Cast and crew members of the Ballarat Lyric Theatre Company's production of We Will Rock You were able to spend some time with the show's creator Ben Elton in Bendigo on Wednesday ahead of the show's opening in July.
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We Will Rock You opens at Her Majesty's Theatre on July 15 and tells the story of a group of Bohemians who try to restore free thought, fashion and music in a world where musical instruments and composers are forbidden.
After opening on London's West End in 2002, production finally closed in 2014 and the musical has also seen a number of international productions, including several in Australia.
Members of the Ballarat production were able to spend about 20 minutes with Mr Elton and receive some advice and tips on their show.
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Ballarat Lyric Theatre Company committee member and We Will Rock You director Stephen Armati said it was exciting to receive that first-hand knowledge.
"He was very generous with his time. He was over there doing a show... but knew that it's important to support local theatre so he gave us his time and he spoke to all the characters about their roles and what the origins of their roles were and where they came from," he said.
"For someone of his calibre to give his time to them and evolve their characters and get a bit of understanding of the origins of their characters and how they came about, they were very impressed."
Mr Armati said he also received some tips about direction the show and adapting it to his own vision and learned how the story had changed over time.
"He gives all parties a little bit of latitude to modernise scripts as well so he asked what sort of modifications I've made to the script and encouraged everyone from Ballarat to get out of their homes after COVID and get out and see a good show on a great night out," he said.
"He's done several rewrites over time to modify it and bring it to the modern era. We talked about the origins and his approach to stringing the show together."
"He did a rewrite several years ago to Australianise it and we talked about how some of the Australian jokes worked and some didn't."
The show marks Lyric's return to the Her Majesty's Theatre stage after performing Les Misérables last year, just getting the show in four days before lockdowns took hold.
"We originally had another show planned for this year but we rethought in the environment that we've come through, we came to the idea of rather than something heavy, people deserved a good night out and this show delivers it," Mr Armati said.
Tickets release for We Will Rock You go on sale at the Her Majesty's Theatre website on Monday.
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