Happy (belated) New Year!

We have so much almost-announce-able news that I’ve been holding off blogging til I can share it all. But time waits for no blog, so I’ll write a little update now and a bigger one later!

Firstly, we welcomed the BBC into our rehearsals last week for BBC World’s Fast Track special on the lead up to Mardi Gras! We sang a few of our new songs and I chatted to the interviewer about blackcat lounge and my views on last year’s Mardi Gras name change.

We are super excited about our Mardi Gras season with Maxine Kauter Band AND Brendan Maclean both launching new work! We love these kids (as I’m sure you know), so book tickets to their shows asap, before the VERY exciting billboard with our faces on it goes up at The Factory. No one will be able to resist our sexy gay faces, so get to it!

Soon, you’ll be hearing all about blackcat productions’ participation in Marrickville Council’s Open Marrickville Festival, which we were thrilled to receive a grant for. We’ve got exciting cabaret plans in the pipeline, so stay tuned!

Oh, and sales for our Lady Sings it Better Adelaide season are coming along nicely. Book for it, ok?

If you need any incentive, check out our new youtube montage, complete with Edinburgh footage…

Adelaide, get ready: Lady Sings it Better are back!

When Lady performed at the Adelaide Fringe in 2011, it was the start of something BIG. We sold out our season before we arrived and had an absolute blast performing, watching as many shows as possible and prancing about town. It was in Adelaide that we met Tim Hawkins, the UK producer who played a big part in getting us to Edinburgh…

So, you can imagine how stoked we are to be headed back to Adelaide, this time to perform a 2 week season at Gluttony, a booking we made after a few G&Ts at the Gilded Balloon artist bar!

Tickets are on sale now! Can we beat our mad 2011 success and sell out again before we arrive? We hope so.

Book now, RSVP on Facebook and tell all your South Australian mates.

We’re coming, Adelaide, and we can’t wait!

Oh what a night! So long sydney…

Aaaand, we’re off! Well, tomorrow morning we are. We fly out at 7.55am tomorrow so keep your eyes on the sky and wave at any Korean Airlines planes you see coasting over the inner west.

We went out with a bang last week, with two packed out houses at our Edinburgh Fringe preview / farewell shows at The Factory Floor. The crowd were loud, the dance moves were raucous, our musical bromance Maxine Kauter Band rocked the house (and admitted their undying love for Chandra), and Dr Joe’s shook his maracas harder than ever before.

For all the pics from the night, check out our facebook album: Lady Sings it Better Farewell at The Factory Floor.

 

Thanking Dr Cate Madill, our Vocal Director

 

Today

Today is a pretty big day.

First of all, we got national radio coverage this morning. We had the privilege of popping in to the ABC for an interview and performance with the amazing Fran Kelly. Listen to the podcast here.

Secondly, it’s a year since we launched this here website and wrote a blog about being one year out from the Edinburgh Fringe.

And finally, tonight is our final farewell gig at the Factory Floor! We can’t wait to play for a packed house before celebrating our impending departure with friends, family and indiegogo donors. We have so much to celebrate tonight: the amazing support of our friends, family, partners and community; our good fortune in having the privilege to perform on stage; the friends we’ve made (within our company and other musicians we’ve met along the way); and, of course, the fact that this time next week we’ll be in Edinburgh!

July 20. You’re a good day.

The countdown is on! Two weeks til take off…

This time two weeks from now, we’ll all be sleeping like babies, bags packed and ready to get to the airport at 5.30am for our flight to the UK. Right…? Let’s hope so.

We shouldn’t need to have last minute panics. We’ve paid our bills, we sent out the production schedule to the Lady team today, collateral printing will be ordered tomorrow and our farewell gigs are already sold out! But, anything is possible when you consider that both Phoebe and I have been kept up at night worrying about Really Important Things like what shoes to take, whether or not we need to purchase a first aid kit (Phoebe insists we do), pros/cons of purchasing toiletries at home or on arrival and whether or not bribing potential audience in box office queues with cupcakes will seem charming or desperate.

Plus, I decided that two weeks out was a good time to change the script and add in a new song. We work well under pressure, ok? And once you hear Jenni and Libby make sweet musical love to Otis Redding’s Try a Little Tenderness, you’ll know it was worth it. As an aside, Try a Little Tenderness was the closing song in the first show Phoebe and I ever worked on together, a production of Jim Cartwright’s Road at The Ponton Theatre in Bathurst in 2003! A little blackcat history for ya.

That’s it for tonight. I won’t regale you with the joys of scheduling, the fine art of writing pack lists during work meetings or the recipes I am compiling in my head for ‘healthy, wholesome food one can eat on the go’. We’ll save that for the next blog…

• Don’t forget you can still make a tax deductible donation to support our tour costs. Every $ counts and we hugely appreciate the support received thus far.
• Please also tell ANYONE you know living in the UK about our show, and encourage them to come to the Fringe and see us.

xxx Maeve and the blackcat team