John Xintavelonis (also known as John X [1] ) is a Tasmanian actor and comedian, known in Australia for his performance as Pumbaa the warthog in the Australian production of the stage musical, The Lion King .
John played Mr. Braithwaite in Billy Elliot the Musical in Sydney and Melbourne. [1] [2]
William Edward Crystal is an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. Crystal is known as a standup comedian, and for his film and stage roles. Crystal has received numerous accolades, including six Primetime Emmy Awards and a Tony Award as well as nominations for three Grammy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards. He was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1991, the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2007, the Critics' Choice Lifetime Achievement Award in 2022 and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2023.
Carousel is the second musical by the team of Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II. The 1945 work was adapted from Ferenc Molnár's 1909 play Liliom, transplanting its Budapest setting to the Maine coastline. The story revolves around carousel barker Billy Bigelow, whose romance with millworker Julie Jordan comes at the price of both their jobs. He participates in a robbery to provide for Julie and their unborn child; after it goes tragically wrong, he is given a chance to make things right. A secondary plot line deals with millworker Carrie Pipperidge and her romance with ambitious fisherman Enoch Snow. The show includes the well-known songs "If I Loved You", "June Is Bustin' Out All Over" and "You'll Never Walk Alone". Richard Rodgers later wrote that Carousel was his favorite of all his musicals.
William Martin Joel is an American singer, pianist, and songwriter. Commonly nicknamed the "Piano Man" after his signature 1973 song of the same name, Joel has had a successful music career as a solo artist since the 1970s. From 1971 to 1993, he released twelve studio albums that spanned the genres of pop and rock music, and in 2001 released an album of classical music compositions. Joel is one of the best-selling music artists; the seventh-best-selling recording artist and the fourth-best-selling solo artist in the United States, with over 160 million records sold worldwide. His 1985 compilation album, Greatest Hits – Volume I & Volume II, is one of the best-selling albums in the United States.
Billy Ray Cyrus is an American country singer, songwriter and actor. Having released 16 studio albums and 53 singles since 1992, he is known for his hit single "Achy Breaky Heart", which topped the U.S. Hot Country Songs chart and became the first single ever to achieve triple platinum status in Australia. It was also the best-selling single in the same country in 1992. Due to the song's music video, the line dance rose in popularity.
Leslie Sebastian Charles,, better known by his stage name Billy Ocean, is a British recording artist who had a string of R&B international pop hits in the 1970s and 1980s. He was the most popular British R&B singer-songwriter of the early to mid- 1980s. After he had scored his first four UK top-20 singles, including No. 2 hits in 1976 and 1977, seven years passed before he accumulated a series of transatlantic successes, including three US number ones. Released in late 1985, his hit "When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going" peaked in 1986, reaching No. 1 in the UK and No. 2 in the US. In 1985, Ocean won the Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for his worldwide hit "Caribbean Queen " and in 1987 was nominated for the Brit Award for Best British Male Artist. His 1988 hit "Get Outta My Dreams, Get into My Car" reached No. 1 in the US and No. 3 in the UK. His 1986 hit "There'll Be Sad Songs " also reached No. 1 in the US.
Chicago is a 1975 American musical with music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and book by Ebb and Bob Fosse. Set in Chicago in the jazz age, the musical is based on a 1926 play of the same title by reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins, about actual criminals and crimes on which she reported. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the "celebrity criminal".
Hugh Michael Jackman is an Australian actor. Beginning in theatre and television, he landed his breakthrough role as Logan / Wolverine in the X-Men film series (2000–2017), a role that earned him the Guinness World Record for "longest career as a live-action Marvel character", until his record was surpassed in 2021. He is the recipient of various accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, a Grammy Award and two Tony Awards, in addition to nominations for an Academy Award and a British Academy Film Award. Jackman was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia in 2019.
Streetlife Serenade is the third studio album by American recording artist Billy Joel, released on October 11, 1974 by Columbia Records.
Anything Goes is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The original book was a collaborative effort by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse, revised considerably by the team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. The story concerns madcap antics aboard an ocean liner bound from New York to London. Billy Crocker is a stowaway in love with heiress Hope Harcourt, who is engaged to Lord Evelyn Oakleigh. Nightclub singer Reno Sweeney and Public Enemy Number 13, "Moonface" Martin, aid Billy in his quest to win Hope. The musical introduced such songs as "Anything Goes", "You're the Top", and "I Get a Kick Out of You".
Lee Hall is an English playwright, television writer, screenwriter, and lyricist. He is best known for writing the screenplay for the film Billy Elliot (2000) and the book and lyrics for its adaptation as a stage musical of the same name. In addition, he wrote the play The Pitmen Painters (2007), and the screenplay for the film Rocketman (2019).
Brooks Wackerman is an American musician. He is the current drummer of heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold, which he joined in 2015. His first album with Avenged Sevenfold was The Stage (2016). He is most known as the former and longest-standing drummer of punk rock band Bad Religion.
Generation X were an English punk rock band, formed in London in 1976. They were the musical starting point of the career of their frontman Billy Idol, and issued six singles that made the UK Singles Chart and two albums that reached the UK Albums Chart.
Genevieve Lemon is an Australian actress and singer who has appeared in a number of Australian television series and international film, including a frequent collaboration with Jane Campion for Academy Award-winning The Piano (1993) and The Power of the Dog (2021), which earned her a Satellite Award as cast member and a Critic's Choice Awards nomination. In television Lemon is best known as Zelda Baker in The Young Doctors, Marlene "Rabbit" Warren in Prisoner and Brenda Riley in Neighbours.
Billy Elliot: The Musical is a coming-of-age stage musical based on the 2000 film of the same name. The music is by Elton John, and the book and lyrics are by Lee Hall, who wrote the film's screenplay. The plot revolves around Billy, a motherless British boy who begins taking ballet lessons. The story of his personal struggle and fulfilment are balanced against a counter-story of family and community strife caused by the 1984–85 UK miners' strike in County Durham, in North East England. Hall's screenplay was inspired in part by A. J. Cronin's 1935 novel about a miners' strike, The Stars Look Down, to which the musical's opening song pays homage.
William Richard Thorpe AM was an English-born Australian singer-songwriter, and record producer. As lead singer of his band Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs, he had success in the 1960s with "Blue Day", "Poison Ivy", "Over the Rainbow", "Sick and Tired", "Baby, Hold Me Close" and "Mashed Potato"; and in the 1970s with "Most People I Know Think That I'm Crazy". Featuring in concerts at Sunbury Pop Festivals and Myer Music Bowl in the early 1970s, the Aztecs also developed the pub rock scene and were one of the loudest groups in Australia.
Justin Smith is an Australian actor, best known for his AFI nominated performance as barrister 'Josh Bornstein' in the ABC mini-series Bastard Boys. He is also known in Australia for his TV, film, theatre and television commercial work.
John Bucchino is an American songwriter of both lyrics and music, an accompanist, a cabaret performer, and a teacher. He has been called "super-talented". Stephen Schwartz said his songs have "insightful lyrics and gorgeous melodies", "rich harmonic textures and subtle…inner voicings." His music has "beautiful intricacies."
Rick Fisher is an American lighting designer, known for his work with Stephen Daldry on Billy Elliot the Musical and An Inspector Calls. He is from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and attended Dickinson College, but has been based in the UK for the last 30 years.
David Alvarez is a Canadian dancer and actor, best known for being one of the original Billys in the Broadway production of Billy Elliot the Musical and becoming one of the youngest winners of the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical. He trained as a dancer with American Ballet Theatre and plays Bernardo in Steven Spielberg's 2021 film version of West Side Story.
Sydney Lyric is a theatre in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is part of The Star complex. The theatre is used for large scale musicals, theatre productions, concerts, opera and ballet. Formerly the Lyric Theatre, the venue changed to its current name in late 2011.