The idea of playing a woman arose from his casting in the late 1990s in the popular musical La Cage Aux Folles.

The musical is based on a French play featuring a drag queen who is the partner of the owner of a nightclub introduced by the owner’s son to the very conservative parents of the woman he hopes to marry.

People watching the musical so enjoyed his performance and his delivery of the songs, that he decided to see how well the concept would work in concert venues.

And he wowed watchers from his initial concert performance of songs associated with women such as Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline and Shirley Bassey.

That certainly proved to be the case when he put together and performed on his 60th birthday on November 3 last year a show called This is Me – The Man Behind the Makeup.

People so enjoyed the work, which showed songs and comments of how his performing career had developed, that they asked if he could present it again. So he is staging it for a second time at the Hunter Theatre, in the grounds of the Hunter School of the Performing Arts in Broadmeadow, with entry from Cameron Street.

The performance is on Saturday, March 2, at 2pm.

The show, which runs for more than two hours, plus interval, has projections of photos that show how he has grown and diversified as an entertainer.

Wayne Rogers initially trained as a dancer, and was so accomplished that he became a ballroom dance teacher in then home town Tamworth. Dancing success led him to expand his entertainment roles. His performances in glittering long gowns, largely presented in clubs and night spots have led to him being invited to return to many venues with new shows.

In December 2018, for example, he was the guest performer at the Belmont 16s Sailing Club seniors Christmas concert, being invited by the club to return in response to what it said was “popular demand”.  

Interestingly, Rogers makes his own gowns, even though he admits that he never had any training in dressmaking.

He has also shown his adeptness at developing eye-catching attractions by restoring to its elegant 1910 appearance the historic Iona on Robert house in Wallsend that he shares with partner and business manager James Hingston.

Iona, which they have occupied since 2001, is the venue for frequent high tea shows each year, with guests touring the heritage home, seeing Rogers perform an intimate concert in a large room listed as “the showroom”, and having scrumptious refreshments.

Rogers’ skills in performing in female attire was shown by the many votes he received from watchers as a performer in the popular 2011 television show Australia’s Got Talent.

Tickets for This is Me – The Man Behind the Make-up are $29. Book by ringing the HSPA office, 4952 3355, in school hours, or emailing huntperfor-h.school@det.nsw.edu.au.

Young People’s Theatre, at YPT, Hamilton. Ends February 23.

THIS lively adaptation of Gilbert and Sullivan’s popular The Mikado is set in a 1940s nightclub, borrowing the name of the original work’s Titipu township, and with the club’s seven-member band at the back of the venue providing jazz versions of the bright songs.

And the club’s patrons are in elegant garb, as they swing their way across the floor, with many of the young males and females hoping that members of the opposite sex will be attracted to them.

They also don’t show fear when their national ruler, the Mikado, makes an entrance in a stylish white suit and taps swiftly towards them.

And, while the Mikado makes the remark “If Gilbert and Sullivan could see me now,” there can be no doubt that the pair would be laughing as loudly as audience members.

The pair, with their tongues firmly in their cheeks when writing The Mikado in the early 1880s, made the title character very much a Brit of that period who was determined to show just how good he was as a boss.

Rob Bowman and David H. Bell, who adapted the music, book and lyrics, certainly followed the G and S pattern, letting the Mikado declare at one point that “Virtue is triumphant in musical comedies”, and having Ko-Ko, who has taken on the job of Lord High Executioner to save himself from a death threat, brightly declaring in contemporary style that he has “a little list” of names of people who could let him meet the Mikado’s demand for an almost immediate execution.

The cast of this production, mainly YPT members in their late teens, make this an engaging show under the direction of Amber Lewis, musical direction by Brent Hanson and Freya Meredith, and choreography by Chelsea Willis and Renae Youman (the latter providing the brisk tapping routines).

And the set and costumes certainly make the 1940s come to life, with one of the show’s most engaging songs, Three Little Maids, delivered by the trio of central female characters from a balcony above the club’s main floor, showing how determined they are to get what they want.