A musical for Mardi Gras

Think prostitutes, soldiers and 1970s disco and you have ingredients for the stage play Hello Again.

“All you gay and lesbian parents out there, take my advice. I’m leaving my young children at home. Not to boast, but the cast is hot,” actor Matt Young told SSO.

“I play the husband, a married, closeted homosexual. I love it because I get to sleep with both a man and a woman in the play.

“Like many closet cases, he has trouble reconciling his two lives, but revels in the freedom of his sexuality when he does seduce the young thing.”

Hello Again is a musical adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s La Ronde by composer Michael John LaChiusa and the show is being performed during the Mardi Gras festival.

“With the balmy summer nights of a Mardi Gras season, and the building sexual tension between all the characters, I’m sure we will remain hot and steamy, no matter how undressed we become,” Young said. “It’s the only booked musical in the Mardi Gras program, so show queens who have already seen Billy Elliot will have an alternative.”

The show is a Mardi Gras within itself with several complex gay characters and a myriad of gay actors involved. Almost every scene has a dance element, so you can watch their bulging muscles working in time to the music.

The show is directed by Stephen Colyer, who was the man behind Dying City, Boston Marriage and Fit To Be.

“In the first scene, the whole cast appears in their underwear, so you can get the ogling out of the way early on,” Young said.

“My character is too uptight to strip off, so he just undoes his fly and gets down to business.”

Previews of Hello Again start Wednesday 30 January and the last performance is on Saturday 23 February. Tickets start at $30. Bookings on 8356 9987 or www.darlinghursttheatre.com.