Ave Caesar!

Wanna experience a World Premiere production of a new piece by an award-winning playwright? Come and see "When In Rome", now on at Theatre 3. It's the hilarious, side-splitting story of that famous, fun-loving champion of mirth Emperor Gaius Caligula. You know the one? That giggle-meister that wanted to marry his sister and ended up eating a child he had with her.

Chock full of paranoia, intrigue and plottings, this is a great - if long - night of theatre. It goes without saying for a New Century theatre production that the direction by Stephen Pike is great. Caligula is played by Duncan Ley (also the playwright, talented bastard that he is) who is at his mouth- and brain-foaming best and everyone else is great too. Louise Bennett and Sam Sangston are both gorgeous and devious as the two women after Caligula - and the power being with him brings. I'm not going to go list everyone else that's in it, cause there's a big act, but know that they're all awesome too. Even I, as Sartorius Macro the commander of the Praetorian guard, manage to not be too crap on stage. It's fun to be in and, like all good drama, contains genuine comedy. On top of all this the set is, quite simply, phenomenal.


Opening night went off, and we managed to avoid most of the second night blues, although I did spoonerise a couple of times and nearly swapped an alive character's name around with a dead one which, given that the alive character wasn't on stage at the time, could've been confusing. We had a lines run last night that went smoothly and I'm actually looking forward to getting back into it tonight.

Carmen and Sass came to opening night and seemed to enjoy themselves. Sass was especially excited whenever I came on stage, and so was disappointed when I got killed off in the second act. The audiences have loved it and we've been getting rave reviews on local radio. Peter Wilkins's review in the Canberra Times was up to his usual standard. It was positive, generous and still managed to point out one or two things that could be improved. If only more local reviewers understood how to, you know, review theatre.

Come and see us! Wednesday to Saturday for the next two weeks. Tickets at the door or you can ring the Repertory office and book.

Oh! And if it ever gets published, I'm going to be in the Premiere cast list! Won't that be cool! :)