Rocking thanks to healthcare staff as Ballarat Lyric Theatre gets We Will Rock You back on stage for second opening

Playing on Queen's famed We Are The Champions anthem, We Will Rock You director Stephen Armati declared them the "true champions" of the last two years.

"We want them to come along, forget the woes of the past two years and have a night off on us," he said.

The production itself fell victim to COVID, holding its opening night in July last year just hours before the state was sent back into lockdown.

"We arrived at the theatre at 5pm as Daniel Andrews announced the lockdown effective from midnight," Mr Armati said.

"We were pumped and ready to go but dampened by the news. The cast left everything on the stage that night that probably helped them, helped us. We knew what a great show it was, we had a taste of it, the crowd support was fantastic and that's what buoyed us to keep us going."

Despite strong support from Her Majesty's Theatre, the City of Ballarat council and sponsors, the uncertainty of the second half of 2021 did not allow for the show to get back in to the theatre.

The cancellation potentially cost Ballarat Lyric Theatre hundreds of thousands of dollars, but now with its second opening night just days away, the cast and crew are excited to finally get on stage.

"We've been back in rehearsal now about six weeks but the cast have continued to do work in downtime so when we came back the show was in really good shape and rather than have to re-teach or re-learn it was just a case of polishing the performance," Mr Armati said.

Strong support from the community has seen the show's season extended from an almost-sold-out 10 shows at 75 per cent capacity last year to record ticket sales to 15 shows over the next three weeks.

"We are seeing ticket sales in the vicinity that we haven't seen for 10 years," Mr Armati said. "It's a great show and ticket sales are showing that people want to get back to normal, get back to the theatre."

About 6000 tickets were transferred across from last year's shows to the new season.

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All of the lead characters have returned for the 2022 production, but five ensemble members were unable to continue in their roles.

Mr Armati said the production had COVID safe procedures in place, including all rehearsals taking place fully masked, and understudies lined up from other regional theatre groups who have recently performed the same show.

We Will Rock You opens at Her Majesty's Theatre on Friday night.

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