Simon Stone (Class of 1994)

We congratulate Simon Stone, PGS music teacher, composer and class of 1994 on the upcoming premiere of his Australian Musical, 'Castro's Children'.

Music Theatre Melbourne: 'Castro's Children (music by Simon Stone and book/lyrics by Peter Fitzpatrick) is set in Cuba and America in the early 1960s and 1980s – but its story could be set anywhere, at any time, where children’s lives are displaced by adult wars and ideologies. Its reach is universal, and Music Theatre Melbourne is excited to be staging its world premiere from July 5 to 13 at @GasworksArtsPark, Melbourne.Six children – three boys, three girls. Sent away from Havana by their parents in the first year of Castro’s regime, to live among strangers in the USA. Would they ever see their parents or their homeland again? Who would take that gamble with innocent young lives? And why?The six in ‘Castro’s Children’ are fictional, but they represent the 14,048 real children who were sent out of Cuba under ‘Operation Pedro Pan’, a scheme devised in collaboration with the CIA and the Catholic Church to take children aged between 10 and 14 out of Cuba and ‘park’ them in the US until Castro’s impending and inevitable fall (!).'

'For writer Peter Fitzpatrick, “Castro’s Children has been an extraordinary labour of love for my musical collaborator, Simon Stone, and for me. The story of Operation Pedro Pan is a compelling one that really needs to be told. It may be set nominally in a country a long way away and quite a long time ago, but its complex moral questions are urgent and immediate ones – here, now, and always.” This is a brilliant new Australian musical: its score is a treasure-house of riches; the book might make you laugh, might make you cry. But it will certainly make you care.'

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Our PGS community may also recognise some alumni and student names in the cast/ensemble including Maddie Featherby '09, Noah Szto '16, Elliott Frankeni (current student), Lia Scantlebury (current student) and Scarlett May (current student).

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Gasworks Arts Park, Graham Street, Albert Park

5 to 13 July

03 8606 4200

Get Tickets: https://www.gasworks.org.au/whats-on/castros-children

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