''Corrugation Road'' is an Australian

musical Musical is the adjective of music. Musical may also refer to: * Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance * Musical film Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the Character (arts), charac ...

set in a mental hospital, about an Aboriginal schizophrenic patient. It was written by

Jimmy Chi James Ronald Chi (1948 – 26 June 2017) was an Australian composer, musician and playwright. His best known work is the 1990 musical ''Bran Nue Dae'', which was adapted for film in 2009. Early life and education James Ronald Chi was born in B ...

, his band

Kuckles Kuckles was an Aboriginal Australian band in the early 1980s. History Kuckles ( Broome kriol for '' cockles'') formed in 1981 after a group of students from Broome, Western Australia moved to Adelaide, South Australia to study at the Centre fo ...

and friends, the creators of ''

Bran Nue Dae __NOTOC__ ''Bran Nue Dae'' is a 1990 musical set in Broome, Western Australia, that tells stories and of issues relating to Indigenous Australians. It was written by Jimmy Chi and his band Kuckles and friends, and was the first Aboriginal Aust ...

''. It is based on Chi's own experiences at

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

's Graylands Hospital.

Production history

''Corrugation Road'' was produced by Perth's Black Swan Theatre and had two successful theatre runs in 1996–1997 and 1998. The musical previewed at the

Canberra Theatre Canberra Theatre Centre (CTC), also known as the Canberra Theatre, is the Australian Capital Territory’s central performing arts venue and Australia's first performing arts centre, the first Australian Government initiated performing arts cen ...

from 10 October 1996 during the National Festival of Australian Theatre. It subsequently had its official premiere in

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

at the Fairfax Studio,

Victorian Arts Centre Arts Centre Melbourne, originally known as the Victorian Arts Centre and briefly called the Arts Centre, is a performing arts centre consisting of a complex of theatres and concert halls in the Melbourne Arts Precinct, located in the central M ...

from 17 October 1996 as part of the Melbourne International Festival of the Arts. The tour then played Perth (Subiaco Theatre Centre) and Adelaide (Playhouse,

Adelaide Festival Centre Adelaide Festival Centre, Australia's first capital city multi-purpose arts centre and the home of South Australia's performing arts, was built in the early 1970s and designed by Hassell (architecture firm), Hassell Architects. The Festival The ...

) through late 1996 and early 1997. The production was remounted in June 1998 at the

Playhouse Theatre The Playhouse Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster, located in Northumberland Avenue, near Trafalgar Square, central London. The Theatre was built by F. H. Fowler and Hill with a seating capacity of 1,200. It was rebuilt in ...

in Perth before undertaking an Australian national tour.

Reception

The musical won ''The Ages award for creative excellence at the 1996 Melbourne International Festival of the Arts (shared with the performance art work ''Urban Dream Capsule''). It also won the Deadly for Excellence in Film or Theatrical Score in 1998 for Jimmy Chi, Kuckles and

The Pigram Brothers The Pigram Brothers are a seven-piece Indigenous Australian band from the pearling town of Broome, Western Australia, formed in 1996. They were heavily involved in Broome's musical and theatrical exports – forming the original backing band ...

.1998 winners at The Deadlys For the Melbourne season of ''Corrugation Road'', Andrew Ross (director), Steve Dolan (set and costumes),

Iain Grandage Iain Andrew Grandage is an Australian composer and music director, best known for his compositions for theatre, dance and concert. In May 2018, the Perth Festival appointed Grandage as artistic director. Early life Grandage initially lived in B ...

(musical director and arranger), and Anna Mercer (

choreographer Choreography is the art of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which Motion (physics), motion or Visual appearance, form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A chor ...

) all received nominations in the music theatre Staging and Musical Direction category of the 1996

Green Room Awards The Green Room Awards are Australian peer awards which recognise excellence in cabaret, dance, theatre companies, independent theatre, musical theatre, contemporary and experimental performance, and opera. The awards, which were established in ...

References

{{reflist

External links

''Corrugation Road''
at

AusStage AusStage: The Australian Live Performance Database is an online database which records information about live performances in Australia, providing records of productions from the first recorded performance in Australia (1789, by convicts) up unt ...

''Corrugation Road''
at

AustLit AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource (also known as AustLit: Australian Literature Gateway; and AustLit: The Resource for Australian Literature) is a national bio-bibliographical database of Australian literature. It is an internet-based, ...

1996 musicals Australian musicals Indigenous Australian theatre Musicals set in Australia Musicals set in hospitals Stage plays about Aboriginal Australians