Debuting at the Brisbane Anywhere Festival in May 2018, Beware of Boys by Lisa Maree Southgate and Francesca de Valence is an all female collaboration with fire-power performed by Melissa Western. The musical memoir reveals a story left untold for more than 30 years about first kisses, private school boys and the dangers that lurked in the shadows of Brisbane in 1982. Writer and former journalist Lisa Maree Southgate grew up in suburban Brisbane in the 1980s, dreaming of kisses and weaving fantasies around the boys she made her heroes. It was not until the shootings of three police officers in 2000, the subsequent Royal Commission into child abuse and the suicide of a Brisbane Grammar teacher in 2015 that Lisa unearthed a series of buried stories and wrote her memoir Beware of Boys.
Francesca de Valence’s life was just beginning when these tragedies were unfolding and grew up to the soundtrack of Lisa’s story. Her original score provides the musical language of Beware of Boys bringing together styles of pop, jazz, theatre and folk. Francesca is an internationally award winning singer-songwriter, musician and global songwriting entrepreneur, founding the digital phenomenon I Heart Songwriting Club in 2014. You can also hear her music on ABC local radio around the country. Melissa Western, Women in Voice favourite, grew up in the Beware of Boys neighbourhood and is the all singing, all acting custodian of this story. An established performer on the cabaret, theatre and jazz stages, Melissa sold out two consecutive years at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and is a Brisbane Festival regular.
Don’t miss Beware of Boys at the Anywhere Theatre Festival 2018.
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