The Green Room Awards have played host to more than a few upsets over the years. 2023 wasn’t one of those years. Everyone expected Kip Williams’ excellent The Picture of Dorian Gray to sweep the boards and it did.

But the 2024 awards may feature a surprise or two (or three, to be exact), because there’s an underdog.

The Marvellous Elephant Man: Annelise Hall, Kanen Breen, Sam Harmon and Marc Lucchesi. Photo © Paul Scott

In less than 18 months, an original, independent Australian production rose from complete obscurity to headline the world-famous Spiegeltent at the 2023 Sydney Fringe Festival. At the upcoming 2024 Green Room Awards, this same show has been nominated for Best New Writing for an Independent Musical plus two Best Lead for an Independent Musical nominations. That show is The Marvellous Elephant Man the Musical. Its creators call it “an irreverent and inaccurate gothic fairy tale“, which is apt, but the critics have been more explicit.

BEAT magazine described the show as “Beauty and the Beast meets Book of Mormon. ABC Radio Smart Arts went one further: “The Book of Mormon meets Beauty and the Beast, f#@%ing Rocky Horror...