Old Carey Performing Arts Club

Andreas Katsiroubas (2011)

Club President

The Old Carey Performing Arts Club (OCPAC) was founded in 2009 by Carey alumni Joshua Robson (2008) and Matthew Cox (2008), along with their friend Josh Gavin. Since its beginning, OCPAC has provided an encouraging environment for Old Carey Grammarians and members of the wider community to come together to develop their recreational and professional interests in the performing arts. Our goal has always been to raise the bar and nurture the talent for amateur and community theatre. OCPAC is a not-for-profit organisation that exists to artistically enrich the Carey school community and the community at large.

Since our inception, OCPAC has produced six large-scale productions and two cabarets. Those who have attended our productions speak to their high quality, community engagement and energetic spark.

Our first production, Urinetown, took place in 2012 and was a commercial success. We sold out and were recognised by the Music Theatre Guild of Victoria. Despite OCPAC’s youth, we excelled, and our success propelled us into the following years.

In 2014, we performed a full season of Seussical the Musical at the Melbourne Comedy Festival. This was only OCPAC’s third production – our second being in 2013 of Seussical at Strathcona – which demonstrates the quality and professionalism of our production crew, performers and everyone behind the scenes who work tirelessly on producing a high-quality show.

We have been nominated for Guild Awards for each large-scale production we’ve held. Our proudest achievement was our 2016 show Catch Me If You Can, which led to us collecting five awards from the Music Theatre Guild of Victoria.

• Seussical the Musical (2013): Awarded with Best Cameo Performance. Nominated for Best Director, Best Male Performer in a Leading Role and Best Ensemble Performance.

• The Addams Family (2014): Nominated for Best Production of the Year, Best Direction, Best Musical Direction, Best Choreography, Best Wardrobe, Best Male Performer in a Leading Role, Best Female Performer in a Leading Role, Best Male Performer in a Supporting Role, Best Female Performer in a Supporting Role, Best Ensemble Performance and Best Design.

• Footloose (2015): Nominated for Best Production of the Year, Best Direction, Best Musical Direction, Best Choreography, Best Lighting, Best Sound, Best Male Performer in a Leading Role, Best Female Performer in a Leading Role, Best Male Performer in a Supporting Role, Best Female Performer in a Supporting Role, Best First Performance in a Featured Role, Best Dancer’s Award and Best Ensemble Performance.

• Catch Me If You Can (2016): Awarded with Best Director, Best Choreographer, Best Musical Director, Best Male Performer in a Leading Role and Best Male Performer in a Supporting Lead Role.

• Sweet Charity (2017): Nominated for Best Female Performer in a Supporting Role and Best Dancer’s Award.

OCPAC has provided an encouraging environment for Old Carey Grammarians and members of the wider community to come together to develop their recreational and professional interests in the performing arts.

We anticipate that 2021 will bring OCPAC an opportunity to harness our diverse portfolio of talented actors and creatives and combine them with our developing business acumen. We have a number of exciting steps we are planning to take in 2021. Importantly, we are excited to introduce a streamlined process for Carey Year 12s to take part in OCPAC productions, particularly as they may have missed the opportunity in 2020 to participate in a full-scale production due to the pandemic.

To this end, we are proud to announce that OCPAC is the first amateur theatre company in Victoria to be producing Lin-Manuel Miranda’s 2005 awardwinning musical theatre production, In the Heights.

In the Heights was Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first Broadway show, and was nominated for 11 awards, winning four for Best Musical, Best Original Score, Best Orchestrations and Best Choreography. It also won a Grammy for Best Musical Album. He then wrote Hamilton in 2015, which was an incredibly popular hit that swept the Tony Awards in 2016. In the Heights tells the story of Usnavi de la Vega and his community in Washington Heights, New York City, which has a majority Latin American population. The story features six main leads and six supporting leads with an even split of female and male characters, ranging from late teens to late 60s.

It features a unique style of music for a musical. It showcases some of the first iterations of Latin pop and hip-hop on the musical theatre stage, and was one of the earliest shows to feature breakdance and rap. It’s exciting to break with musical theatre tradition and feature such a fresh new sound and style in Victoria. This musical proves that productions can be bold and exciting in their musical composition without losing a broad appeal.

We cannot wait to see you in the Memorial Great Hall in September 2021.