Keanu Gonzalez has been wowing audiences in the Australian tour of Grease The Musical playing the iconic role of Kenickie. But before Grease heads north to open in Brisbane early in the new year, Keanu Gonzalez is relishing the opportunity to create a brand new character in the world premiere of One Day in September.
“It’s really exciting. Doing something like Kenickie it feels like the skeleton is already created and you have to create the muscles around it, but for a brand new work you get to create the skeleton, the joints, the ligaments, the muscles, everything, which is really, really cool!”
One Day in September follows rising star Sam Thompson (Keanu Gonzalez) whose dream of playing AFL has finally come true. Sam realises there’s more to being a professional footballer than simply playing the game. Sam begins a relationship with Sophie (Lorinda May Merrypor) a young woman misguidedly drawn to the status of dating a high-profile athlete, but his life gets thrown into disarray when Sophie discovers Sam in a relationship with the brother of one of the WAGs.
“Suddenly he’s a public figure and he’s thrown into the limelight, which does its best to prise into his private life. There’s things he’d rather have left in private and the question then becomes how does he deal with those challenges and will he overcome them,” explains Gonzalez.
The creative team behind the new musical include Maverick Newman, Mackenzie Dunn, director Trudy Dunn and Musical Director Kohan Van Sambeeck, with orchestrations by Jason Arrow.
Writer Maverick Newman’s brother happens to play for Carlton, but One Day in September is about fictitious player, Sam Thompson, who plays for a fictitious AFL team, the Melbourne Bears.
“The reason we’re using the AFL as the foundation for this show is because there are no openly gay AFL players,” said Gonzalez.
Coming from Sydney, where rugby is the main sport, Keanu Gonzalez admits he wasn’t really an AFL fan – until now!
“I have now become a football fan. I haven’t been previously!”
While the musical does include some significant AFL moments such as the Brownlow and the Grand final, Gonzalez explained the musical is so much more than being about the game of football.
“There’s lots of depth and lots of character development. It really is a show for everyone – footy fans, theatre fans. There’s incredible songs, there’s incredible dancing, there’s also so many characters, that I think anyone who comes and watches it will be able to relate to at least one character or another. There is really something for everyone.”
After watching One Day in September Keanu Gonzalez hopes that audiences will be inspired to be themselves, and while this show is based in the AFL, he says it’s a story that has been felt all around the world by so many people.
One Day in September will premiere at the Athenauem Theatre in Melbourne’s East End Theatre District for a strictly short season of just five performances from November 28th to 30th.
I asked what Gonzalez what his dream was for the future of One Day in September.
“This is a very Australian story and there’s nothing really more Australian than AFL as a sport … Imagine doing an Australian musical about AFL in the (Sydney) Opera House!” exclaimed Gonzalez, adding, “Or any iconic Australian theatre. If we can do it in a larger theatre it just sends the message to wider and wider places of this country and that would also help in aiding people to feel they are not alone.”
I asked Keanu Gonzalez if he now has to be a Carlton fan.
He laughed and replied, “Yes I do, but I’m from Sydney so I’m torn between Carlton and the Swans!”
One Day in September
Produced by Perryman Theatre Company
Starring Keanu Gonzalez, Ashleigh Rubenach, Lorinda May Merrypor, Des Flanagan and Yashith Fernando
Athenaeum 2
28 – 30 November
TICKETS ON SALE NOW VIA https://www.ticketmaster.com.au/
