They’re Playing Our Song. Book by Neil Simon. Music by Marvin Hamlisch. Lyrics by Carol Bayer Sager. Directed by Terence O’Connell. Hit Productions. The Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre. March 28 and 29, April 1 to 5 at 8pm with 2pm matinees on March 29, April 3 and April 5. Tickets $55/$50. All matinees $47. Bookings: theq.net.au or 62856290.
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Composer Marvin Hamlisch and lyricist Carol Bayer Sager were - for a time - partners in life and art.
Their songs together included Nobody Does It Better (from The Spy Who Loved Me) and the score of They're Playing Our Song, the 1978 musical about a composer and a lyricist whose relationship becomes more than a professional one.
The show opens at the Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre on Friday.
In They're Playing Our Song, composer Vernon (Scott Irwin) and his new lyricist, Sonia (Teagan Wouters), have differing personalities - he's aloof and focused, she's disorganised and distracted - but get to know each other better and begin living as well as working together.
But can their love survive their contrasting personalities?
Irwin and Wouters don't face quite the same challenges.
He previously performed in it with his wife, Danielle Barnes, but for this tour is joined by Wouters, who played Wednesday in the Australian premiere production of The Addams Family and also appeared in High School Musical, Legally Blonde The Musical and Jersey Boys, among other shows.
''It's an interesting process, I suppose,'' Wouters says of joining the show in such circumstances.
''I knew Scott beforehand - we worked together on High School Musical eight years ago.''
She says Irwin and director Terence O'Connell were very helpful and did not insist she replicate the earlier performance.
''We were able to feel our own rhythm and discover things for ourselves. It was a nice process.''
She says the script, by veteran comedy writer Neil Simon, is reminiscent of an episode of Seinfeld: ''fast, really clever comedy that flies off the page - it's almost a play with songs''.
In real life, Hamlisch and Bayer Sager's relationship did not last - ''she had a lot of other relationships with different composers including Burt Bacharach'' - but audiences can discover for themselves whether art imitates life.
