A Fat Girl's Cry
BATS Theatre, The Stage, 1 Kent Tce, Wellington
22/03/2023 - 25/03/2023
Production Details
Creator/Writer/Director/Choreographer/Producer/Performer - Celia Macdonald (she/her)
Broadway! Bellies! And Bums!
The Newest Musical Revolution!
Join us to celebrate Plus Size bodies On Stage with some of Broadway’s greatest hits!
Representing all the Plus Size & Curvalicious Performers!
A Fat Girl’s Cry is about the importance of Plus Size Representation in the Musical Theatre Industry by taking a journey through Song. With Live Music, Singing, and Dance, experience a fresh new take on some of your most beloved musicals. Such as, Chicago, Wicked, Funny Girl, and Hairspray!
Challenging closedminded views of what defines a Romantic Leading Lady and breaking down those traditional stereotypes as well as raising awareness of the repercussions of the continuous negative representation to our mental and physical health, but also how we’re treated as human begins in society. It’s a topic that I believe everyone can relate too, regardless of weight or size. But it’s so important to show that plus size stories are just as valid as others and need to be shared.
BATS Theatre, The Stage, 1 Kent Tce, Wellington
Dates: 22nd – 25th of March 2023
Tickets range between $18-$22
5 Performances
7:30pm 22nd – 25th
Plus a 2pm Matinee on Saturday the 25th
BOOK
Performers
- Celia Macdonald (she/her)
- Scott Christie (they/them)
- Austin Harrison (he/him)
Stage Manager - Austin Harrison
Pianist - Laura Stone (she/her)
Tech - TBC
Musical , Theatre , Dance-theatre ,
60mins
A powerful, impassioned, mood-changing triumph
Review by Margaret Austin 24th Mar 2023
It’s not often that a performance piece is both heartfelt and heartening. A Fat Girl’s Cry is both. What’s more, it achieves this at BATS Theatre through the medium of musical theatre. That’s what Celia Macdonald studied at the National Academy of Singing and Dramatic Art in Christchurch, and she is a credit to it.
Subtitled A Musical Journey for Every Body, the show explores unashamedly the stigmatisation of female plus size bodies. From the opening number ‘Good Morning Baltimore’ (from Hairspray), Macdonald holds us in the palm of her hand. Her singing voice is powerful, and her delivery aided and abetted by careful enunciation. There’s training for you.
Such a theme is bound to bring forth observations about auditions, casting agents and directors. These are made, but the absence of bitterness – something that characterises the entire performance – is notable. Being referred to as “motherly comedic sidekick” or “roly poly newcomer” are rightly put in their place.
There are costume changes that delight and surprise us – all achieved with a frankness of disclosure both physical and verbal. The show’s centrepiece is a ten-minute toe tapper where Macdonald is joined by actor Scott Christie, who is also NASDA trained, and stage manager Jess Weston, who has a diploma in Performing Arts from Whitireia. Watching these three dancers bring to life ‘All that Jazz’ (Chicago) is a joy, as well as a triumph of staging and choreography.
This is a show of mood changes, and the segue into seriousness about children’s impressionability is strongly expressed through ‘Children Will Listen’ (Into The Woods) and well received by a readily rapt audience. Macdonald closes with an impassioned plea for the plus sized amongst us and her generosity is extended to everyone present in the final number: ‘Absolutely Everybody’ (by Vanessa Amorosi).
Pianist Laura Stone accompanies brilliantly, and lighting and sound by Dennis Eir Lim effectively enhance the action. Macdonald was once accorded the accolade of “Performer most likely to have a professional career”. A sound prophecy.
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