open air event.
“This production specifically is unlike most productions of West Side Story ever staged in the world,” said Billy, who is straight off a national run as part of the ensemble in Miss Saigon.
West Side Story returns in an electrifying, larger than life, open air event.
“The beautiful thing is, it’s actually with the same production company, however, it just so happens when the auditions were running in Melbourne, I was also in Melbourne with Miss Saigon at the time.
“It was 9am in the morning and I would finish an audition and then head back to a two-show run of Miss Saigon after,” he said.
“I was a pretty busy boy for a while there!”
It all worked out in the end, when Billy landed the role of Tony.
Billy Bouchier makes his debut lead role, playing Tony in the production.
As someone who has been involved in several theatre productions including Pirates of Penzance and The Book of Mormon, Billy shared how the process of “vocal warmups and training, learning lines and all those core preparations don’t really change. But I guess with every show, they have different demands.”
Billy explained that some shows can be more vocal heavy, more dance heavy or a combination of them all. For Billy “what you do off the stage to manage yourself is just as important as what you do on the stage to manage yourself.”
In preparing to play a lead role, Billy confessed to having done a bit of a deep dive into other productions of West Side Story, and even checked out the Spielberg movie adaptation of the musical.
“I knew of the story [of West Side Story] beforehand but I needed to wrap my head around the journey of the story and the character ark of Tony.”
Nevertheless, Billy wanted to avoid being “too heavily influenced by anyone else. I really loved having a fresh approach to things and bringing a bit of my own uniqueness to the role.”
Featuring songs like Maria, Tonight and I Feel Pretty, audiences can expect ‘grandeur and uniqueness’ as the musical’s well-known hits are combined with dynamic dance numbers and incredible storytelling, directed by Francesca Zambello and transforming Sydney Harbour into a slice of New York.
“The one word that comes to mind is ‘uniqueness’. This show is larger than life. Our stage is two and a half times bigger than most main stages in Australia,” Billy said.
“It’s open-air theatre, and to my knowledge, it’s the only thing like it in the Southern Hemisphere,” Billy said.
“To have the stage with the humungous set we have, and then have the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge in the background, you can’t expect a better outlook than that.”
When sharing about the production itself, Billy told listeners to “expect grandeur, expect excitement.
“It’s the classic Romeo and Juliet tale, so there’s really something for everyone but this production is unlike any production of West Side Story ever staged in the world.”
After chatting about the show, Billy stuck around for a game of ‘3 Second Rule’ with Brendan and Danniebelle, where the Brekky co-hosts had fun throwing a variety of questions and statements to Billy – even setting him up to sing in a very unplanned and quick ‘vocal warm up’.
Handa Opera presents ‘West Side Story’, opening March 22.
Visit opera.org.au for more.
Listen to the full interview with Billy Bourchier in the player above.
Feature image: Photo supplied by Handa Opera opera.org.au