It’s been a great week for women in musical theatre. Recently, new queens of Six took to the stage at Theatre Royal Sydney for the musical’s third Sydney season. Across town at Hayes, another female-led production opened with an altogether bloodier agenda: We Are The Tigers.
Both productions reflect a musical landscape increasingly shaped by pop sensibilities, spectacle and stories that put women centre stage. But where Six turns female history into a pop concert, We Are The Tigers trades the royal court for a cheerleading sleepover gone spectacularly wrong. I can’t remember the last time I saw an ensemble of nine women and gender-diverse performers command a musical with such collective force. Their chemistry, vocal blend and sheer stage presence are worth celebrating in their own right.
What is We Are The Tigers about?
Written by Preston Max Allen, We Are The Tigers premiered in Los Angeles in 2015 and then Off-Broadway in February 2019. The musical follows Giles Corey High School cheer captain Riley (Brianna Bishop, Grease, Hairspray), her best friend Cairo (Olivia Vasquez, In the Heights, West Side Story) and their band of misfit cheerleaders and one aspiring cheerleader-turned-mascot Reese (Caitlin McCallig). Under Riley’s L-E-A-D leadership, the team hopes to redeem themselves after last year’s spectacular flop and that viral incident. But what unfolds is more slaughter than spirit.
What are the highlights of the cast, music and performances?
Preston Max Allen’s music and lyrics poignantly capture the female experience, exploring the yearning to belong, the ambition to make something of yourself and the frustration of feeling misunderstood with both gumption and soul. The soundtrack is undoubtedly the show’s greatest strength, giving emotional weight to feelings that the characterisation doesn’t always fully explore. Where the writing occasionally falls back on caricature, the music finds something more vulnerable and universal beneath the surface.
The performances are a standout, with vocal firepower, tight harmonies and direction and choreography by Chiara Assetta that hits with precision. Working within the inherited staging (too much living room, too little cheer), Assetta brings dimensionality to the homely set through split-level staging, creating a dynamic playground for these nine women to inhabit, collide within and drift through. A slow-motion fight sequence is a particular highlight, with direction, musicality and performances aligning in deliciously choreographed chaos.
Bishop delivers a deliciously believable performance as the well-intentioned, sprightly Riley. Her charisma invites the audience to suspend belief long enough to catch her witty, observational one-liners. Bishop’s chemistry with Vasquez carries the depth the show needs more of, with Vasquez easily matching Bishop’s vocal strength to deliver the production’s standout duets. McCallig also delivers a standout performance as the earnest wannabe cheerleader. Her knack for comic timing ultimately finds the show’s tone, landing the laughs exactly where the absurdity tips into brilliance. Anabel Jamieson, AJ Betts (making their Hayes debut) and Artemis Alfonzetti also deliver great vocal performances. When the cast leans into the material’s camp sensibilities, the result is a scrumptiously chaotic blend of pop spectacle and pitch-black comedy.
Does We Are The Tigers achieve its potential?
The musical as a format has evolved over the last decade. Terms like ‘jukebox musical’ and ‘pop musical’ have become increasingly common, distinguishing contemporary productions from the orchestral show tunes that once defined Broadway. But these labels do more than describe a soundtrack; they hint at a show’s ambitions, signalling where it might sit on the spectrum between pure entertainment and something more thought-provoking. A great musical can do both.
Unfortunately, the production that Cheers Productions has inherited seems caught somewhere in between, never quite committing to the gag enough to fully deliver on either front. There are flashes of something sharper here, with plenty of witticism and repartee hinting at a satire more incisive than the production ultimately allows itself to be. Perhaps the show's premise carried a different charge when it premiered in 2015. Viewed through a contemporary lens, however, what might once have felt subversive can now seem frustratingly familiar. The production is caught between the radical potential of its premise and the limitations of its execution.
The size of the ensemble is both the production’s greatest strength and its biggest stumbling block. With so many characters to introduce and backstories to establish, the cheerleaders too often feel like familiar high-school caricatures rather than fully realised people. There's the devout Christian, the perpetually drunk girl, the one who's always high – familiar archetypes that give satire something to work with but aren't consistently complicated or interrogated. The problem isn't that the characters begin as caricatures; it's that too few develop beyond them (or simply get killed off). For a show with such a wealth of female perspectives at its disposal, there's a missed opportunity to look beyond the stereotypes and find something more revealing beneath the pom-poms.
Is We Are The Tigers worth seeing?
For lovers of camp, catchy pop and a little theatrical carnage, We Are The Tigers has plenty to offer – humour, harmonies and just a little homicide. It's an entertaining night out with a killer, all-female and gender-diverse creative and production team who deserve to be celebrated.
Book your tickets to We Are the Tigers here.
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