New Aussie musical Between the Sea and Sky takes home top honours at the New York Musicals Festival

New Australian musical Between the Sea and Sky has had huge impact at the 2018 New York Musical Festival. The production was nominated in 9 categories and won 5 awards including Best Musical.

With original book, music & lyrics by Australian Luke Byrne Between the Sea and Sky took home the awards for Outstanding Overall Design, Music, Michael Bello won for Best Direction, Best Ensemble (tied with Emojiland) and Best Musical.

The Outstanding Overall Design award recognises the combined contributions of Joshua Warner (Scenic Design), Jessica Creager (Lighting Design), Heather Carey (Costume Design) and Josh Liebert (Sound Design).

A family friendly musical mystery the production explores our fascination with the ocean and fear of its power. The description of the production reads: “Sam and Emily are sisters on holiday at the beach where they stumble upon a tragic chapter of local history, one that has left behind a lingering mystery. As the girls uncover the details of the story, it pulls them into deeper waters.”

Amelia Cormack sings Between the Sea and Sky:

[More videos on their YouTube Channel]

Creator Luke Byrne (Book, Music & Lyrics) is a musical director and performer whose credits include Muriel’s Wedding, Chimerica (Sydney Theatre Company); Hamlet, The Adventures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, The Events (Sydney Festival and Belvoir St Theatre); Big Fish (Hayes Theatre). Luke has composed for ensembles including the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Gondwana Choirs and Sydney Philharmonia. Luke’s music has a preoccupation with the Australian landscape and history. Between the Sea and Sky is his first musical.

Hopefully we will soon see a production mounted on Australian shores.

Images of Between the Sea and Sky

Matt Edwards

Matt is a past owner of AussieTheatre, working as digital director from 2011 to 2019. He is also a performer, most recently appeared in the Australian tour of Mamma Mia! and previously in the Australian/NZ tour of CATS and Enda Markey's acclaimed production of Blood Brothers. As well as performing Matt keeps himself busy in the digital side of the arts working with web design agency Emptyhead Digital

Matt Edwards

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *