PREVIEW: Dialogue With A Mannequin (The Basement)
All in the Family [by Sharu Delilkan]
Cyan Corwine in Dialogue with a Mannequin
Cyan Corwine firmly believes that that you CAN make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
Her motto is that you can perform miracles with minimal expense, if you’re willing to think outside the box.
The creator of Dialogue With A Mannequin has made her mark in the industry creating sets and costumes on a shoestring budget.
In fact only recently she received a call from one of NZs major Television Networks asking her to do some set design. However she says she knew her reputation had preceded her when the conversation began with “We don’t have any money but…”
For the past seven years she has worked professionally as a costume designer, puppeteer, performer and general creator both here in New Zealand and New York, USA. 2011 saw Cyan work side-side in the art department and on stage with well-known comedian-husband Steve Wrigley on TV3’s the Jono Project and the hit comedy festival show Kevin the Musical.
Although Corwine doesn’t always want to be known for creating something out of nothing, that is exactly what she has had to do with Dialogue With A Mannequin.
REVIEW: Kevin: The Musical (Comedy Festival)
The New Zealand Musical will never be the same again [by James Wenley]
Steve Wrigley in Kevin: The Musical
As Steve Wrigley observes, musicals aren’t considered very manly in New Zealand culture. It takes balls (suitably tightened to hit the high notes) then to trade in his tried and true stand-up comic routines for a camp, highly theatrical stage show called ‘Kevin: The Musical’*.
Kevin: The Musical, we learn, was New Zealand’s greatest musical; it came out in the 80s and unfortunately went straight to VHS.
There’s a morbid opening. A Herald Theatre usher makes the announcement that the entire cast and orchestra of Kevin the Musical, including its star Steve Wrigley, have been killed in a tragic bus crash outside the theatre.
We aren’t to go home disappointed however – the said usher and Kevin, the Herald Theatre’s janitor, (who, gosh, now that I think about, looks an awful lot like Steve Wrigley, may he rest in peace) have been watching rehearsals, and take it upon themselves to recreate the musical as it would have been staged.