Stellar Perry to Join Cast of New Melbourne Cabaret SCHADENFREUDE

Stellar Haus Melbourne has announced the performers joining the darkly comic new production, Schadenfreude, the new late-night cabaret where music, mischief and mayhem are all part of the treatment. Performances will begin on October 28.

Inside a wildly unstable consultation room, original music collides with twisted takes on familiar songs, circus, magic, burlesque, puppetry and theatrical comedy as the experiments unravel, the patients revolt and the band stops behaving.

Spiegel Haus Melbourne today announces the stellar performers joining this darkly comic new production: Rocky Horror Show powerhouse Kristian Lavercombe, The Voice Australia grand finalist Stellar Perry and actor, singer and aerialist Brendan Irving.

This is a cast built for a show that refuses to stay in its lane.

Lavercombe brings formidable cult-musical pedigree to the room, having played Riff Raff in more than 2,600 performances of The Rocky Horror Show. Perry arrives fresh from acclaimed turns as Magenta in the 50th Anniversary Australian tour of The Rocky Horror Show, Oberon in Bell Shakespeare's The Lovers and in Jesus Christ Superstar, with the powerhouse vocals and live-wire theatricality to match.

Then there is Brendan Irving, an actor, singer and aerialist whose work spans musical theatre, silks, trapeze and duo acrobatics. He has played Rocky in The Rocky Horror Show, performed in The Bodyguard and brings a decidedly physical, airborne edge to Schadenfreude's wonderfully unstable world.

Together, they form the unruly heart of Schadenfreude, a new Melbourne cabaret of original music, twisted takes on familiar songs, circus, magic, burlesque, puppetry and theatrical comedy. As the evening gathers speed, the experiments unravel, the performers revolt and the band stops behaving.

McLachlan appears as the gloriously devilish Dr Schadenfreude, the self-appointed expert attempting to diagnose why we enjoy watching things go wrong. But this is not a one-man consultation. With Lavercombe, Perry and Irving in the room, the doctor's carefully ordered session has every chance of becoming collateral damage.

Schadenfreude is a sharp new addition to Melbourne's independent live-performance scene, bringing a full company of singers, actors and physical performers into the intimate, unpredictable world of Spiegel Haus Melbourne.