If the news that a stage musical is being made of King Kong isn’t enough for you, then how about that a Batemans Bay boy will be helping the big fella move around the stage?
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Former Long Beach resident and Batemans Bay Public School and Batemans High School student Brett Franzi, 21, has landed a role as one of the King’s Men, who move Mr Kong around the stage as he scares the life out of onlookers and serenades his true love, Ann Darrow.
Brett is a graduate of the National Institute of Circus Arts in Melbourne and successfully auditioned for the part in the Global Creatures production, which has been five years in the planning and will show in Melbourne next year.
It is the culmination of a lifelong dream for him.
“I always wanted to be part of a big musical, and as a kid on stage with Bay Theatre Players I hoped I would,” he said.
As well as being part of Bay Theatre Players, Brett credits his time with Batemans Bay High School’s Clyde Circus under the guidance of Jeff Perrem and Sharon McCutcheon with giving him the skills he will need as an aerialist puppeteer moving King Kong on stage.
“King Kong weighs a tonne, and his arm is bigger than me,” Brett said.
This production will present a different take on the tale of the oversized and misunderstood ape.
“It is a musical, so it is a love story,” he said.
“The whole story is based on the screenplay and not the movie.”
The audiences will experience something they haven’t before when the show opens at the Regent Theatre in Melbourne in June 2013.
New songs and reworked existing songs are being composed and arranged by Marius De Vries, who was behind the music in Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge!
Unlike many, Brett didn’t have any nightmares about King Kong as a child; rather, he feared things that actually existed and could hurt him.
“Only spiders and snakes,” he said.
