Are you middle-raged? Join the club. It seems to be a big and ever-growing one. And now we have a fun, no-filter live show that tells it like it is.
Canberra born-and-raised performer Queenie van de Zandt is bringing her new show Middle Raged - A Musical Meltdown to The Playhouse at the Canberra Theatre Centre from July 8 to 11.
She promises the audience will laugh, cry, sing along to some 1980s bangers and leave the theatre feeling empowered.
On the phone from her home in Melbourne, van de Zandt says she and writer-producer Tiffany Noack got the idea for the show while attending a 50th birthday party for a mutual friend, Carita Farrer Spencer, who is also in the production.
"The party was a bit of a quiet affair and then, suddenly, someone started talking about menopause and the whole room erupted. People were like, 'Oh my god! Yes!'," she said.
"Everyone started drinking and the party took off and I suddenly said, 'Oh my god, you know what we are? We're not middle-aged, we're middle-raged! Everyone roared with laughter.
"The next morning, I was in the shower thinking, 'I have to write a show called Middle Raged. God, no. I'm too tired, I don't want to.
"It was so funny, I was driving that same morning and I get a call from Tiffany and she goes, word-for-word, this is in the show, 'Oh my god, I'm literally vomiting in my mouth as I say this, but I think you have to write a show called Middle Raged and I have to produce it'.
"Anyway, that was five years ago. We did a year of research and then spent two years gathering stories from middle-aged women all around Australia and the show is based on those stories. It was extraordinary how many women wanted to be heard."
The cast comprises van de Zandt, Valerie Bader, Carita Farrer Spencer and Zuleika Khan.
There is also an all-female live band, with the production bringing together sing-out-loud pop songs alongside original material.
"We call it a 'revue-sical' because it's not a musical, it's a cross between a revue and a musical," she said.
"The show basically opens with a feminist karaoke, which we do with the audience, which is really fun and all sorts of '80s bangers, which we all love and then there's some really beautiful songs we've re-purposed from people like Tim Minchin, Missy Higgins, Sia, Pink which just speak so strongly to certain moments in the show.
"And then we've got these wonderful, original shows we've co-written with Gillian Cosgriff and Laura Murphy who are absolutely hilarious songwriters, both fabulous women, and the audience will just so relate to their songs."
Menopause the Musical was written in 2001 and has become a cultural phenomenon. Van de Zandt says Middle Raged takes the baton from shows like Menopause the Musical and runs with it.
"I think Menopause the Musical has done a great service for women in that it got the word 'menopause' out there, into the vernacular. Up until then, people never said that word. In the same way The Vagina Monologues got people saying the word 'vagina'. Up until then, it was like, 'You can't say that'.
"We feel like what we've done with our show is we've taken the baton from those kinds of shows, they laid the groundwork.
"I think the big difference with our show is that people leave feeling incredibly empowered. It's not just a great laugh. The times we've done the show at workshops and things, women are just sobbing and then just yelling and screaming at the end. What we tried to do, writing the show, our absolute motivation was to make women feel good about themselves."
Van de Zandt, who turns 56 this year, was born and raised in Canberra and started her career on stage at Daramalan College. Her first role was as Anita in West Side Story in year 11.
"I did a couple of musicals at Dara and that's the first time I realised I could sing," she said.
"I remember, so clearly, the director, when I finished auditioning, said, 'You've got a really good voice'. And I said, 'Have I?'. I remember that so clearly - 'Have I?'. I just had no idea.
"And then I thought, 'Oh great, I want to be an actor and that will come in handy'.
"Funnily enough, singing became much more focused for me. I started doing cabaret. I did some shows with Canberra Rep and stuff like that. Back in the day, I'd perform at the School of Arts Cafe, which was a great cabaret venue in Queanbeyan, and a wonderful place called Tarzan's theatre restaurant, which was in Kippax and my sort of training ground.
"My first job out of school, I worked at the Film and Sound Archive for a couple of years as a cataloguer, which I actually loved. But then all mates from amateur theatre, they all moved to Sydney, so I decided to move to Sydney."
She's also lived in Brisbane, but has now settled in Melbourne, with her nine-year-old daughter Billie. Her dad Hans lives in Bonython and Canberra will always have a piece of her heart.
"It's very, very exciting coming home," she said.
"I remember going to my very first show in Canberra, at the Canberra Theatre, and I knew immediately that's what I wanted to do with my life. And to then be bringing your own show back to the Canberra Theatre....It's funny, I've performed at the Opera House, I've performed all over the world, there's something really special about coming to the Canberra Theatre with my own show. I feel like I've really made it now!"
