Rae Bonney with Flynn Turner and Will Centurion - January 2020

The magic of musical theatre combines singing, acting and dancing to project emotion to communicate joy and inspiration to an audience. Many of us think of cast members - dancing in a colourful spectacle, often forgetting other contributors like, roadies, costume designers, composers and stagehands, to name only a few. Back in 2015, industry health promotion charity Entertainment Assist released startling facts from a research project, conducted in association with Victoria University, Melbourne Australia, "Working in the Australian Entertainment Industry". Based on the general population, some of the stats highlighted: *suicide attempts for industry workers are more than double; *levels of moderate to severe anxiety symptoms are 10 times higher; and *levels of depression symptoms are five times higher. Conversely, a major theme emerged that workers expressed an overwhelming passion for their industry - a powerful and positive attitude to challenge some of the negative culture. I had the pleasure of hosting two singing, dancing and acting super stars from very different generations: 11 year old Flynn Turner, had recently played the lead role of Aladdin in his school production; and Will Centurion, an accomplished veteran of musical theatre also performed in Walt Disney’s Aladdin – years later, reinventing himself as a qualified counsellor for young entertainers. Hear Flynn and Will compare their thoughts and experiences around how we can influence generational and systemic change for this wonderfully, entertaining industry.