Jared Newell is about to take on one of the giant roles in Aussie musical theatre, that of songwriting legend and gay icon Peter Allen, in an upcoming local production of The Boy From Oz.

It’s one of Australia’s proudest theatrical exports. Scripted by the late Nick Enright with songs by Allen, it opened in Australia in 1998 with Todd McKenney in the lead and went on Broadway in 2003 in a revised version with Hugh Jackman as Allen.

When I last spoke to Newell in 2021, he’d just sung another giant role, that of the Four Seasons’ lead singer, Frankie Valli, in Canberra Philharmonic Society’s production of Jersey Boys.

The son-in-law of legendary Canberra ballet teacher Lisa Clark, he had also taken the job of singing teacher at her dance centre in Hume. 

A teaching career allows Newell flexibility to tour with the Ten Tenors, as he has been doing for the past 13 years, but now he’s also studying for a masters in speech pathology at the University of Canberra. 

“It’s got a good connection with singing… it seemed like a logical next step and it’s hard, but I’m loving it,” he says.

Newell didn’t see Peter Allen in his heyday, but has been doing lots of online research and is amazed by his vocal range – he will have to emulate that on stage.

“It blows me away when you see him live in concert and with songs like Not the Boy Next Door, he hits really high notes, but I feel that my training has given me chords of steel to take on this role.”

He rejects the idea that Peter Allen was just a larger-than-life camp queen, saying: “Of course he had a surface, but he led a rich life full of huge highs and deep lows.”

He’s been reading Stephen MacLean’s book Peter Allen: The Boy from Oz and watching the mini-series with black-and-white footage, finding both “really illuminating”.

“There was a deeper element to him. He was more than just the guy who sang I Go to Rio and danced with the Rockettes,” says Newell.

It is true, he notes, that when Allen met Judy Garland and later her daughter Liza Minnelli, whom he married, they gave him advice on how to enhance his profile from the format of the Allen Brothers in the late ’50s and ’60s; “such a straight act,” Newell says. 

Predictably, when The Boy from Oz went to Broadway, it was beefed up with more content about Garland and Minnelli and terms such as “jackeroo” were removed, but Newell is pleased to say they’ve largely returned to the original.

One song that might have puzzled the American audience is Tenterfield Saddler. Newell explains that this is sung when the older Peter looks back at the young Peter, experiencing the loss of his father by suicide and reflecting on his heritage and his grandfather, George Woolnough, the saddler of the title.

“It’s a key point,” Newell says. “He’s telling Peter, you’re going to have a great life, connecting with his grandfather and father and what it means to have a heritage like that, it’s such a pivotal moment.”

In the local production they’ll have two young, local performers playing young Peter, Mitchell Clement and Blake Wilkins, who were also cast in Billy Elliott. 

“Peter adopted a persona, playing a character on stage in order to give himself a point of difference,” Newell says.

“On stage he was larger than life, but he lived an extremely private life and shunned the spotlight, spending most of his time at his beach house in California. Both of his sides were true.” 

Allen once said: “The maniac only comes out when I hit the stage. I have to be a different person offstage. If I were to try to keep that up 24 hours a day, I would have a nervous breakdown.”

So how does Newell rate Allen as a performer, or as a songwriter?

“I think I will remember him as a songwriter,” Newell says after a long pause. “I Honestly Love You is his most-covered tune, but I have an image of him singing, I Still Call Australia Home.

“For me, he is a songwriter.”

The Boy From Oz, The Q, Queanbeyan, October 1-20.