MARY POPPINS PRINCIPAL CAST ANNOUNCED!

The Melbourne season has now ended, and this page exists only for archival purposes. Are you looking for for information on the Sydney season of Mary Poppins?

Verity Hunt-Ballard is Mary Poppins		Judi Connelli is Miss Andrew
	Verity Hunt-Ballard from Adelaide has won the most hotly contested role in Australian theatre. Verity is currently playing Frankie Valli’s lover in Jersey Boys. A 2003 WAAPA graduate, Verity has performed in The Rocky Horror Show, South Pacific, Eureka and Oklahoma! and won the ATG Curtain Call Award for her role in the acclaimed Australian musical Metro Street.		The performers’ performer, Judi Connelli’s 40 year career spans opera, operetta, theatre, musicals, television, cabaret and recording. Awarded an Order of Australia in 2004 she has enjoyed particular acclaim with her cabarets in such Manhattan venues as the Weiss Recital hall (Carnegie Hall) Club 88 and the Oak Room at the Algonquin.
Matt Lee is Bert		Debra Byrne is The Bird Woman
	Matt Lee’s music theatre credits include Miss Saigon, The Boy From Oz, We Will Rock You, The Witches of Eastwick, Grease, Hot Shoe Shuffle, RENT and the Australian production Rags. Matt has been dancing for more than two decades – since he was five. He created a national profile as the cat in the hat judge on So You Think You Can Dance Australia. Matt danced the central character in the Oscar winning animated feature Happy Feet.		A national figure from her early teenage years (on Young Talent Time, in 1971) Debra sings Feed the Birds, Mary Poppins’ iconic song. She was Grizabella in the original Australian production of Cats, Fantine in Les Misérables and Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. Most recently she was Belle Poitrine in Little Me, and, Mrs Darbus in High School Musical.
Philip Quast is Mr George Banks		Sally Anne Upton is Mrs Brill
	London based and one of our most illustrious international theatre performers, Philip Quast has won three Olivier Awards for Best Male Performance in a Musical, and was nominated for a fourth. This role reunites him with Cameron Mackintosh, who cast him as Javert in the orginal Australian production of Les Misérables.		Twenty years ago she was in a sell out season at the Edinburgh Festival. Since then among dozens of roles in film, TV and theatre Sally Anne Upton has won the Green Room Award as Best Supporting Actress for her roles as Widow Corney in Oliver!; was Yente (the Matchmaker) in Fiddler on the Roof with Topol, and Bloody Mary in South Pacific.
Marina Prior is Mrs Winifred Banks		Christopher Rickerby is Roberston Ay
	Famously winning the lead role in her first professional audition (Mabel in the VSO’s Pirates of Penzance), Marina Prior is Australia’s undisputed First Lady of Music Theatre. (Her successful auditions for Cameron Mackintosh, for the roles of Cosette in Les Misérables and Christine Daea in The Phantom of the Opera, made her a household name.)		Christopher trained at the Victorian College of the Arts and NIDA, where he graduated in 2005. His professional credits since then include Aida (with Opera Australia), the role of Mozart in Little Boy Amadeus & Mozart Boy Genius at The Sydney Opera House, the U.S. tour of The 12 Irish Tenors, Tom in Treasure Island for Derby Playhouse (U.K.) and Mango in Johnno, a role he performed in the Brisbane Festival and for The Derby Playhouse.