Jayda Ciocci claimed Best Variety Performance by an Individual or Ensemble at the Canberra Area Theatre (CAT) Awards for her rendition of Are You Gonna Go My Way performed at the Southern Stars The Arena Spectacular 2024 – Magnifica. Photo: Dennis Ross and MSP Photography.
The final curtain had barely fallen on Southern Stars – The Arena Spectacular last year when the show’s operations manager Sharon Buikstra turned her sights to the 2025 production.
In its 25th anniversary, the pressure is on to create something significant, as it has been every year since the show debuted in 2000 at The Snakepit Stadium with about 2500 performers.
Last year’s show “Magnifica” just pulled off a hat trick at the 2025 Canberra Area Theatre (CAT) Awards, taking out Best Production of a Variety Show, Best Ensemble in a School or Youth Production for its backing vocalists and Best Variety Performance by an Individual or Ensemble for vocalist Jayda Ciocci’s rendition of Are You Gonna Go My Way.
But a Commendation that went to student movement coordinator Anna Butler “For calm and efficient stage management of 3000+ schoolchildren” perhaps sums it up best of all – the story of a team that punches well above its weight to deliver, without fail, an annual show of remarkable proportions and calibre.
Each year about 70 Department of Education teachers produce the show, accompanied by a further 65 stage managers, volunteers, suppliers, production, lighting and design managers, audio engineers, vision directors, camera operators and professional show callers.
In other words, fewer than 140 adults to wrangle 3000-plus young performers in delivering what has become for so many Illawarriors over the past quarter century, the highlight of the year.
The show has reached an institutional status, with annual audiences of around 12,000 marvelling at the sheer scale of the production before their eyes, blithely unaware of the hive of activity in the wings, the “tunnels”, backstage and spilling out into the open-air arena.
Their blissful ignorance is something Sharon and her team take great pride in.
“The audience shouldn’t know about the chaos behind the curtains, they’re simply there to be entertained,” she says.
Despite the mind-boggling logistics involved in pulling it off, come show week, Sharon and her team are like ducks – gliding steadily across the water’s surface but paddling like the dickens underneath.
Having started work on the show in 2001 as a stage builder, and moved through various roles until she became operations manager in 2011, Sharon knows the deal: It’s going to take every ounce of energy the team has, and then some, but the show will invariably come together in the end.
“I’ve been doing this long enough to know my team always pulls it off. I have a lot of trust in them. I don’t look at the workload – just forward, at what needs to be done next,” she says.
“We have people on the team who’ve been involved the whole 25 years, they know it inside and outside. Without them, it’s quite simple really: there would be no show.”
Yanggaa Garaba Ensemble at the Southern Stars The Arena Spectacular 2024 – Magnifica. Photo: Dennis Ross and MSP Photography.
The Arena Spectacular follows a well-honed schedule. It wraps up in late August with a few weeks to tie up loose ends and come October, organisers ease into preliminary planning for the next show.
First Sharon coordinates the staff – the directors of dance, vocals, drama, choir, orchestra and stage management, and a separate management team handling everything from finances to sponsorship, legal and compliance to venue bookings and marketing and advertising.
A smaller creative team gathers input from various stakeholders to help dream up the theme and vision for the new production. But even the more creative elements of the production have their logistical considerations – from securing copyrights to nutting out how the equipment, props and sets will be transported to and fit into the venue, as well as liaising with specialist groups like a circus, Rising Stars disability group, Yanggaa Garaba Aboriginal group and the marching band.
In term one, applications open for school groups – and everyone is accepted.
“That’s one of the most magical things about Southern Stars – you don’t have to be the best. We don’t audition our school participants. You can have two left feet, we’ll take you – the joy is in having a go,” Sharon says.
“I sometimes wear a Southern Stars T-shirt when I’m out and about and invariably I get stopped by people who tell me it’s the best thing they ever did.
“We have kids who travel the world with the people they’ve met at Southern Stars. You make lifelong friends.”
Term one also signals audition time for the coveted “feature artists” – an opportunity up for grabs for the creme de la creme of the entire state.
Southern Stars alumnus is littered with students who’ve gone on to make their mark in the world of performance art, including the likes of cruise ship performer Cassidy Richardson, choreographer Soraya Zapata and musical theatre performer MacKenzie Garcia.
Before they became members of the acclaimed Ten Tenors, vocalists Shannon Brown and Jason Turnbull graced the stages of the Arena Spectacular.
Siblings Peter Copeland, now the Southern Stars musical director, and Amy Copeland, now the WIN Sports and Entertainment Centres Event Operations Coordinator, are former alums. They also help run Wollongong-based not-for-profit performance art company SoPopera.
“We’re very proud of what former Southern Stars are accomplishing out there,” Sharon says.
About 3000 students plus 140 adults equals one spectacular show. Photo: Dennis Ross and MSP Photography.
By term two it’s full steam ahead with designing costumes, booking rehearsal venues, devising traffic management plans, conducting risk assessments – the list goes on.
Schools are given a brief, linked with choreographers and teachers begin their hard work. In a production that takes $1.1 million to stage, with no government funding, paying for substitute teachers to take their place is one of the most expensive elements. It’s also one of the show’s higher purposes.
“It is a very valuable professional development opportunity for the teachers who participate,” Sharon says. “The revenue comes from ticket and merchandise sales, participation fees and our sponsors – without our sponsors, again, we wouldn’t have a show.”
By term three, many performers are rehearsing every weekend, gathering for mass rehearsals, dress rehearsals and in-venue rehearsals.
At the start of term four, with collectively thousands of hours’ worth of rehearsals behind them, it’s showtime.
To be part of the magic in its 25th year, visit Southern Stars – The Arena Spectacular.
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