After more than half a year away from the stage, some of Ballarat's best performers have been given the opportunity to put on a show for the Melbourne Fringe Festival.
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A collection of performers from Red Mill Productions have come together at Ballarat Trades Hall to record a 90-minute performance.
Shot over a 12-hour period, Red Mill Productions' Daniel Lamech told The Courier it felt amazing to simply film something away from video and phone calls.
"We were able to pull off a full production of a burlesque show which doesn't normally happen online, however it was nice to film it properly rather than over Zoom or on a phone camera," he said.
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"We filmed over a weekend. It took a lot of work fine-tuning all the lighting changes and musical cues. That took almost a whole day, so the next day we had all our performers come in for around an hour long block to keep things COVID-safe.
"We filmed from around 10am to 10pm, which was a lot of work but was very exciting."
The performance Red Mill Productions Presents: Red Mill Revue! will feature a combination of burlesque, dance, vaudeville, tease, comedy, cabaret and music into a high energy variety show.
Artists and performers are from Ballarat, Daylesford, Camperdown, Werribee and Warracknabeal.
Mr Lamech said while it took some adjusting to perform without an audience, the sense of anticipation just in terms of getting back on the stage was tremendous.
"It was amazing to put on the costumes and get our makeup on for a show," he continued.
"It's definitely a different experience not having an audience, but knowing that we would have an audience online eventually was very fun.
"So many people aren't able to perform at the moment, so to get this opportunity to showcase our performers is crucial."
Looking at how the actual performance went, Mr Lamech said he was very pleased, however relented that over six months away from the stage definitely made things more difficult.
"It was also just exhausting," he laughed.
"The last time we performed was February, so this performance was a great way to work out over half a year of pent-up emotion and energy.
"After so long without performing like we would, it was a pretty huge shock to the system to be back going 100 per cent on stage."
The Melbourne Fringe Festival will take place from November 12 through to the 29th. Tickets for the online festival will be available here.
The Red Mill Revue will be airing online throughout the festival.
