The Great Emu War,
Goodspeed’s Terris Theatre
By: Karen Isaacs - Oct 25, 2025
The audience was laughing delightedly (and so was I) at the new musical, The Great Emu War, at Goodspeed’s Terris Theatre in Chester.
The title sounds weird, but it is sophisticated silliness. If you think of Monty Python or Book of Mormon, you’ll get just a hint of how delicious this show, written by Cal Silberstein and Paul Hodge, is.
The two Australians, who met at NYU, used an actual event as the basis for the show: in the 1930s, emus attacked the wheatfields of Western Australia. Under pressure from the farmers who were threatening to have Western Australia secede as a state, the government sent the army to handle the problem, led by Major Meredith.
Though the army comes with machine guns and heavy artillery, those flightless emus “won” the war. The campaign was a political disaster. The musical focuses on the emus led by Edith, a young emu brilliantly played by Claire Saunders. She is heading out on migration to find the first of her multiple mates; there’s been a drought and food is hard to come.
Assuming we know little about the incident or about emus, a narrator, the delightful LaRaisha Dievelyn Dionne, humorously gives us information about Australia and emus. I didn’t know that the female emu lays the egg for the male to hatch and raise while she goes off to find another mate.
But Dionne plays multiple roles, including a magpie, as do the other cast members. They are the farmers, government officials, and emus.
You won’t see any “Big Bird” like costumes. The emus are suggested by a small headpiece, a ruff around the neck, and feathers on their backs. Dionne plays the role of a small magpie while doing so. Each cast member as a primary role, while filling in as farmers, emus, magpies, and soldiers. Taylor Matthew makes Major Meredith at times seem like George C. Scott as the maniacal general in Dr. Strangelove. Ethan (Ethan Peterson) is touching as Edith’s first love, and Jeremy Davis as her father, Enoch, delineates the eternal conflict of children leaving the nest over parental objections. McMurray, played by Morgan Cowling, is a delight as a farmer converted to a reluctant soldier.
Credit goes not only to Silberstein and Hodge, but also to director/choreographer Amy Anders Corcoran for the creative way they have told the story. Corcoran has created one of the funniest mating dances you might ever see on the stage.
It isn’t all fun and games. The show has several tuneful ballads, including “Stand Still” and “Love Doesn’t Start with a Bang,” as well as the funny “I Hate Birds” sung by Major Meredith.
The Great Emu War is tuneful, it’s imaginative, and it’s funny. It isn’t childlike funny or four-letter word funny, but it is touching funny. Though the show closes on Sunday, Oct. 25, I hope it has future productions. I am looking forward to seeing the next project by these two.