Having toured the world for upwards of 21 years, it’s no secret that people just can’t get enough of ‘Menopause the Musical’.
After the most recent Australian tour was put on hold due to lockdowns, the show is finally back up and running, and cast member, Nicole Wheeler, couldn’t be more excited.
“I was in the 2019 Australian tour, and then in 2020 I was fortunate enough to go to New Zealand for that tour, but then COVID hit, so we only got four shows done and we were on a plane home, so that was a bit sad,” she said.
“We had a small tour at the end of last year, and now this year is quite a lengthy tour.
“We’ve got shows right through til mid November, so I’m looking forward to it. This is just the start!”
In the small, ensemble cast, Nicole plays the role of the housewife.
“She is the very sweet, naïve, innocent, good wife that’s supported her husband all these years, and she’s just a lot of fun, she’s adorable,” she said.
“She has the biggest story arc, as far as her development through the show in meeting these other women. She has a fun and interesting end at the end of the show, that the audience quite enjoy.”
What Nicole loves most about ‘Menopause the Musical’ is the way it not only connects with the women in the show, but also with the women watching in the audience.
“The characters, they’re four women, and they’re kind of four stereotypes, and in a normal world, you kind of think, ‘Those women have got nothing in common, they wouldn’t be friends’,” she said.
“I guess it’s just that universal thing of, at the end of the day, we’re all women, and we’re all going through those same symptoms and dealing with the same things in life. It’s really a way of the audience seeing how we are all connected, and it’s validating.
“We can even hear from the audience where, there’ll be a group of women, and they’re like, ‘Oh my god, that’s you’, ‘Oh that’s you’, ‘Oh that’s me!’, and they can identify themselves or their friends and family in these women.”
Although the show is geared toward a female audience, Nicole encourages people of all genders to attend.
“It honestly is open to everyone,” she said.
“Obviously the audience is majority women, yes, but the men that are there because they’re there with their wife or their partner, they absolutely love it! And they find it really funny, because they’re living that too with their wife or their partner, so it’s something that they definitely understand.”
‘Menopause the Musical’ will be on at EVAN Theatre from Friday, July 29. Tickets are $64.90. For more information or to book, visit penrith.panthers.com.au.
Cassidy Pearce is a news and entertainment journalist with The Western Weekender. A graduate of the University of Technology Sydney, she has previously worked with Good Morning Macarthur and joined the Weekender in 2022.
