Jackie King

The following podcast is brought to you by the Creative Arts Curriculum Team from Secondary Learners Educational Standards Directorate of the New South Wales Department of Education. As we commence this podcast today, let us acknowledge the traditional custodians of all the lands on which this podcast will be played around New South Wales. Their art, storytelling, music and dance along with all First Nations people hold the memories, the traditions, the culture and hopes of Aboriginal Australia. Let us acknowledge with honour and respect our elders past, present and future, especially those aboriginal people in our presence today who have and still do guide us wisdom. Welcome to the creative cast Podcast series. My name is Jackie King and I'm a creative arts project advisor with the New South Wales Department of Education. Today we are having an industry chat with an inspirational young actor who has regularly assisted school co curricular programs. His credits include working with Frantic Assembly and the Australian Productions of Jasper Jones, Hair, Bran Nue Dae and the upcoming hit musical Hamilton, Please welcome Callan Purcell. Hi, Callan. Thanks for joining us today.

Callan Purcell

Thanks so much, Jackie. I'm really glad to be here

Jackie

I am really excited to have this conversation with you today. I've watched you grow up on the stage in Newcastle Theatre, and I've just had a read of your bio. And you have done so much in sort of the time that we've been apart, I almost feel a little bit embarrassed that I didn't know some of this stuff. I just want to read a little bit of that bio and then we'll talk to it. So it says that Callan is a proud Wiradjuri man who grew up on Awabakal country. He works as a director, playwright and workshop facilitator for young actors and theatre-makers. In 2018, he graduated from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London and then I feel bad about that because, in my head, I had you pegged for a finishing school around that time - but you finished your drama training at that time. You've worked alongside Complicité Knee High Theater, Told by an idiot, the wardrobe ensemble and engineer collective. You've written a show, the Naked Bunyip Dancing, which I did know because I knew that YPT in Newcastle is putting that on next year. So that's very exciting. And then you've got acting credits with the Frantic Assembly. You're in the Rime of the ancient Mariner, Jasper Jones. And Hair, the musical. And then the bio that I'm reading is from Bran Nue Dae, where you were playing Slippery; obviously, that season has been cut short because of covid. But for someone who I thought was so young, you've done so much already. Congratulations.

Callan

Thank you, Jackie. Yeah, I've been keeping busy since leaving high school.

Jackie

Obviously, your new news is being cast in the new Australian production of Hamilton, which we only touch upon slightly because I know you're not allowed to talk about it too much, but congratulations. That's very exciting.

Callan

Yeah, thank you. That that was a long audition process. But it's cool to have that news out in the open now.

Jackie

Very much so. So I would like to start by delving into some of that career that you are building and that you've started to build and look at some of the work that you've done. So it says that you're a director and playwright and so in 2014. You worked with the Australian Theatre for Young People to write that play Naked Bunyip Dancing. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that?

Callan

Yes. So actually, with ATYP. I worked on a piece called Between Us, which was a series of monologues from different writers around Australia, and it was performed in 2015. And it now that peace is published by currency press, and it can be performed by all HSC students for their final years.

Jackie

Wow, that's really cool. So that monologues that can be basically adapted for IPs. That's fantastic. And your show Naked Bunyip Dancing, was that put on in 2014 as well?

Callan

No, that was performed in 2019. But basically, it was a piece that I was introduced to. A book that was given to me when I was 12 by my Year six teacher and that's been in my life since then. So what? 2006? And since then, I've been workshopping that with kids in public schools and new theatre companies and then in 2019, it was performed as a full-scale play, and then it's had more workshops. And like you said before, ATYP is now going to be performing the next evolution of that piece.

Jackie

That is really exciting, that piece has been developed, and it's getting a lot of work, which is great. What were the steps that you took then to be going to the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London? How did you end up there?

Callan

Actually, it was so topsy turvy, because I remind myself that progress isn't linear just to jump back a tiny bit further. In 2016, I lived in America and a student exchange in Illinois, and I kind of got the travel bug. So then, when I was 17/18, I wanted to leave school and audition for NIDA and I applied to audition for NIDA twice, paid for the fee to audition, and I cancelled. I chickened out both times, and so then, after leaving school, I wanted to become a summer camp counsellor and go back to America. So I went and worked at French Woods Festival of the performing arts as an assistant director. It is a performing arts camp. When I was there, I met a really great friend of mine, Sinead O'Connor. And she was a WAAPA grad, and she was about to go study her masters at Central - so I was a bit lost. At that time, I was 19 and didn't know what I was doing, you know. I was about a year out of school now, and I looked at Central, and I saw a course there called Bachelor of Acting, and it was specializing in collaborative and devised theatre. And I knew that for me, acting wasn't enough to fill my soul and, well, what I wanted to do for the arts and for myself. It was an ideal course because it not only gave me actor training, but it gave me tools to create my own work and to be kind of, you know, an autonomous actor who could read the room and drive the room myself instead of waiting for someone to tell me where to stand waiting for an agent to tell me when I have work, or when I don't. The three years there were really rigorous training periods. I'm still percolating different lessons that I've learned and also sharing those lessons with all the students that I come across. So it was really only the beginning of my training was when I went to Central, and that's kind of happening every day as I go along.

Jackie

I love that because learning doesn't stop when you finish a course or when you finish school, like learning is lifelong. And so I love that you've touched on that, and you're saying that you're still developing those ideas that you learned in that drama school because it's really important. And that's really cool that it is about group devised or collaborative devised theatre to as well, not just acting, so I can see that that is what you've done a lot of. Obviously, once you've you finish that, can you talk to working with the Frantic Assembly?

Callan

Yes, it was a piece called Fatherland, and it was a musical. It was a physical theatre musical, and basically this image that they had. They had a core group of actors. It was at Lyric Hammersmith, and then there was a seriously huge number of men, young men and older men that came along to a series of physical theatre workshops where there was a range of different bodies of experience in the theatre. Different occupations, different nationalities. We all came together to create this experience of fatherhood and of relationships between men and that idea of brotherhood, too. It was really it was just I think I was just in my last few months of drama school at the time, so I was still really green. Um, and it was great to be able to be in the same room as Scott working on a new project for them because I understand that Frantic Assembly is a great physical theatre company that does devise through physical theatre and have that kind of outlook that every anything and everything can be physical theatre. Just it's just what the imagination kind of limits or let's free, which we can see what that physical theatre is.

Jackie

Fantastic. That sounds so exciting, and it's great to be able to just go in and create and not have an idea where it's actually going, I suppose. Um, so you do work on plays as well? Jasper Jones. Um, I know our school or the school that I was at used to study Jasper Jones. So you did that at the Bondi Pavilion? Did a lot of schools come and watch that when you did it?

Callan

Yeah, they did. It wasn't particularly. I think you know the hardest audiences are young people because if they don't like something, they'll let you know immediately. And I guess, and we'll touch on it a bit later. But I love working with young people or performing for young people because it's so humbling. And I was like, There's a particular show. I was like, I'm making art. I'm being serious about being an actor. And it's the moment where Jasper jumped into the river, and there was this sequence that we made that we created were just kind of floating in the water, and it was like time stopped, and this expression on my face made the students laugh. And I was like, Wait, why are they laughing? This is serious. This is the thing, and that it was such a great moment to realize that this isn't about me. It's about, you know, the reaction of the students and what they're taking on at that moment in particular. I got a lot of I got a few messages actually after that, via Instagram and Facebook from a few students who were particularly touched by the story. And I think that those people are those you know, those little moments that will, like, stay with them for the rest of their life. Whereas like, you know, Bell Shakespeare's the actors that come to the schools, They were the ones that changed my life, So I was really pleased to be able to do Jasper Jones for those young people. That's exactly what it was for.

Jackie

How cool is that? Your story reminds me of a time I was doing Les mis in the early two-thousands. Actually, I think it was in 2000, and we're doing it at the Civic Theatre in Newcastle, which was so like it was a huge experience for us as actors at the time and the we did a school's performance, and at the point where Gavroche got shot, the kids, the gun went off, and it was very loud because they were using real guns in the show and the kids then all laughed, and we were like, 'Oh, my goodness, how can they be laughing at that?' But I think it was more so that it scared them. And then they laughed at at at their uncomfortable like they were uncomfortable. So they laughed. And I think sometimes kids do that. They laugh inappropriately, but it's because they're uncomfortable.

Callan

It just doesn't shifts them out of their comfort zone. So, yeah, it's like coping mechanism, right? Like to kind of be able to digest what's just happened, and at least they can do that in a safe space, as opposed to feeling that they aren't allowed to express themselves authentically at that moment. So, yeah.

Jackie

I didn't know that you toured for Hair the musical. So you've done a few musicals as well, and obviously, you were meant to be in well; you started Bran Nue Dae at the start of this year. How does it compare doing musicals as opposed to, like some of your devised theatre that you're talking about with Frantic Assembly?

Callan

I think the difference only is the product. I think because, you know, you go in and as an actor with collaborative and devised theatre training, you still come in with ideas and dreams and a sense of the whole project, as opposed to just your role. I think it's, you know, there's that saying you rehearsals, you're not there to learn your part. You're there to learn everyone else's part. You go back to rehearse is to play, and so we're there just to throw in as many ideas as we can to make sure that this piece, whatever form it is, comes to life and does the story justice. The only difference really was that we already had a script. But then again, the Hair script is so loose. Anyway, the writers, funnily enough, we're still sending rewrites of the script. So it's again how you were saying learning is a lifelong thing. Apparently, so is the Hair script, and so, like different evolutions of that which was really cool. What was really nice was that I think being a collaborative and devised trained actor in that room, understanding what I Callan Purcell can bring to that space. And so, actually, we began each production wherever we were, with an acknowledgement of country from myself as Callan the actor. And then we kind of evolved into the world of Hair, which gave it a kind of a 'So we looked through the play through the musical through social ends of Australia'. And what? How that relates to America in during the Vietnam War and that kind of stuff, which it was so potent, and more powerful that way, too.

Jackie

I wish I'd seen it. That's cool. And I can't believe that the writers are still sending rewrites of Hair. Isn't it a seventies musical?

Callan

Yeah, because we asked and it was the 50th anniversary. But it's beautiful, I guess because they were like, 'Oh, yeah, maybe we could do this. Maybe we could do that'. But it's the reality that you know that the right item is just as valid as the director, who is just as valid as the stage manager and the actor and the designers, and we see that through collaborative and device theatre. It's an equal playing field. And actually, the most important thing is the story and how that affects the audience as opposed to the performance of the actor or the vision of the director. You know, it kind of lets the ego go out of the room. And again, let us focus on that story

Jackie

Thinking about your career and how you got there - I know you from having been in Newcastle Theatre from a young person. Can you talk to sort of the steps or what inspired you to sort of taking on acting as a career from a like a young person? When did that sort of happened? Did that happen through schools? Or was it more through your extracurricular work? I know what you've worked with ATYP, but I think you worked with quite a few of the local theatre schools, too, didn't you?

Callan

Yeah, most of them. I was at Hunter drama for a while when it was Hunter Region drama school. And then yeah, I was working at tantrum for a little bit there. I've worked in upstage new theatre as well. In Maitland. Yeah, so most of the major kind of youth theatre companies and youth theatre schools. They're currently working with typical productions in Wyoming as well, directing a new show for them there. I guess I've always done performing us all the time. I've never really, you know, you hear the stories about lawyers becoming actors and stuff, but it's just I've just been an actor who's turned into more of an actor, I guess. But, like I started dancing first at Australian Dense and Talent Center in Cardiff when I was like eight and then got into Hunter School of the Performing Arts, Uh, when I was 10 for dance. Then I moved over to acting or drama when I was 13, going into high school. And so then I kind of picked up acting then and a bit more singing and directing my first show when I was 18 there from my HSC there before I left. It's always just been a habit for me, I guess, and it's kept me out of trouble, and now I can pay the bills doing it, which is sick.

Jackie

That would be a very nice feeling because there's a lot of actors who are not paying the bills with it that are just doing it for love. So you went to HSPA? Obviously, you had, your schooling was very much driven by the performing arts. You did all of the performing us. Did you do music, dance and drama HSPA? Or how did your schooling look? Like

Callan

I left dance, and I never did music at HSPA. I didn't do dance in my year in high school, and it was just acting. Yeah, I just focused on that. I guess there were the school musicals we did Les Mis, West Side Story. But other than that, no, I didn't do any dance or music for my HSC. Actually, I didn't end up with an HSC. I didn't have enough of the, you know, the credit things that the elective Yes. I did outdoor rec course through Tafe, which was incredible, really good. And then I did drama. PDHPE, English standard.

Jackie

Okay, so, through HSPA, they would have had a lot of creative arts programs that you could be involved with throughout your school – like extracurricular programs in the school.

Callan

Yes, there have always been opportunities for high schoolers to be able to do ensembles, whether that's in like year 7, 8, 9, 10. And then there were also the theatre tech ensembles, theatre tech groups where young people could learn about the tech world in theatre, which was great. So those who wanted to work behind the scenes, I do remember, in particular Daniel Cavanagh. When he came to the school, he facilitated a music theatre workshop in music theatre classes at lunchtime, which was really great because there were so many of us that were kind of craving that youth music theatre sector in Newcastle. That wasn't necessarily as strong as it could be. So we could have that at that time, and as well we have star-struck. We have school spec. We have the state drama festivals and also dance festivals, and all of the choir groups. Stage band Um, it always came from the teachers, though, listening to the students and seeing what they needed and what they wanted to do to better themselves and better their skills.

Jackie

That's really cool. And obviously, being a performing arts high school, I expected that there would have been a lot of opportunities to do lots of different things. And I suppose that's really helped you or prepare you for the world of acting or the world of theatre, as you do now. Because you're not just you are not just an actor like I know that you've done lighting and I know you've done sound. You've done directing. You've done writing. You seem to have a real holistic vision of the theatre, and I don't really want to say a jack of all trades, but a little bit of a jack of all trades. You kind of your career has touched on a lot of different aspects of or a lot of different jobs within the theatre. Am I right in saying that?

Callan

Yeah, absolutely. I started to I did do lighting and sound when my voice started to break because I didn't know what else to do. Also it was that weird age gap of, you know, where there aren't really many parts. You're either too old to play this puddle too young to play the other part. So, yeah, that's when I started to consider more offstage things as well, which just gave me such an appreciation for other elements of theatre. I definitely understand what you mean, though; that saying Jack of all trades master of none is definitely something I grapple with from day to day. But the reality is that I think we're moving into a world where you must, you must, uh, work and play with so many different facets of theatre, one to keep you saying and to to keep you on top of what people are asking for in terms of skills and stuff. So, yes, you can be as I am a writer, and you can be an actor, and you can be a workshop facilitator. But I do that because I want to, and that's what aligns with my morals and my values.

Jackie

Let's talk about being a workshop facilitator because that's where our paths have crossed again. Just recently, you came to the school that I was at to help some of the students understand one of the HSC, please, that they were just struggling with. And you were very gracious with the students and generous with your time to come and facilitate that workshop. And you created it just for our special, like our group of students. But I know that you have also worked with Daniel Governor at Newtown Performing Arts High School, doing their after school work. So you've done a lot of work in the extra-curricula of high school since you have left school. And since you've done drama school, which is really nice to be giving back, how would you like to describe what you've done? Or can you talk about the work that you've done at Newtown Performing arts high school and then at other high schools as well?

Callan

Yes, I think it kind of it's in two streams. There's either I come in and strictly develop, deliver a workshop of sorts with theatre skills, like through physical theatre or Shakespeare or music, theatre or voice and movement and then the other branch is coming on board as a director to kind of facilitate a lab where the students and I can create a piece of work where there's shared ownership over it. I think any workshop that I run ever is always. There is always a sense of curiosity and asking questions that begin with what if and I wonder. It's so important to me that I'm not coming in as a guru with all the answers, because nine times out of 10, as you know, Jackie, that the students are teaching you so many things with the questions they ask because they've got the ear to the ground knowing that you know what, what's rippling amongst teenagers and what the trends are and how they express themselves. So I guess they are a lifeline and direct connection into that teenager world and that we can, and I can create theatre through that kind of stream, which is really exciting because it's ever-changing. I'm always excited to bring in my skills that I've learned from drama school, and before then, I still use exercises I learned at ATYP. And, uh, you know, adopt a theatre as well when I was like, What, 11. So it's all, so it's just a huge bag of coming in and looking at meeting the students and saying, Okay, what do we need? And what do we want to celebrate in this room? You know, there are some classes that are physical theatre or physical comedy or their ace at writing scripts. So we look at using their strength to examine the things that they need to improve on and always.

Jackie

Then they will be shown in their best light, but also they will be challenged to improve themselves as performers and theatre-makers. How did you get into doing this sort of work in schools? Did you always have a passion for leading workshops like this? Or is it something that's sort of you were just asked, and you've made it up and and and you found your own way as you've gone?

Callan

I was really lucky that when I was 17, working with young people, and I think the reason why I got into it is that it's the thing that gets me out of bed in the morning. If that's honestly, because I'm always then learning and experimenting and creating new work with young people that want to work and that have ideas and that have something to say, I just give the space and the structure to allow them to say it. And then we kind of form the works. So I was working at ATYP and then I started to go into schools in the Catholic system and the public education system as well, and it's developed from there. I've always kind of started from scratch, if anything, developing different workshops and catering them for different groups. It's always been really a freelance kind of thing and a word of mouth thing as well. Kind of going, hey, if you want me to do a workshop, I'm happy to come in for workshops as well, to come in and see how best to, you know, to develop the students and see what they need, as well as the teacher.

Jackie

Yeah, and I think that's sort of what happened at our school. We had a blockage of our play and how the students were learning about it, and I feel like you really helped everybody in the space understand the play a little bit more so with the workshops that you run. How do you find the students respond to that? Do they seem really appreciative of having another person in? They probably connect with you on different levels and what they connect with their teachers at school.

Callan

That's such a good question because I think it can go so many ways, and it has, like even yesterday. I teach. I do workshops for young from primary school students to HST students. And yesterday, I just asked the students to take their shoes and socks off for us to start, and even that they were screaming and they were so elated to be able to do that tiny little thing. So I guess my understanding is I come in to shake things up, if anything, and let them kind of be kids again. However, all they are and express themselves in different ways. I always have this image that I would love them to have the feeling of being upside down for a little bit and seeing the world from a different point of view. I come in as an inspirer. I work. I work in short, sharp intervals. I don't necessarily come in to deliver lectures or like long term kinds of things, but short bursts of inspiration to share my passion and love. And hopefully, that becomes infectious. Um, it does a lot of the time. We see that a kind of not forcing students into exercises, but definitely dropping them in the deep end and going kind of that yes and mentality that we get in. We get it done, and we start doing the things you know. Actors are actors; they do things they're not sitting and contemplating. We have enough time for that. Later I come in, I get sweaty, they get sweaty, and we have a chat after that, and we play. One challenge I do come up against at the moment is a reflection, and my expectation for the students to be able to articulate their feelings or their experience of what they've just done in the task is a little bit unreasonable at times, and I'm coming to terms with that and trying to figure out ways to get students to be able to really reflect on what they've just experienced.

So whether or not that's writing it down privately instead of just sharing with the rest of the group, maybe they can express it through, like, you know, an abstract word or just even a sound as opposed to words because, as you know to, they're trying to deal with their bodies changing and their brains changing and how they see themselves in relation to one another. So I'm definitely trying to make that more accessible, because for me, regardless of the ability or you know their intention to become an actor, the most important part is that they can engage and find a sense of development or a sense of journey through the task at the end of the day.

Jackie

That's really cool, and I would agree it's hard to get students to reflect on what they have done at times. Yeah, I feel like they don't want to talk out loud about it. So, yeah, finding something, finding another way to let them express that might be a way to go. Yeah, so you had obviously had an incredible experience with schools both at school when you were at HSPA and coming in and running workshops or working in the extracurricular side of the school, post your own school graduation. What do you see? Works really well for students to develop those gifted and high potential students who, uh, maybe have an interest in going into the theatre. What are some really good things that teachers who are listening might be able to implement straight away or be able to think about to bring into their school to really inspire their students to perhaps consider a career in the performing arts like you?

Callan

I guess the biggest thing I would say is that there is a difference between school drama and then the acting world outside, and that's absolutely fine. It's just, I understand. I understand that there are students that want more, and they're hungry for more. So there are so many different workshops that are outside of school hours through Australian theatre. For young people in particular, where you are working with professional actors and directors and technicians, that yeah, you kind of develop those types of classes and those productions so whether or not that's something that they can do and also I know the state drama festival and, like, you know, the national of the state drama company is a great opportunity for those who are looking to do something more, also potentially if there's funding for it. And if there's time and venues, whether or not that student wants to step up and director play, uh, and be a leader for that class and kind of develop a show that they want to do, that could be an exciting opportunity, because I think my understanding or my gut feeling, is that when we're in a drama class, that class is for everyone. And so regardless of the again the abilities or whether where particular students are at, we need to acknowledge that that is what they've got and that's what they're bringing, and that's enough as well. And that's what we're working with, because if we're always only expecting others to meet us, then that's not really fair. So we're trying to meet in the middle and create something that we never even thought we could make me.

I'd say look for things outside of that school to be able to let your let those students excel, because then they're going to bring those skills into the classroom, and then they're only gonna feed that into the other students and make everyone better off.

Jackie

You obviously about to get insanely busy with your rehearsal schedule coming up. But for teachers who wanted to enhance their programs by getting somebody like yourself in to do a workshop or to run some kind of after school type activity, how do teachers like to reach out to actors? How, like, obviously, I was able to find you because I knew you. But what are some avenues that teachers can go through to get in touch with actors like yourself, who might be able to come in and run a workshop to inspire their kids?

Callan

Yeah, you see that sometimes there are generic programs that people can come in and whatnot, but as you say, it's a specific thing for someone to come in and inspire them and create that connection. However long or short that connection, maybe, and I would also say potentially that teacher can step up and become the inspirer as well. If you can if a teacher sends themselves away to professional development, of course, either at night or other schools around and kind of share that the things that you learn, all the things that you love with the students, as I'm sure the teachers already do.

Jackie

Fantastic. Some great advice. Thank you so much for sharing your insights today. Really excited to get to know more about what you've been doing since I last saw you on stage in Newcastle too many years ago. I like to finish with what I call the final Fast five, and I found that they haven't been so fast sometimes. But let's see how we go. What high school did you go to?

Callan

Hunter school of the Performing Arts

Jackie

And your favorite subject at HSPA?

Callan

I really loved art because of the room, in particular, the wind that we have huge windows and the light was coming in, and it was beautiful. The setup was that it wasn't a conventional classroom, they were just tables, and they were just materials everywhere. And Miss Forbes would always come in with a beautiful smile. And that made me feel really comfortable.

Jackie

I was expecting a performing arts subject, a favourite teacher and why?

Callan

Miss Martin was a great support for me through my later years there. I think her son's name was Callen, so I think that's why we had that really nice connection. But yes, she was my PE teacher, and she treated me like a human instead of just another number within the students.

Jackie

What is you can choose which one you want to answer this best school achievement or your favourite school memory?

Callan

Jackie, I'm going to have to say finishing school. To be honest, I was ready to. I was ready to go, and I was so ready to go and just go and go and go and go. I was itching to get out, not because of the school in particular, but just because I was ready to take on the world.

Jackie

That's a good answer. I think that's an achievement for a lot of our students. Is just getting to that finish finishing line alright, and the final one takeaway that you can leave as advice to our teachers.

Callan

I'd say the students that you teach aren't necessarily the perfect actors, but they're the right actors for that room and for that class. So if you're able to perceive their physical and mental energy, no matter how that's delivered as an expression of confidence, then you'll be able to channel that into something productive and positive for the rest of the class. The last thing, too, is that show. Don't tell, you know, you always knew that the teacher was meeting business. Once you take the keys off from around her neck and get on the floor with you and have a go.

Jackie

Yes, taking the keys off too noisy coming from a music teacher were all about noise. Callen. It's been an absolute joy talking to you today. Good luck with Hamilton and the obviously the very busy rehearsal season that is going to be coming up for you. I'm sure it's going to be an amazing experience. It is definitely one that I'm going to be getting along to. I hope that our paths can continue to cross, and we can continue to work together to support our students in schools as well.

Callan

I've no doubt, Jackie, that's really exciting.

Jackie

Thank you.

Callan

Thanks.

Jackie

This podcast was brought to you by the Creative Arts Curriculum Team, Secondary Learners Educational Standards Directorate of the New South Wales Department of Education. Get involved in the conversation by joining the Statewide Staffroom as a source of all truths regarding curriculum or email. Our curriculum advisor, Cathryn Horvat using the email address creativearts7-12@det.nsw.edu.au. The music for this podcast was composed by Alex Manton, audio production by Jason King.

[end of transcript]

Jackie King

The following podcast is brought to you by the Creative Arts Curriculum Team from Secondary Learners Educational Standards Directorate of the New South Wales Department of Education. As we commence this podcast today, let us acknowledge the traditional custodians of all the lands on which this podcast will be played around New South Wales. Their art, storytelling, music and dance along with all first nations people hold the memories, the traditions, the culture and hopes of Aboriginal Australia. Let us acknowledge with honour and respect our elders past, present and future, especially those Aboriginal people in our presence today who have and still do guide us with their wisdom.

Welcome to the creative cast podcast series. My name is Jackie King, and I'm a creative arts project officer with the New South Wales Department of Education. Today I'm excited to be having an industry chat with one of Australia's emerging musical composing sensations. Please welcome writer of Fangirls Yve Blake. Hi Yve, thanks for joining us today.

Yve Blake

My pleasure, Jackie. Thanks for having me.

Jackie

I've done a little bit of research and sometimes People describe you as totally now a musical name and a snooper who you hope never follows you around the Internet.

Yve

Oh, my gosh. Where is that from? Who wrote that?

Jackie

I'm not sure. I found I read it somewhere on the Internet. So I know that you're a playwright. You are a composer, a musical comedian. And I guess your big work is fan girls, which is the very now musical that's about to come back to Belvoir. But I just wanted to talk through sort of how you got there and and the different things that you have done that has led to Fan Girl. So I noticed that you have done a few different sort of solo tours, and you had a play before fangirls, Sugar Sugar, which debuted in 2015. So can you tell us a little bit about that?

Yve

Yeah, sure. Well, look, I always described, especially when I'm speaking to teenagers who asked, You know, how do you get where you got to? I always describe my career trajectory is really kind of wiggly, so I started as someone who's obsessed with theatre in high school. I discovered that so read as many plays I could and saw as many plays as as I could and theatre's expensive. So sometimes I would write to companies and ask for cheaper tickets on the ground that I was a teenager and I could write them a report and tell them what my experience was like because they need to think about the next generation.

Jackie

How did that go? Uh, did you get cheaper tickets?

Yve

Very successful. Yeah, I was on so Sydney Theatre Company and Griffin Theatre Company used to have these youth advisory panel. So that was sort of teams of teenagers who would see shows and report back to the company about how the companies could be more attractive to teenagers and younger theatregoers. So I started as someone who was interested in theatre but upset by how I felt often when I went to the theatre as a teenager, I was the youngest person in the room, and often the issues on stage didn't really represent stuff I was concerned with. But even at that age, I started to realize, like, wow, Okay, I feel that and I am a cisgender white woman from a pretty privileged background. So who else isn't being seen on stage? And who else doesn't feel welcome in these spaces? So, really, my career has been a series of experiments to try and like celebrate what I love about theatre and break the rules that I don't really agree with. So yeah, I, I became interested in theatre. In high school, I started writing. I guess I was also really interested at that moment with becoming an actor. I left high school and I had started writing.

I started entering playwriting competitions and so I won this competition, that Playwriting Australia did in my final year of high school. It was like I co-won it was a bunch of other writers, but it was this little sticker that sort of said, Keep going. So I sort of just kept writing and I was never finishing plays. Jackie. I was always doing like, 10 pages. And then I'd be like, Oh, it's hopeless. Like, you know, there's lots of struggle, but I eventually started making these, these one woman shows or the solo shows that were, I mean on reflection. They were kind of like interactive. We had character comedy pieces, but they were all about researching. So yeah, I did a bunch of solo shows, and most of them were this format where I built this website and I asked people from around the world to anonymously submit on this website an answer in response to a question. So, so one of the show's idea. The question was, tell me about a version of yourself that you feel no longer are a person you feel you no longer are, and I got a variety of responses. Some people have, like, really nostalgic fond memories of a happier time. Some people talked about really destructive times. They've moved through, and I got more than 2000 entries from around the world. And then I decided to turn those memories into songs. So sort of like an hour of 10 songs, which I guess, in retrospect, you could say is a bit like a cabaret. But I also you know I was 21 I was like, No, it's live art anyway. All I'm trying to say is, Uh, yeah, I started making some solo shows and moved to London. I kept on making work there. I started making interactive works around food where people would sit around a table with iPods and the iPods would tell them how to make art works out of the food in front of the table.

And then they started discussion about their relationship to food, like just a series of experiments that culminated in in 2015 meeting a 13-year-old girl who completely fascinated me. She told me she'd met the man she was gonna marry and when I said, Okay, well, who's he? She told me his name was Harry Styles and When I laughed at her, she said, don't laugh at me. I'm serious. I love him so much I would slit someone's throat to be with him. And I just felt this recognizable feeling off just being, I say, pregnant with curiosity like, I'm not gonna be able to stop thinking about this. I started obsessively researching fangirls and I mean my career. Until that point, Right had been writing a bunch of plays, little mini plays that I never finished doing a bunch of different like playwriting courses and getting into little residencies and groups and doing developments of like, sort of little ideas of things. But I had never realized something as big scale as a full professional musical. So when I met that girl and started researching fangirls, I realized I was gonna have to do a piece of I was gonna have to embark on a piece of work I never created before. And I learned how to write a musical in the process of writing fangirls, right, Because I was sort of just I was just an emerging artist, trying lots of different things.

Jackie

So you wrote the music and the book script and everything for Fan girls. So you've obviously had some music training in your background as well.

Yve

Actually no. I mean that's very fair to assume, but actually, but my background is, you know, when I was in high school, I really wanted to do music as an elective because at my school you did it in your seven and then you could elect it for your year8 and year nine.

So I elected it in year eight, but I couldn't play an instrument, so my school was like, We have to pick one up. So I tried playing the guitar for a year, but I think the last piece I played at the end of the year Jackie was like Twinkle, twinkle, little star So started year nine. My English, my English, my music teacher pulled me aside. It was like, Listen, I don't know that this subject is gonna work for you. I don't know that you're gonna be able to keep up with all the performance exams. And I couldn't read music like I was. Really? I just theory and reading music. I understood parts of it that there were. There were mechanics of it that I just couldn't comprehend. I understood, understood the feelings and listening for all the different parts. But did the maths of it didn't just didn't gel with me. So at her suggestion, I left music and then was like because I was very dramatic, I felt very scarred. And I was like, Oh, I'm just not allowed to write music. So when I was 20 years old after, you know Gosh, let me think I'm 14 when I get kicked out of music, there's like, six years. I'm just like singing, made up songs into my little flip phone and just wishing I could write music but feeling like I felt like a computer without a printer, I had no way to get it out. I finally was like Okay, stuff it and I downloaded this program called Ableton live. It's like a bit of composition software, and I just YouTube. It's awesome, right? Just went on YouTube and I watched hours and hours of teenage boys explaining how to use this program. And so I taught myself. So on YouTube, they'll have tutorials on how to recreate certain pop song. So, like, Gosh, when I was learning, Justin Bieber had this huge dance album, this really poppy dance album.

There's a song on it called Sorry, and I honestly would have spent eight hours just watching this tutorial. How to build that pop song. But by doing that, I was listening to the production elements that were being chosen, and I could start to hear those production elements in other songs. So, like an air filter in the pre chorus that goes to the to the drop. And so I What I'm sharing is that I didn't have any musical training in composition. I learned it off YouTube. I didn't know that was available to me until I was 20. But I wonder what would have happened if I had discovered this earlier when I was a teenager, that it's kind of all sitting there on YouTube. You can get free trials for a lot of this really fancy software and, you know, to write this whole show, I kind of just I taught myself off YouTube. I made a bunch of errors as I went, and then I shared stuff with people eventually for fan girls. I did work with the music producer who took my demos, but the other thing I want to offer is if anyone is listening to this and goes, I wish I could write music, but I don't play piano. I don't play guitar. I can't write music on the stage. These were all issues for me, but actually, now I've learned to write music in a way that so arrangement focused right when I come when I come up with the song, I'm already thinking what the drums might do. I'm already thinking about, like the harmonic textures on what kind of frequency do I want them to be low, high or mid, and, and that is a really asset in collaboration. So anyone who doesn't play an instrument please, you could still write a musical.

Jackie

That's amazing, because when you said that your, your one-woman show is like a cabaret of 10 songs that you wrote. I'm just assuming that you are a musical genius, as well as.

Yve

Far, far from it. I honestly I can't I really.

Jackie

You know what those like you've got to give yourself some credit. That is pretty amazing. If you've had no music training and you are just able to learn that off YouTube and playing with Abelton,

Yve

Thank you. That's very kind Jackie.

Jackie

So let's go back to Fangirls because I want to talk about your research from having that epiphany with the 10 year old girl who was in love with Harry Styles and just would kill for Harry Styles. I watched your Ted X talk with I've got to say had me laughing for 10 minutes. Almost, and it really made me think about fan girls and how we view women as opposed to how we view men. And I thought, Well, I didn't even I'm actually happy to be a fan girl now because as you talk about the shrine to Harry styles, etcetera, how, ingenious that is and how they're able to come up with that. The executive functioning skills. That was amazing. So can you talk about some of your research in writing Fangirls?

Yve

Sure. Well, thanks for the compliments. I mean, what I reflect on in that talk is it's fascinating, right? I met this 13-year-old girl and I was fascinated. But in retrospect, it was a kind of morbid curiosity. The artist in me was going Wow, she's crazy. She's crazy and like, this is a crazy subculture. And I want to investigate it because it sounds like it would be juicy to write like a dramatic, funny story about this and the more research I did. And at the time I first sort of poured all the fans of Harry Styles. and fans of one direction when they were together and it was interesting because my expectations was that I was going to discover behaviour that was really competitive. And it was about a bunch of heterosexual girls bidding for the affection and attention off this dude.

And then I did my research and quickly, like some of the first things I found researching the one direction fandom. Were corners of it I hadn't imagined existed. So, like, rainbow direction, entire facet of the fandom that is about protecting and celebrating and supporting queer fans and They also have all these charity efforts where they raise money and they, like I always love talking about this one gesture they did where they in a stadium in Boston and they did it in other stadiums. They coordinated with a huge number of fans. They figured out which seat seating banks different fans would be sitting in and then circulated different coloured tiles that they could put up on their phone screens. They could coloured image, and the result was that across the stadium, imagine a perfectly proportioned rainbow flag. So one banks red, then orange, then yellow, then green. So, like it just, I was suddenly taken back by, Yeah, the organization skills, the creativity, the goodwill, the fact that these people were uniting through a love of a musical artist. But it wasn't necessarily about like young girls being competitive psychos. And so I started to question. Okay, well, why is that? The dominant association we have with fan girls and their real epiphany moment for me, which I talked about a lot, is that as I was researching one direction fans a couple months later, Zayn Malik left the band one direction, and there was like this global outcry because it was sort of without warning overnight. But there was also a lot of mainstream news reporting, and I really noted the language that was being used. I noted that fan girls were largely being described as hysterical and scary and crazy and hormonal and over the top and a bit much. And I had this epiphany off, like why I always say this.

But why is it that the image of a young girl screaming her lungs out at, say, a Justin Bieber concert might be described with those words? But the image of a young man screaming, even crying at a football match might be described is completely different words. Loyal, passionate, enthusiastic. The love of the game, Australian. I just sort of suddenly went, Oh, wow. Okay, so the more interesting thing about Fangirls isn't the way that they're full of energy. It's the way that people talk about their energy and that subtly gendered ways that we look at enthusiasm when it is deemed to come from like a fem source. And so really, I realized that I did want to write a show about fan girls, and I was excited to write a show about, like, teenage girls, where everything is life or death stakes. But I wanted to design it, as I say, like a Trojan horse. So on the outside, it seems to be kind of like sparkly, funny, almost like a parody kind of energy. But underneath it, it's gonna It's actually talking about some really big social themes that's talking about the different ways that we raise young women and men. And so, in the second act sneaks up on you and punches you in the gut.

Jackie

You've researched all of this information about fan girls, and then you've gone to write fan girls. And I see that you were supported by Rebel Wilson through the theatre maker scholarship and also through the Belvoir Artists Workshop to create Fangirls. Is that what sort of helped you to get it off the ground?

Yve

Yeah, sure, so, Yeah, well well., what I always reflect on is like, Yeah, I had never done a project like this on also. I mean, growing up, I loved musicals. I listened to so many cast albums, but I reflected and really all of my heroes were boys, you know? We're talking.

Tim Minchin, Lin Manuel Miranda composer lyricists before me who I was inspired by. Were all dudes, I didn't have that many women 2.2 who were my heroes and you know, it's small, but it was. It mattered because I was trying to do a story about teenage girls from a female perspective, and I really questioned whether it was even worth trying and if it was worth it, that people would listen, right? So when I, I submitted for the Rebel Wilson Theatre Maker scholarship which took place in 2016 and when I got it, when I knew that she had picked me, it was this moment of going. I mean, I still felt like I don't know if I could do this, but I had someone who was saying, Well, you better and it was a moment where as soon as I got that, I started working six days a week on it so hard and, I was like huh? You know, the grant wasn't in the scheme of things that much money, but saying you because someone else saying you could do this really lit a fire under my bum. So I now try and say to myself, How do I give myself that sticker? and I would say that to teenagers if you feel like I want to write a play, but I can't it's like, Well, who's saying you can't? Because if it's you, then why don't you just say, like, why don't you just for a second pretend that you could? And that's kind of the only way you're going to get started. But yet in terms of finishing it, that was a long, long road. I really thought all right in 2016, and we'll put it on in 2017. But that just wasn't the case like, I was lucky that many producers were interested in the work.

But it took two more years of developing the show in a really rigorous way, and sometimes that was through a funded workshop, and sometimes that was about inviting my friends around my kitchen table and asking them all to read it out loud just so I could hear it and saying to them Really clearly, you know, I don't want tips at the end. I just want to hear what works on. I want to hear what questions you have and what you didn't understand and making really clear to them. That's what I want to know. And I guess I want to share that. To say that yes, sometimes you will get resources to develop your work and sometimes you won't. But you can actually keep moving if you find some kind friends who know when to talk and when to shut up, you know, and hopefully everybody has some friends who can do that.

Jackie

You know, I think sometimes if you can just get yourself attached to like a different community theatre groups who would be interested, like you can very quickly find some friends who would be happy to do that sort of thing. I'm sure.

Yve

It's a really good point, and it's interesting, like in music, you know, people pull bands together all the time. There's no if there's people don't have any issue with, like contacting people going, Hey, you wanna do a collaboration and I don't know if it will work or not, but let's just try and and I think that sometimes theatre needs a bit of that energy of just being like, Hey, do you wanna just try something together? Yes. If you wanna write a play and you're daunted because you're like, Oh, who, but who will be? And how will it go on and said, Well, it doesn't have to. You don't have to get a slot at the old fitz next year. You could maybe just get some mates around the table and start there.

Jackie

Yeah, great. Great suggestion. So you actually played Edna in the production of Fan Girls that went on at Belvoir Street Theatre? Had you put what you've done your one woman shows, I guess before have you done like a big musical before? Have you been involved in.

Yve

Absolutely not. Well, I mean, look, I grew up wanting to be a performer and I've done all of those solo shows, and if I'm honest, I got really burned out from them because I loved the writing part, getting out there every night. I mean, growing up as a teenager, I thought there was no part that would be more glamorous than being a performer, right? It's just simple. It's like everyone pays attention to you. Everyone claps everyone knows who you are. If you get really famous, you get to Hollywood and get free dresses like it just seemed like the best job, right? But then actually doing it sucked and, and, you know it was a privilege to, to be in the lead in Fangirls at Belvoir. My goodness, I learned so much, but what I loved explaining to young people is like I got on that stage and it was a privilege. But I was like, Wait, I always thought acting was like the funnest, coolest thing. It was like nothing could beat acting. But now that I've also tried, writing is a job. Oh, my God, it wins! Hands down for me with writing I could like I can do whatever I want with my day I've got so much freedom I could sit in a cafe and just get cappuccinos all day and just type away while I'm mumbling to myself and like in such comfort and freedom and but as an actor, you're like an athlete. It's like every morning you wake up and you got to go. Oh my God, Am I going to sing that eight second high- D today? or not, and you become someone who suddenly is like I have to save my voice and you can't go to any parties because you're working every night of the week.

All this is to say, I really respect actors and having gone through that show and like the lead role in Fangirls has a lot of stunts, a lot of physical work. I mean, I was covered in bruises. I've had so much respect for performance, but I, I wish that I could go back and tell my teenage self like You don't want to be an actor. You don't you think you do? But there is more actually way more fun jobs. It's not the funnest job.

Jackie

That everyone sees it with that glamour.

Yve

I think it's because I think it's because in our psyche, we think to be acknowledged, recognized, known, understood, to be famous is to be legitimate, and I lived in that part. I grew up in that paradigm. I grew up with Paris Hilton was relevant, like that's what I understood. A success, especially for a woman and now, like all I do all the time, is hope that no one will find things on the Internet of me from my early twenties. Like I crave anonymity like You're describing like Oh, your musical comedian, right? I said, Well, I, I did try that for a year and a half. What? I was 22 but I guess what I'm saying is, Yeah, like, I just I feel like there's been such a paradigm shift in me in my twenties from going, too. I want everyone to know about my work, and I want to be out there to going like, No, I don't really want attention sucks. I just want to drink cappuccinos and come up with rhymes for Tampon and in a cafe like I'm happy. You know what I'm saying? I sort of write my little lyrics and say it and just, like, smash out my pop songs.

Jackie

I think that's really interesting about you not wanting people to see stuff that you made in your twenties. It's something I guess we tell the kids all the time. Like don't put anything on the Internet, that.

Yve

God you be careful.

Jackie

And through doing these podcasts. I've talked to different artists because I've been researching them.

To be able to hold up 20 to 30 minute conversation or sometimes longer and know all about their career, and I start talking about them. They're like, Oh, that's old wait on. Obviously, that's sort of been a source of some of your inspiration to about what you've been able to find on the Internet.

Yve

For sure for sure.

Jackie

I read. I hope this is right that Fangirls is being turned into a series. I do hope that the Harry Styles Shrine is an episode.

Yve

I feel for listeners like the context behind the shrine is in my Ted talk. I refer to this event that happened where Harry Styles, the actual person, was unfortunately sick on the side of a highway and within, I think it's six hours of memory serves. There was a shrine at the space where he vomited, and I, I pull it up in my talk. It's one of the first and last things I talk about. The first time I mentioned it kind of gets a laugh is like, that’s crazy and by the end you take a different perspective on it. But yes, thank you for that tip. I will consider that I will take that into the brainstorm.

Jackie

Awesome. So is that like a television series that's being turned into or?

Yve

Yeah, I can't say too much about it. The thinking is like I've made this story that spans like different continents, and it's about a global network of fans and we wanted to create a screen version of it, and we're still in kind of the development stage and figuring out what form that will take. It's a really interesting and unique challenge, right, like theatre and and screen, whether that's film or TV are such different mediums, especially when you add a musical element. So, it's a really it's a It's a really fun adventure to be on. But the other thing I should say, I was never aware that if you have a career as a theatre writer that can turn into a career as a TV writer, and that's what started happening for me.

So I have a a variety of film and screen project, and it's such a different discipline. But I guess I just was never aware when I was younger than the two like can lead to each other.

Jackie

Yeah cross over a little bit. Yeah, fantastic. And the last thing already is that you are adapting and Aussie kids book into a musical as well, so you still have more musicals on the horizon.

Yve

Yeah, well, I'm so lucky because of the success of Fangirls. I'm now getting away with it. Jackie, people hire me to write musicals. So this girl who like four or five years ago couldn't play an instrument couldn't write a song was sitting on YouTube, trying to figure out how to recreate Justin Bieber songs. Somehow, I'm getting away with it. And if I could do that, if I could write a musical on like my qwerty keyboard than anyone could do anything Uh huh.

Jackie

That is awesome advice. So now, getting to how you've become Yve Blake, writer of Fangirls, which is getting a return season at Belvoir Street Theatre at the start of next year.

Yve

And I'm sure I don't know what will be announced when this goes out, but it's also going to some other places, which I'm really excited about. They're not announced yet, but keep your eye out. That and also we're gonna be putting something on Spotify next year that I'm very excited about.

Jackie

Very exciting. How did you get to the stage and I know you sort of touched on you. You've just kept writing. You've just kept chugging at it. Did you do any particular courses after school throughout your schooling career? Did you, like, attend acting classes after school? Anything like that? What? What got you there?

Yve

Sure. So I went a lot to a T Y. P. The Australian theatre for young people. And I did lots, of course. Is there acting courses? They do productions. I auditioned and got into.

I didn't do any writing classes, but I started reading a lot of plays and I really recommend that. I also wanna say, you know, when I first started going to libraries to check out books, most of the plays that I would find would be I'll just be straight like they would be like 30 years old and almost all written by dudes. And I picked up and go. These plays suck. But if you do a little research online, especially now, you can get pdfs and e versions of stuff you can find lists of younger female playwrights, if that's what you're looking for, or maybe looking for trans playwrights or playwrights of colour like there are ways to find the stuff that you want to read. And that's my number One advice is just read so much of it. I don't know if reading his old school now I feel like everything is all about video content now. But just read plays. Do it, do it, do it even if you want to act. If you want to write whatever you wanna direct, read them. And then, honestly, what? I left school. I started applying for a little micro opportunities. So ATYP. Has a national writers studio, which is like a week long writing camp. Or when I moved to London, I got into the Royal Court Young Writers program, which is like an eight week program eight or 10 weeks for a bunch of playwrights, and they make you do exercises. It's like a little boot camp. So, um, you know, and I record probably across my career, I've done a five or six of those, but was never went to a formal institution to learn how to write. It was just lots of experimentation. Hey, Well, sometimes that leads to learning how to do it.

Jackie

Look at how you've learned how to use Abelton. It's all sort of been through experimentation. So school for you. You obviously had that experience where you were told not to continue doing music, which I think it's a crying shame. Did you do drama at school?

Yve

Yeah, I loved it sick. I was obsessed with drama. I did. I love drama and I had some really good encouraging teachers. So I was. I was very, very lucky in that sense.

Jackie

And did you do much writing drama, or were you still at that stage focused on wanting to be the actor?

Yve

Yeah, I'm not sure. I think we had one assessment with a bit of writing in it. We have to do like a screenplay, maybe can't really remember. I think writing for me became this thing that kind of emerged around year 11 and 12, and like I said, I would just write like a couple of scenes from play and they didn't link up. But I just I bash myself so hard for being like, Well, I got I just sit down in an afternoon to write a whole play, and it's like a whole play is something that comes over many years or months. So yeah, I sort of just started experimenting. You know, the first time I think I finished something though was when I was 22. So if you're listening to this and you're like 15 16, I can't write a play now. I'll never be able to write a play like That's just categorically Not true and Fangirls like Okay, Fangirls is a musical, but it's got a bunch of scenes in it, so you can say it's also a play and that took five years. So, like, you know, you got time.

Jackie

Plenty of time. Did you go to school in New South Wales? So you went to the New South Wales drama syllabus and you had had to do an individual project.

Yve

I did. I did a monologue, did a monologue with like some questionable Eastern European accent. It was called the Jongleur by Dario Fo's I don't Know. Yeah, I just wanted to do something really wacky and comedic, and there's lots of kind of physical comedy, and yeah, I can't remember much about that. I've since written an Onstage monologue or not O stage, like what's it called I P monologue so when I was. Ah, this is wild.

So in 2011, when I did the National Studio ATYP on the good fun fact. So my I was not born as Yve Blake I was born with my birth name was Laura Hopkinson and as Laura Hopkinson, I got that monologue published. Then I guess I'm. A few months later, I changed my name, which is a wacky story.

Jackie

So your experiences at school did you have other opportunities outside of the classroom? Did your school have any sort of creative arts programs that sort of helped to inspire you to become a writer or to be involved? I guess in the entertainment industry, post school.

Yve

I mean, I went to a very privileged school. We had very fancy high school productions, which really useful so I could watch, like the director of those productions, have to manage lots of different departments and understand how backstage work. Because I did backstage until I think year nine, and then I started getting into the shows. I guess that was very useful. I think it's well like I was very precocious, so I know that in year 11, I started doing this like Griffin Theatre in Sydney, had this playwriting course that was otherwise filled with people who were like 40 and wanted to learn playwriting. But I just I signed up even though I was 16 and kind of I guess I would. I would sign up for classes irrespective of my age and just change out of my school uniform and not really bring up how old I was, which I guess, seemed dodgy. But I was very precocious and like I would, I don't know, like, nowadays there's that thing masterclass that people watch, right? But I would watch lots of, like, one or two hour long videos on YouTube of like playwrights discussing the craft. That was sort of that was where I was getting above my info.

Jackie

Okay, cool. So in terms of our teachers who are listening, who hopefully listening to this podcast? What sort of advice would you put out there for how we could support someone like you who was clearly showing like some interest? Because you're obviously going to those outside of school courses. You obviously going to lots of different courses like that? You're, you're obviously interested. How can we help to build that curiosity builds that interest to and prepare, prepare our students for writing?

Yve

I have a few answers to this question, so I guess pick and choose based on what you feel is most relevant. Another thing I just realized that I do to during high school precociously is like I said, I wrote to theatre company but the email address for various directors who I admired or, or writers and I asked if I could have coffee with them or email them and ask them some questions about what they do now. A lot of the time, people were too busy and that's fine. But sometimes people like yeah, sure, by asking questions, I'm getting more of a sense of what's out there. I think I really get into confidence and enthusiasm, and it made me want to engage more. And I think I said watching these videos of playwrights, discussing their craft and engaging with it and really getting a tangible sense of the world beyond high school really helped me move through. Ah, lot of the apathy I felt in high school of just like this is taking forever. Why do I have to do this? Does that make sense? So, like what motivated me was going like, Oh my God, it's just there. It's just on the other side of the HSC, this whole world of theatre making that I could be a part of. So, I started writing and generating as much stuff as I could and kind of going, I'm gonna get ahead like I'm gonna engage now.

I would suggest that one of the hardest things for young writers to do is just sit down and start writing because there's this whole crisis of, like, all your early work is going to be terrible. It's gonna be not how you want it to be, and that's fine. It doesn't have to be good yet. It just has to be your first work. So, I would just really encourage. I guess I would encourage teachers to get students to, to reach out and find resources that resonate with them. So also do that research and, and find a place that kids can read that I'm gonna like from up. And they're different and weird. So, like, plays that radicalized me and made me go Oh my God, this is what's possible our plays like the Wolves and Dance Nation. And there's this play that I read when I was 15, like I swear turned me into a playwright. It's called Fat Kids on Fire by a writer called Bekah Brunstetter and it's about a bunch of kids who go to fat camp. I'd like just to use like the terms the words from the from the show like It's weightless camp, but it means that there's all these kids who usually have a social outcasts, and now they reorganized the hierarchy of the camp and it was hilarious. It was so funny and it was about teenagers, and I was like, I want to see this and really, that's it. You need to get teenagers aware that there is stuff out there that they actually want to see that and, then get them motivated to respond in their work and to go Oh, well, if a play could be like that, I'm gonna write a play like this that make sense.

Jackie

Very much so and I think things like being able to take the students to see the shows that Belvoir Street theatre and any sort of shows I know my students. I didn't actually get to take the students to see fangirls. Another teacher in our school did.

But those students came back so inspired and so excited about the show and watching something different that really got them hooked into wanting to perform and also seeing something different helps them to see what's out there.

Yve

Yeah, awesome. And also like, I don't know who's out there listening to this. But when Fangirls is out next year, I really love like guest, lecturing for classes or like guest teaching. And that's for me. That's a huge. That's my dream. With this show, right is to talk to teenagers about it. And frankly, my ultimate dream is to see it in high schools being performed. That's when I could die happy. So, yeah, if you're a teacher and you have questions about the text like just reach out, I love to talk about it.

Jackie

Well, I was going there with my next question. What would be out there for teachers to be able to for fan girls connecting with people like yourself connecting with you to be able to inspire their students.

Yve

Well, here's what's great currency press are publishing the script in January, so they will have a bunch of learning. Resources available from them, and I know that Belvoir also have a huge pack of learning resources. We, as I mentioned, we are putting out studio cast recording most of the original cast early next year. So that will be there. And, and I guess also, if you're teaching it and or you want to know more about that, there is my Ted talk. Yeah, that there's gonna be some good resources out there in early next year, so I'm excited about that.

Jackie

Fantastic. And we can also reach out and.

Yve

Yeah, I'm Look, I'm on Instagram ping me a message or reach out to my manager. And, like, I always want to answer a question. If it's about helping teenagers understand theatre making.

Jackie

That's amazing. I would like to finish with the final Fast five questions.

Yve

What are they?

Jackie

They're mostly about you in high school, so let's see how we go. What high school did you go to?

Yve

SCEGGS Darlinghurst in Sydney.

Jackie

And your favourite subject at school and why?

Yve

Okay, so drama was my favorite, but I gotta say looking back, I have a very soft spot for general maths because I did general math, for the HSC to make up units. And I love everything I learned in General maths. They taught us stuff about compound interest investing and, like life skills that you need as an adult. So if you can stand it, general maths is, What's up?

Jackie

Oh, that's good. That's not what I was expecting to hear.

Yve

I love it. I love a spreadsheet.

Jackie

Uh, favorite teacher and why?

Yve

Shout out to Mr Britain. My English teacher who left at the start of Year 12, broke all of our hearts because we're obsessed with him, who then came and saw Fangirls and reached out to me and didn't, because I changed my name after high school, he didn't realize it was me. It was very cute reunion story, and we co presented at an educational conference earlier this year. He's a legend.

Jackie

Oh, how exciting.

Yve

Shout out to Tony Britton.

Jackie

Best school achievement or your favourite memory at school?

Yve

Ooh, that's a good one. What's my favourite memory like soft spot for all the school musicals? I'll tell you what in in the school musical I did in year 10 Les Misérables. We did it with the all-boys high school and at the back of the hall I met the, the one boy from the other school who was even more pretentious than I was. We're there back of a hall watching it two drama kids being like, Wow, whore number three really isn't selling her truth like just so pretentious and We became good, good friends, and we work together to this day. So his name's Johnny Ware, and he became the dramaturg. Or which is like the story consultant on fangirls and.

We still work together, and I guess it's, it's wild that I have a friend from high school that I still work with. Yeah, like anything could happen with these friends. You're meeting in high school, you know?

Jackie

Absolutely. And the last one, 1 take away from your school experience or advice to teachers.

Yve

I mean, look, I'm sure this is teaching 101 and I do not mean to sound patronizing, but I think the story of me being encouraged not to study music elective it's really interesting, right, because for the six years then I thought that I kind of wasn't allowed to be a musician, and that's just my interpretation of that. But I was 14 and I was pretty, like, sensitive. So, you know, it took me six years to realize that there are You don't always have to go through the front door. You can kind of climb through a window into some knowledge, and I guess I would just offer the teachers. If you feel like a student is struggling with an aspect of the curriculum or the way that you're supposed to teach them a skill, you know, there might be other weird ways that they can hack into it. And look, I know that's teaching 101, but I guess I just I encourage teachers to like heed the story that I told because somehow, I'm now getting paid to write songs for a living, and I'm sure that my music teacher could never have guessed it. So, there we go.

Jackie

But what would you say for a student who is like you, who was really interested in writing? Where did they go to from finished, when they finished school?

Yve

Sure, now that I think is a really good question because I definitely remember feeling like I love theatre and I go to plays and I go like, I don't know any of these people. I don't know how to just do plays. I don't just write this company and say; how do I do a play and? I remember feeling that exasperation.

So my number one tip is you want to find people around your own age or a little older who are your peers who are also emerging What you're probably going to do for the start of your career is really scrapped together shows, you know, to see your play put on, you're gonna have to borrow a projector from someone you're gonna have to pay, find some way to get together like a few bucks to, borrow a space for a night. Or, I mean, I once did a show in a pub, part of the deal was I could do it in the back room of the pub with no lights in it, so long as everyone who came brought a beer because then, like that would make it worthwhile for the pub. You're just gonna have to do some scrappy stuff. It's not gonna be glamorous, but you will slowly get better and better at it. Document everything, film everything well and, you know, figure out how to get the emails of the producers, who you want to come and see it. Get people's attention and you just climb the ladder slowly. That's the advice that I have. And finally, if you want to write musicals, if that's what you want to do, trick is this. Write a two-page summary of what you're trying to do. Make it like a sales pitch. Make it as pithy as you can and then find out a way that you can record the highest quality demos off your work doesn't have to be ritzy over the top production. But if you can have like a 3.5-minute MP3 of a song that's really funny and persuasive and doesn't sound like every other musical theatre song and if you can get that in the email inbox of someone who produces theatre, that might be the way that you start a conversation. And really, that's a lot easier. Making a 3.5 minutes song, then borrowing a pub and getting everyone to buy a beer. So, if you're writing musicals.

You have to actually have it easier in a wacky way.

Or instead of trying to write a whole play and.

Yeah, exactly. Don't be. Just don't beat yourself up. You got time.

Jackie

Beautiful. That is such beautiful advice today, Yve. Thank you so much for your time. Good luck with the relaunch or, or with Fangirls. Thank you. Coming up again at Belvoir. Yeah. You will see me there. I'm definitely going to get a ticket. And I can't wait to see the possible series of fan girls. And what comes?

Yve

Thanks, Jackie. Okay, you have a good one.

Jackie

You too. Bye.

Thank you for tuning into our creative cast podcast series This term. This industry chart is the last of 2020. We look forward to bringing you more engaging stories of the screen stage and behind the scenes when we return with the creative cast in 2021. The musicals discussed throughout this episode are suggestions only and imply no endorsement by the New South Wales Department of Education of any writer, composer or publisher. This podcast was brought to you by the Creative Arts Curriculum Team of Secondary Learners Educational Standards Directorate of the New South Wales Department of Education. Join us on the Creative Arts State Wide Staff Room as a source of all truths regarding New South Wales curriculum. Or you can follow us on Facebook or Twitter at creative arts 7 to 12 or email us at creativearts7-12@det.nsw.edu.au . The music for this podcast was composed by Alex Manton, and audio production by Jason King.

[end of transcript]

Jackie King

The following podcast is brought to you by the Creative Arts Curriculum Team from Secondary Learners Educational Standards Directorate of the New South Wales Department of Education. As we commence this podcast today, let us acknowledge the traditional custodians of all the lands on which this podcast will be played around New South Wales. Their art, storytelling, music and dance along with all first nations people hold the memories, the traditions, the culture and hopes of Aboriginal Australia. Let us acknowledge with honour and respect our elders past, present and future, especially those Aboriginal people in our presence today who have and still do guide us with their wisdom.

Welcome to the creative cast podcast series. I'm Jackie King on I'm a creative arts project officer for the New South Wales Department of Education. Today I'm excited to be having an industry chat with one of Australia's music theatre legends having performed roles in Beauty and the Beast, Joseph, Grease and Phantom of the Opera. Please welcome Michael Cormick.

Hi, Michael. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Michael Cormick

Hi Jackie, how are you?

Jackie

I'm great, thank you. I'm really excited for this chat today because you're one of our national stars of my favourite genre of entertainment, music theatre. That's what I'm really passionate about and interested in, so I'm really eager to discuss your journey and how you came to be on the stage. So I was just wondering if you could start by maybe telling us a little bit about your youth and where your interest in music or the theatre began?

Michael

Well, as my brothers and family would say, I was born to be on the stage, which is quite interesting. But you know what? I've got five older brothers and two younger sisters. None of them have anything to do with it or anything to do with music. So really, I think in many ways kind I was just born with it, and I always, you know, loved to sing and did all that and used to put on plays at home for the family, to the disgust and I think sometimes the unwillingness of my brothers who were forced to come in and watch the show. I used my sisters as the backup girls, and if they were incorrect in their timing or anything, that whole show would stop and the diva would walk out – meaning me. It was definitely theatrical from the beginning. I then sang in church and believe it or not, I was incredibly shy. Yeah, that's changed, but I was so shy. I used to hide, you know, from the congregation, and I'd either be upstairs in the pulpit or have to face the back, you know, to be able to cope with doing it. I think then, through school actually which we'll get to later, it was encouraged, you know, to bring this out a little more. I ended up doing a school talent quest when I must have been, like 14, 13 something like that. I really resisted, but my school teachers were the ones who went “come on, you can do this, you've got to do it”. And it was one of those moments where I walked out on the stage and, you know, in the Hollywood movies where the orchestra starts playing, you know, I heard my own voice through this amplified microphone, it was really a moment for me when I went “oh wow, okay, what's that”. And it's such a powerful thing to realize, you know, that you have a talent, I suppose, and to me it's always about an energy exchange, and I could feel that immediately. So that was something that kind of definitely tipped something in my brain to go “okay, this is what I love”. And really, I think the end of day wasn't the adoration, it's just that kind of energy going “wow, this is special, whatever it is”, so I went along.

Jackie

‘The bug’

Michael

Yeah! I won that talent quest. And I unbeknownst to me John Proper, who was the producer of ‘New Faces’ – now, you're too young to even remember that, right?

Jackie

Yeah.

Michael

‘New Faces’ was like the equivalent to ‘The Voice’ today.

Jackie

Okay, I grew up with ‘Young Talent Time’

Michael

It was around the same time, and Bert Newton was actually the host of ‘New Faces’. My parents said, I think it was a Friday or something, “um, we're going for a drive with just you and us, and you should wear something nice”. I was like, “um, just me and we're going for a ride? this is really suspect”. I mean, with eight children… and I had no real idea what was happening until we pulled up at Channel Nine and I was like, “here we go”.

Jackie

How nerve racking!

Michael

How nerve racking! But something about me it was like a duck to water, you know? I got in there and did the whole thing and won that thing and then won that year – and that's where it all began. And from then on, from 14, that was it. That's all I've ever done. Jackie – Sure. So, what was your first music theatre performance?

Michael

The first show I did was ‘Cats’.

Jackie

Munkustrap?

Michael

Yeah. How do you know?

Jackie

I did a little bit of reading.

Michael

There you go. I was kind of asked to come into that because I have never thought – I wanted to be a pop star, so I had no interest in musical theatre at all. They asked me to come in and audition for that and because I wasn't primarily a dancer, I'd done a few classes and things, went and auditioned and yeah, they offered me that role. So I took over with Deborah Byrne as my co-star then and it was pretty amazing, yeah. And that kind of gave me the bug, the musical theatre bug.

Jackie

I'm familiar with ‘Cats’, but I don't know the characters that well, is Munkustrap a heavy dancing role?

Michael

No, it's not actually. It is more the kind of young prince if you like, you know, he’s the head of the street gang. ‘Cats’ is a very particular taste in its story, I mean, the music's amazing, but the T S Elliot poems were sort of drawn together through this one song ‘Memory’ that a young Andrew Lloyd Webber went away for one weekend and wrote. Now I think it brings in possibly the most amount of money of any song in the world.

Jackie

The song memory, my son is eight and he does a bit of dancing and he absolutely loves ‘Cats’, asks for it to be put on all the time. I'm not a huge fan of cats myself.

Michael

I can’t say anything.

Jackie

But he loves it. When I was in about Year 8 I saw you in Grease, actually, as Kenickie in the arena spectacular at the Newcastle Entertainment Centre. Did you enjoy doing like a big production that in those arenas like Grease was?

Michael

You know, it was really quite amazing because that we had a great cast with that one. We were meant to do – this is to explain to whoever's listening – it was an arena of 10,000 people and each week we do open somewhere new within Australia. We were meant to do one tour of that around Australia, and we ended up doing four. It was so hugely successful. And yeah, what a fantastic gig for me, I mean, it was just quite wonderful. Danni Minogue played Rizzo and I got to play the naughty Kenickie. As you’d remember, you know, my car went up and actually flew into the air and it had 100,000 fibre optic lights popping out of it and I was on the bonnet. I don't know how we get away with it now, um, doing (singing) “go greased lightning” on the bonnet, you know standing there with no strings attached

Jackie

No harness? There’s no way you'd get away with that now.

Michael

It was so thrilling, actually, that was a really amazing show for us. Yeah.

Jackie

One of the highlights of that show was Anthony Warlow coming down from the top, did he have to sit up the top for the whole show?

Michael

No. For the second act he did, yeah. He’d go up with the band, remember the band used to go up on the record player, on the record? They flew up, so he was up there for – yeah, the whole of the second act.

Jackie

Yeah, wow.

Michael

He’d fly down as an angel and do that one song. Amazing.

Jackie

I know, it was really cool. I really loved that. And I think for me, I think I was in about Year 8 at the time at school, that was like a really big, big inspiration for myself as a performer. In talking about inspiration, my husband is also quite into theatre, and he saw you in ‘Joseph’ as the Pharaoh, and he always talks about the bus trip home from school – it was a school excursion – and the bus trip home, and all of the girls talking about Michael Cormick as the Pharaoh in ‘Joseph’.

Michael

(Laughing) Yeah, look, you know, when I was younger obviously they were the kind of roles, you know, the juvenile lead, you know, naughty boy kind of roles, which is great. You know, that's kind of the sex symbol of the show if you like. Again, what an amazing production that is and to work with the incredible Tina Arena, who's one of my great mates, it's just that quality. David Dixon you know, it was just beautiful. And I love that show. You know, I saw it in London last year, they've done a new production completely kind of changed it. Jason Donovan was in that as the Pharaoh, and it was fantastic. It was really, really cool to see that reinvented again. So I'd say, you know, keep your eyes out, that one might be back very soon.

Jackie

Oh, really? Okay. Obviously, I can't not talk to you about working with Hugh Jackman in ‘Beauty and the Beast’, where you played the Beast and won a Mo award for your role in that show. One of my favourite songs is ‘If I can't Love Her’ – such a glorious song. Can you talk about being in ‘Beauty and the Beast’?

Michael

Well, you know, I suppose in a way in Australia, that was my big break as such. I remember going to the auditions and again it was one of those moments, the pre-audition where the Australian casting team, you know, said, they wanted me to come in for Gaston because I played all those other roles. And, you know I said “no I want to do the other one”. Like, “what other one?”. I was like “The Beast!”. Anyway, I went in to sing the material and just try it out with them. And again, that was like the orchestra coming in and we all stopped and looked at each other and went “Oh, yeah”. So, that was amazing to get that role and, of course beautiful Rachel Beck played Belle. Now she still my dearest friend and you know, I'm godfather to her daughters, we're very, very, very close. And the young guy then who was unknown, who had just finished ‘Corelli’ was Hugh Jackman. It was Hugh's first musical ever. You know, we all became very close and that, Bert Newton was in there. We had an amazing, again what an amazing experience to create. This was the first show out of America, you know, they'd done it in Broadway and I think LA, then we kind of came here and did the huge production here. Now that was lavish. It's incredible. I mean, to have that form of production. There's something very, very special about that because I've become in a way, it was the first huge kind of lavish, multi-million dollar production we've had since Phantom, you know, like the Phantom I was in. Can you believe it was like, three hours of makeup, every show.

Jackie

I can believe that.

Michael

To get all of that on, and then it came off. You did the magic for me to become the Prince. So on matinee days I'd go straight back into makeup.

Jackie

So it obviously had to come off quite quickly, too mid show, and I'm sure you're not going to reveal the magic of how that happens.

Michael

I have never even told my mum.

Jackie

Oh really?

Michael

No, because we were explained to at the time that, you know, illusion, magic is magic and, you know, it's the best to keep it where it is. It's an illusion, and it's created for that reason. And really, I think that particular – I was going to say trick, it's not a trick – but that illusion, that's one of my favourites ever. I went to see the show on Broadway before I started and I was like, “wow, how am I going to do that? I don't know what they're doing”. For those of you who didn't see it, it's the Beast basically levitates off the ground and then spins mid-air and then turns into the handsome groom and then comes, you know, levitating down. So it's really something.

Jackie

It is magical. It's not the only show where you've had a bit of magic, though. There's a bit of magic in ‘Phantom’ too where he does his disappearing trick. So I was reading your bio and, did you play the Phantom and Raoul in two different productions on the West End?

Michael

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they were different times, obviously. Yeah. One was a lot younger. You know, when I first went in, when I first got to London, I auditioned for Raoul in Phantom of the Opera and a couple of other things I was auditioning for at the same time and I eventually got, they asked me to do Raoul. So that was a really exciting time, too, because I think I was like, the second year in. So it was really fresh. And it was the time where people would still queue around the corner and, you know, fly in from wherever in the world to come and see it. So it was pretty amazing, very exciting.

Jackie

I watched a documentary once on ‘Phantom’ and they said in Australia the chandelier comes down the fastest in Australia than it does anywhere else in the world, apparently, because our WHS laws were a little bit looser anywhere else. Which, I guess, you know, you were able to fly on a car with no harness in 1998. Would you say that? Do you think the chandelier comes down fast in Australia?

Michael

I don't know, because uncannily I never did the production here. You know, Marina Prior and I often work together. Not on Phantom, obviously, but you know, we'll sing the duet from ‘Phantom’ and things only because I did it London and she and she did it here. And we will often we sing the duet ‘All I Ask of You’ and it was so drilled into us that the timing is exactly the same whenever we sing and you just cannot divert from that after doing it for so long because there's a particular way that the phrasing goes and all of that. So you know, the first time was sang it could do it in 10 years time and do it exactly the same way.

Jackie

Because you rehearsed it so much.

Michael

Yeah!

Jackie

What would you say some of the comparisons are between the industry here in Australia and the industry overseas, or the West End, where you've also worked.

Michael

Comparatively well, look, obviously the business is larger, especially in musical theatre on the West End and Broadway. Well, it was, I mean, and it will come back. It's a lot larger, so there's more competition, I suppose, and also there are more performers, and there's more of a sense of family. I mean of actually, ‘the industry’ as such, because there's obviously more shows. So within the West End, you can go to, say, any bar after a show or specific bars where you know there's gonna be other performers, you know, and that's always great fun. Here we have a beautiful industry, and it's just a lot smaller. We don't have as many shows either, so that could make it slightly more difficult. I mean, if you're in the West End there's more chance of getting a job because there's more shows, you know.

Jackie

Is that right?

Michael

Yeah, yeah, because we only have a few productions going at a time and if they're all cast, they're gone. Whereas say, in the UK, you've got then so many touring versions and the smaller shows and fringe shows and – yeah, many more opportunities as such.

Jackie

I wouldn't have thought of it like that. I would have thought it would be harder.

Michael

Yeah, it can be harder, but there is more. So there were more people vying for the job as well, but yeah, but there's a lot more to be looked at.

Jackie

So, you obviously have done a few Andrew Lloyd Webber shows, and I saw that you were in the Andrew Lloyd Webber, the Australasian tour of his concerts. How was that? And what songs in what shows did you represent in that tour?

Michael

Well, uncannily ‘Phantom’, because it was also mash up of many things. So ‘Sunset Boulevard’, which is fantastic, I never never got to play that role. But there was a combination of many things, so we would all, I think there were eight of us so it would all combine and depending, it sort of mashes up all the shows. But it culminated in ‘Phantom’, of course, being the most prolific and famous, I suppose. So yeah, it was great. It was great fun. I mean, beautiful cast yet again. Great singers. And, you know, and I've kind of done quite a bit of work closely with Andrew. Sorry, Sir Andrew – no its Lord Andrew now, isn't it?

Jackie

I wouldn't want to say, just so I'm not disrespectful, but, yes, he has been knighted.

Michael

Yeah. Yeah. It's been great to, you know, sing his music. Actually, I had an occasion where I was in London and I had auditioned for Phantom when they asked me to come to Andrew's apartment, “would you do that tomorrow?” and I was like, “yeah fine, what do we need to bring?” and they said nothing. So I turned up 24 years old, bought a new suit. Was very nervous, anyway I got up into his penthouse, and there he is sitting there and 10 people on the couches. I was like, “…what's this?” and he said, “Michael, what do you want to sing for us?”. I said “well I didn't bring anything”. He said “don't worry, well, do you know this from Evita? Do you know this from Jesus Christ Superstar?”. Uh, I didn't know any of these songs. I mean, how embarrassing. And he said, “oh don't worry, just sing this”, and I said, “well, I don't read music”. And he's like, “oh, God, this is looking really good, isn't it?”. I was the first person to sing ‘Love Changes Everything’. So they wanted somebody sing it and test it out. Yeah, I was the first one to do.

Jackie

Wow, that's funny. I was going to try and get to talk to you about doing ‘Blood Brothers’ because ‘Blood Brothers ‘is one of those really special shows to me. I've done it twice in the amateur theatre scene, but one of the productions I did had Jon English in it. And when you say you were asked to perform one of these songs and you just didn't know any of them – I got into a situation once. We were performing with Jon to promote the show, and Jon called me on to stage to, sing ‘Six Ribbons’ with him to do the to-re-ly a bit, and I didn't know it. And he goes, but everybody knows it. No, no, I'm a bit younger than that and I didn't know it. So yeah, it's hard when somebody expects that you just know the songs because they're out there.

Michael

I should have been a little clever when I was going to have to go to his apartment. You know, I should have kind of known his songs, but again, I wanted to be a pop star at that time. I was over there going to get a recording contract. I wanted to be like Jason Donovan.

Jackie

So did you ever pursue that pop star side of things? Or did theatre just ended up being you're calling?

Michael

Well at that age, yes, I did have contracts with EMI in London. And you know, it's always difficult, that sort of thing, because you can record and you could be under contract and nothing happens. And that's, ah, part of the illusion of the business that people don't see, you know. But then, yeah, the musical theatre did sort of take its bug, and it really is a bug, because within that you create families as I was saying before, and there's something very special about that.

Jackie

I would tend to agree. I have only ever done sort of amateur, and a little bit of pro-am, but you get so close to the people that you are spending all of that time with.

Before we go on to schools, the last thing I wanted to talk about is you're doing your own cabaret show, the music of Burt Bacharach, and I found that interesting to read because I feel like a lot of people who do musical theatre – they're taken with the music Burt Bacharach and often do sort of cabaret shows. What is it about Burt's music that has inspired you for your one man show?

Michael

Two things. It's storytelling, which I think is really important, and within theatre that's what we try to do, you know, to tell stories, and he does that within one song. You know, there's always a beautiful story or a sad story or whatever it may be, but it is about storytelling. And melody wise, it's really just entrancing, and actually it’s a lot harder to sing than a lot of people think. I do love Bacharach’s stuff. The other one that I love is Stephen Sondheim because again,

Jackie

Also very difficult!

Michael

Yeah, very difficult, just incredible writing for a singer to be able to get your teeth into, you know, and it's got something about it that's again about the story. If you could get that across that's possibly, you know, the best thing we could do as artists.

Jackie

Do you have a favourite role that you have done at all over your career?

Michael

That's always a hard question because they're all so different, you know, they're all really different. I do love, obviously the big, meaty roles like the Beast, and like Phantom. I think the favourite is the next one, the one coming up.

Jackie

That's true. Have you got one coming up?

Michael

No, not at this point. Nothing I can talk about.

Not that you can, fair enough, fair enough. Last question before we get onto schools. I saw you've done some royal command performances, and I'm a real sucker for the Royals and watching different shows about royalty, I'm actually watching a whole series on The Tudors at the moment. What was performing in a royal command performance like?

Michael

Like any kind of concert. Whatever things have planned for you, you know you're in collaboration. Just depends on what you're doing. You know, at that time, I was singing out of Les Miserables, which I've never actually got to do that show either. Uh, there was one other time when I did – it was a poem, an unknown author has written a poem ‘Do Not Stand At My Grave and Weep’. I was approached by people to record it. They'd written lyrics, um, which, you know, I did dub the funeral song because basically it's the most popular poem at funerals. So some reason I got to do a royal command performance with that one, so that was pretty amazing, yeah. And the full orchestra, it was gorgeous. You know, Royal Albert Hall, which you just you feel, I suppose, the history in those places, and because of its reputation that could make you nervous alone, you know.

Jackie

I bet that and so many amazing people have sort of stood on those stages, to then also do that yourself, that would be amazing.

Michael

Like when I did the Melbourne Cup last year and somebody said to me “you know, you shouldn't be nervous, it's only eight billion people you're performing too”. I was like – okay, okay, take a deep breath.

Jackie

That would make me more nervous. So, some of the steps that you talk to get to your career. You said that you had never really done like an acting school or music theatre school or anything like that. So, you said you did ‘New Faces’ and then moved on from there. What was some of the steps that you sort of feel you took that were important to be having the career that you've got today?

Michael

You know, again, I went along with nature, I suppose, and instinct. I left school probably too young because, you know, at that point I was being offered all of these things because I started to do regular television like the Don Lane show, Bert Newton shows, Mike Walsh, you know, and I was the young boy, with this big old voice. Then it was often cruise ships, things like that so I left school, you know, probably too young and went off and was in showbiz and kind of learned on the boards, you know? And then I suppose it's always about connections? And yet not even that, you know, it's just about knowing what's going on because even going up to London, I knew nobody and they used to have – this is old school – you used to have a paper called ‘The Stage’ and would have all the auditions written in it, and so you'd look it up and then just turn up. But now it's a very different process. You know, I remember standing in a line with 2000 boys for a musical called ‘Time’, and got to my place in the queue and they said “oh, we like you, can you come back this afternoon?”. And I had an audition for ‘Les Miserables’ the same day, so I had to have two different outfits obviously – one was a rock star and the other was a ‘Les Mis’ look. I thought “I’ve got to get changed on the way” so I went up to Charing Cross Road. I was walking along and thought “where can I get changed”. I saw a phone booth and went “ah, Superman could do it, So could I”. So I ran back and forth, you know, to auditions all day. Anyway, I got both gigs, which was quite nice.

Jackie

Oh, so were they on at the same time? Did you have to make a choice?

Michael

Yeah, and so I went with ‘Time’ because it was more of a rock musical. Like I said, I want to be a pop star, but it's all interesting.

Jackie

That is interesting. So we'll get onto schools. Did you said you left school young, what age did you finish school?

Michael

16

Jackie

16. So that's sort of, Year 9, Year 10. Year 10. Okay, so when you were at school, did you do any sort of creative or performing arts subjects? Like, did you study creative or performing arts as a subject at school?

Michael

What we had was music and drama, you know, that's what it was called, and I suppose in a way they were my saviour, you know, because obviously they were my favourite subjects and they were my favourite teachers. But again, I would sort of stress that I was really shy. You know, my two teachers, Judy Wardale who was drama and Carleen Selderson who ended up becoming friends later on, they were the encouraging force that would actually have even made me go and do that talent quest that night, you know, they were the ones going “come on”. They obviously saw talent, and they try to encourage it and make it grow.

Jackie

Do you remember much about doing those subjects at school? Do you think that kind of inspired your career at all or started that aspiration to be on the stage?

Michael

For sure. I mean, of course. And I mean, it was their encouragement, and I think they basically saw talent. So they took me aside a little bit and kind of started to work on that more. Not privately, but you know, a little more, intensely. So that definitely helped.

Jackie

And so the school ran the talent quest, is that was that something that was a part of their arts programs? Did they run the talent quest annually, or did they do other sorts of creative arts programs outside of the classroom?

Michael

There weren't any other kind of productions or anything like that at that time.

Jackie

No musical?

Michael

No, no, nothing like that. I've been back and judged that talent quest, you know, on three different occasions, I think.

Jackie

Have you?

Michael

Yeah.

Jackie

That's lovely. What are your thoughts about what teachers could do to sort of help prep students into an acting or music theatre type career like you've had? What sort of skills or values do you think we need to try and instil in our children if they were to try and pursue a career in acting or music theatre?

Michael

Number one would be resilience because, you know, it is not easy. I spoke to somebody just the other day, she's from New York, and she said, “I really, really wanted to be in musical theatre”, and she said, “in the end, I just could not handle the rejection”, and we really have to begin to see it not as a rejection. But even at my age, I mean, it's still difficult not to see that “why didn't they want me?” kind of attitude. And sometimes it is really just about perhaps not being the right fit for the other cast that they have in in in the show, and also having to put, you know, bums on seats as such. They’ll have to sometimes have somebody who's on TV to be able to create an awareness. So, resilience is one of those things, or just perhaps the reality of what it is, no matter how talented they may be it's not always a guarantee that you will make it, if you will, or make a living.

So, I think also another set of skills would always be how else to survive within the industry. I was so gung ho when I was young going “I don't need to learn anything else” because, you know, this is all I want to do, and I believe in myself. That's all true, and that's all great, but I think at the end of day I would advise anybody younger to prepare themselves for that financially and all of those ways. And that doesn't mean you have to do something else. That would mean the clever way of looking at it would be to do something else within the industry, you know, so that you have that back up, but you're still passionate and you're still in that side of the arts. I think something else they could be looking at or preparing, of course, is passion and hard work. It is really hard work. Eight shows a week is not for sissies, you know, it hurts, and it's hard and I remember one of the young girls once, I was in the show, I think it was ‘Mamma Mia!’. She said “I can't do the last three shows this week, I'm tired”. I said, “Darling, you don't get it we're all tired”. You actually get to a point of exhaustion, and that is where the training comes in, that's where discipline is one of the most important things in in our industry. Even though people may see the glamour – that glamour is again part of the show, which is not necessarily the truth. And so it's discipline and hard work, and that needs to be stressed as well.

Jackie

That is really important isn't it. You’re not going to just waltz into a lead role most of the time. You might be very lucky, but you do have to work hard and I think that is getting used to – I don't want to say get used to rejection, but be able to deal with it.

Michael

To handle it. Yes, that’s another thing which is now becoming more of a mental health issue within our business and particularly during COVID it's been brought to light a lot further, and it isn't an easy business within that way. So, I think again that another thing that could be looked at is keeping a healthy attitude with that and a healthy mental state with that. Because there is kind of 90% chance – and I really shouldn't say that – but that you're not going to get every job you go for. That it's not gonna be fair. That's definitely one of the things. Don't expect it to be fair. And I suppose this is like most of the world in many ways, but there will be rejection, and it will sometimes be really tough to deal with that. Then you'll see perhaps the girl that got the job and you know you’re better than her. It's all of that that just has to be – you have to have a healthy take on that. So that's a lot of preparation that could be done. I don't know exactly how, but I think that's a really important issue to look at.

Jackie

Yeah, that is important and I do love that piece of advice. Just to go back a little bit, you were saying about having other ideas of things that you could do in the industry or other takes of things and I think that's really important, particularly given the day and age that we're in like we've just been through a massive upheaval with COVID and things like that with millions of artists out of work and having some kind of other facet to keep bringing money in or to just keep yourself sane, must be really important.

Michael

On the other flip side of all of it, the other thing that can be can be taught, you know, is to be in your joy with it, to be in the passion, because that can also, if we remain in that place, the rejection or anything else isn't as difficult if we actually remember the joy and then the technique and the work and all of that stuff. It's like any artist, when you're in that place, that's where you shine and to try to keep the individuality within that is really important too, because when people are casting, they don't want two of the same, so don't feel like they have to be like everybody else to get there.

Jackie

In the steps that you took to get there did you used to have any kind of like singing lessons or dancing lessons or anything like that outside of school?

Michael

Sure. It wasn't at school? No way. I mean, I would have been again too shy at that time. But when I was working, then I started to, look at different ways with voice like particularly in London with ‘Phantom’, because it was slightly more operatic in style I went to a vocal coach who happened to be an opera singers coach and she was Australian, actually, Janice Chapman. She was amazing. Throughout my life, I've gone to different kind of styles of teachers and particularly for a certain role, something you may have difficulty approaching – high notes or things like that or even mental blockages. There are certain grabs, and I think that's a great thing in life to learn from whoever you can, so that's been amazing. Dance wise. I did a very brave thing I think, when I was 18 and I saw this summer school thing advertised, it was Barbara Warren Smith. So I rolled on going in, turned up and they're all professional dancers and I haven't put 2 feet together. For some reason, I was determined. I kept going back and completely embarrassing myself. I think Barbara then went, “Oh wow, this kid's got some kind of determination”. So she then said, “Okay, you can come in and I'll give you private classes every morning and we'll get you”, and I just worked and worked and worked and worked and worked. It hurt, but it was, I just thought “okay, here we go”. I don't know if I'd be that brave now.

Jackie

To do a dance summer school?

Michael

Oh yeah. Forget it. I could sit down, watch and point now, that’s about it.

Jackie

Thank you for giving some of that advice to teachers because I think it's really important. Teachers sometimes try and reach out, and you said that you've been back to your old high school to judge – adjudicate or judge different talent quests. Is there any sort of way that teachers may be able to reach out to artists like yourself or different music theatre artists who might be able to enhance something that they're doing within their school?

Michael

Well, of course, you just ask.

Jackie

Well, that's how we ended up here isn’t it?

Michael

Exactly. And you know what I find? And I found this throughout my life, especially now. I think sometimes when you just brave enough to ask, I mean it's just like there are so many generous people in the world, especially who are ready to impart their knowledge or their wisdom and if it's going to inspire somebody – more than happy to do that.

Jackie

Yeah, that's beautiful and your right, I think particularly in our creative arts sort of world, there are so many generous people.

Michael

Yeah!

Jackie

Excellent. Well, I'd like to finish up now with my final fast five questions.

Michael

Oh is this going to be scary?

Jackie

Not too scary I don’t think. I'm pretty confident you'll be able to answer them all, and they tend not to be super-fast, but we'll see how we go.

So what high school did you go to?

Michael

I can’t answer that one! (laughing) St John College Dandenong.

Jackie

Okay. So in Melbourne, in Victoria?

Michael

Yeah.

Jackie

Fantastic. And this might be a toss-up, which was your favourite subject and why?

Michael

It was music. Because I suppose it allowed me to escape.

Jackie

And your favourite teacher and why?

Michael

It'd be Carleen Selderson, because she taught Music.

Jackie

Favourite music teacher. Fantastic. What is your – I feel like I maybe already know the answer to this – but your best school achievement or your most fond school memory.

Michael

Yeah, it was winning the talent quest.

Jackie

Winning that talent quest! I think that seems like it was really the starting point for everything for you, which is really, really kind of cool, I think for our teachers to be able to hear that just that one moment has possibly been what has been has turned your life into what it is today.

You can answer this whichever way you like. One take away one take away from your schooling experience, or a final piece of advice for our creative arts teachers.

Michael

Is to inspire. And I know that that's of course what all of you will be doing but I think that's the most important part of, it to inspire and to allow the students to be the biggest and brightest that they can be.

Jackie

Thank you so much for your time today, Michael.

Michael

My pleasure.

Jackie

I really appreciate the expertise that you've shared with us and also just the stories. It's really nice to hear about sort of the back end sometimes of shows that you've seen, and you've seen the wonder on stage, I'm sure going up on the bonnet of that car was pretty scary, but it looked amazing. It is really nice to have had that chat, so thank you very much for sharing that expertise with us.

Michael

It's my pleasure.

Jackie

Join us next week where we talk to Australia's latest music theatre composing sensation Yve Blake, where we discuss her hit musical Fangirls. This podcast was brought to you by the Creative Arts Curriculum Team of Secondary Learners Educational Standards Directorate of the New South Wales Department of Education. Join us on the Creative Arts Statewide Staffroom as a source of all truths regarding New South Wales curriculum.

[end of transcript]

Jackie King

The following podcast is brought to you by the Creative Arts Curriculum Team from Secondary Learners Educational Standards Directorate of the New South Wales Department of Education. As we commence this podcast today, let us acknowledge the traditional custodians of all the lands on which this podcast will be played around New South Wales. Their art, storytelling, music and dance along with all first nations people hold the memories, the traditions, the culture and hopes of Aboriginal Australia. Let us acknowledge with honour and respect our elders past, present and future, especially those Aboriginal people in our presence today who have and still do guide us with their wisdom.

Welcome to the creative cast podcast series. My name is Jackie King, and I'm a creative arts project officer with the New South Wales Department of Education. Today we're going to have an industry chat with theatre producer and agent David Spicer.

Hi, David. How are you?

David Spicer

Very well. How are you?

Jackie

I'm very well, thank you. Thanks for joining us today for our creative cast podcast series for our industry chats. I'm really excited for the industry chats to try and connect what we do in the classroom to the industry. So, I've asked you to have a chat with us today because you've obviously got a fair bit of knowledge and experience within the theatre industry, being a theatre producer and an agent and also your magazine Stage Whispers, which we'll get into later. But I was just wondering if we could start by you talking a little bit about your history and your career.

David

Well, when I was in school, I loved being in the school musical. At Epping West Primary and I played the lead in Joseph in 1979. I wanted to be either a journalist or an actor when I left school, and I did a Bachelor of Arts and Communications at the University of Technology and kept up my hobby as a singer. And so, I was in a lot of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas on Sydney's North Shore, eastern suburbs and western suburbs. I was introduced into performing arts in the Scouts through the gang show, which I was a member of as a little kid until a young adult. Then I became journalist for the ABC, after completing Bachelor of Arts and Communications at what University of Technology in Sydney and so really theatre and singing was my hobby and being a journalist at the ABC when I'm got a cadetship at the age of 20 that was my day job. And then my night job, my hobby was being a thespian. And so I was basically, you know, doing the odd role here or there. Usually a second lead, never the big lead but the second lead. That was what I aimed for.

Jackie

Sure. I actually saw a picture of you as Ralph Rackstraw from H. M S Pinafore.

David

H.M.S Pinafore. That's right.

Jackie

So you obviously played some decent parts?

David

Yeah, that was a good. That was a good, juicy role. The funny thing about that one was that I was the agent for that musical, because that's a unique adaptation of Gilbert Sullivan which is still under copyright. I was the agent for it and I was in it, they said they couldn't find a tenor, so I got roped in, and it was my local theatre. I really enjoyed being in that show.

Jackie

I also, as I was doing a little bit of reading up on you, saw that you were the winner of the ‘97 City of Sydney Eisteddfod in the tenor section.

David

Yes, I was the best in the field of five. It was a prestigious award and flu absolutely wiped out Sydney's Tenors that year. And I was definitely the best of five. But I'll still claim it.

Jackie

Absolutely claim it.

David

The best tenor in the City of Sydney Eisteddfod.

Jackie

The City of Sydney Eisteddfod is a huge Eisteddfod. I remember competing in that, probably in the early 2000s I think is when I was competing in that, but it was a really big deal at the time. I remember when I came down and competed in it, so I certainly wouldn't be washing that under the carpet. It's a big award.

David

Well, in 1997 I was the only person in world history to win a Walkley Award and the City of Sydney tenor competition in the same year.

Jackie

Oh, wow, that's fantastic. So, you've touched on being a theatre agent a little bit? Do you want to explain how you got into being a theatre agent and a little bit about your business that you have at the moment?

David

Well, I, of course, like being in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. But then something amazing happened in my life. I became a father in 1996. And so, my wife said, “You're not going out twice a week to rehearse anything for a little while.” So, I looked for a different hobby from being in shows, looking what I could do behind the scenes. So, I thought that I would write a book, because I was a journalist, about musicals, and I got some interest from a publisher. The book fizzled out, but while I was doing the research an eccentric composer lyricist in England said to me, “Oh, David, will you be my agent?” He wrote lots of musicals, including an adaptation off the Jane Austen novel Pride and Prejudice, it was Pride and Prejudice The Musical. It's got good songs, of course, it's got a great story and great characters. So, I started promoting that in a theatre industry magazine called Stage Whispers, and I got three bookings. So, I then flew down to Melbourne to see a production that I licenced of Pride and Prejudice the Musical. So, when the book fell over, I thought, ‘Well, maybe this is a way I could get theatres and schools to do a greater variety of musicals.” Don't write a book about it, which, you know, fizzled out and was going to be out of date soon, get musicals and try to encourage other people to do them.’ So, I became by accident an agent for musicals and plays. So, I mean people ask “What is it exactly you do? I mean, do you put the show on?” No, I don't put the show on. I represent the composer, and I provide the sheet music and the script to the schools and the community theatres to allow them to put the show on. So that was the very specialised and unusual sort of part time hobby, career that I did while I was a journalist at the ABC.

Jackie

And now you've got some of my favourite musicals under your belt or that you hold the rights to. You've got Back to the Eighties, We Will Rock You, Paris just to name a couple of my favourites.

David

Yes, well, that's right. So, two years ago I left the ABC. I was able to give up my day job where I was part time for the last 10 years. The first thing I did was ask what Australian musicals are there out that not published to a high enough standard or promoted properly. So, the sheet music is not printed properly. What's not promoted? What could I uncover? So, I became a bit like a music theatre archaeologist, and I was digging up old scripts.

One of them was Paris. Now that was that was a real adventure because it was a cast album only based on the Trojan War. So, then I got the sheet music, which was hand written, I got it published and then promoted and found theatres to put it on. And we've had 26 different productions, it's been translated into German and performed in five different countries. So that was sort of, a labour of love, although you know that it has had a level of commercial success.

But then I got hold of very successful commercial properties such as Back to the Eighties, which you had mentioned. I've got a seventies musical Disco Inferno. I've got a nineties musical Pop Star. I’ve got an Australian jukebox musical Great Australian Rock Musical. All of which, of course, are centred around pop songs with a reasonable narrative, or credible narrative to string it together and they're very popular on the high school circuit. Now the thing about them is that they are great in getting children, students involved in music theatre, who perhaps need a bit of convincing to get involved because they're immediately familiar with songs and that gets them in. So, you know, sometimes you can't do the very sophisticated Broadway musical but with the jukebox musical, parents love it, the kids love it and there's a story involved. So that really works. About five years ago, I got really lucky. I got the ultimate jukebox musical, which, of course, is We Will Rock You by Queen. That was very hard for getting the rights. But I eventually got the contract. And guess what? Brian May signed the contract.

Jackie

Oh, wow.

David

So that was the best autograph you can imagine.

Jackie

I was going to ask did you know Brian May or were you actually able to meet Brian May?

David

I did meet him once for about one minute. And if you look on my Facebook page, you'll see my 30 second meeting with Brian May. I met him 20 minutes before a rock concert and my brother filmed it.

But now look, being a journalist, you're good at finding out things and you’re persistent. So, you've just got to knock on doors and get the rights. It's very difficult to get the very huge properties because essentially publishing houses in United States offer now millions of dollars for the uber blockbusters. So, as an independent music publisher you're locked out of that. So, you've really got to be cunning and also develop Australian works, develop Australian shows. The biggest break through of my career was getting the rights to The boy from Oz. I met the producers of the show in 1998, kept in touch and then 10 years later, got the amateur rights. So, you know, that was a big coup.

I also like publishing full book musicals. I've got Ladies in Black, which was a commercial success here and has been performed by a lot of amateur theatres. High schools love it, too, because it’s got so many strong female leads and the central character is a young woman who wants to not get married and meet Mr Right, but she wants to go to university. So that's a wonderful Australian piece of literature with great songs by Tim Finn the rock legend.

Jackie

It's a fantastic musical. I really love Ladies in Black as well.

David

Yes, I am very proud to have published that. You know, as I said, I became a bit like a collector of musicals. People collect stamps, I collected musicals. So, I've got a lot of really authentic Australian musicals. I've just published The Magic Pudding, which is for a cast of 13 and one puppet. So that was staged at The Marian Street Children's Theatre and I made that available across Australia with the beautifully published orchestrations. I have had Snugglpot and Cuddlepie the Musical for many years by Peter Combe. That's been done in Newcastle, in your neck of the woods, and I've got lots of junior musicals of traditional titles like, Alice in Wonderland, Jack and the Bean Stalk, Star Wars Musical Parody, it's got pool noodles instead of the laser, sort of, swords. So, I've sort of collected quite a strong portfolio of musicals, and they've got a lot of resources associated with them.

You've got to invest in these shows to have the resources that schools and amateur theatres expect. Very good published orchestrations and also, if it's appropriate, rehearsal assistance materials such as CD backing tracks and other tools like that because the major publishing houses, you know, in New York and London they do a terrific job at providing good resources to go with their musicals. And, of course, you got to compete with that. And we would like Australian product to be just as easy to perform as the best of Broadway.

Jackie

Absolutely. So, you've sort of touched on how you got there a little bit. You've got a Bachelor of Arts degree with Communications, and so obviously finished school as well. And you've touched on being a journalist. And how being a journalist makes you a little bit savvier. What, in terms of schooling, do you think got you inspired to be a theatre agent? You talked a little bit about being in musicals, was that in primary school or high school?

David

In primary school I was the mayor of Munchkin Village in The Wizard of Oz. I was Sneezy in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. And then I was Joseph. And then I did some high school musicals, although we weren't huge at my school in high school musicals. I was involved with the gang show, so that was sort of very good. That, of course, is the Scout Movement Performing Arts, which had sort of vaudeville and sketches and big songs and dance routines. And then I took singing lessons. I played the violin at school, but I mean, I gave that up and took up singing more seriously. I had a few very small roles in movies, like microscopic special extra, you know. So, I was in the miniseries Body Line. I had one line in that, I was the paper boy: “Latest edition Bradman to miss the first test.” Terrific! Anyway, so that's where, I guess, I caught the theatre bug.

But I was also interested in being a journalist and a writer, and when I was in primary school, I set up a newspaper the Epping West Monthly. So, I was always interested in both. And of course, trying be make a living out of being an actor is like winning the lottery to a certain extent. You’ve got to be wildly talented and have particular aspects about you which appeal to the market whether it be looking terrific or looking unusual, whatever it is that you know. So, you need that combination and I very quickly realized I was a good amateur actor. So, I kept that as a hobby.

Jackie

Sure, when you were in school, were you involved in any of the creative arts programs or were there any creative arts programs within your school? Sounds like more so primary school than the high school.

David

We put on a couple of musicals in high school. I was in the in the school band and played the violin. I must confess that I once broke the legs to two legs of a music teacher.

Jackie

You need to tell that story.

David

Well, what happened is that my father has a violin, which was made in 1770. So, I had to leave it in the staff room and the music teacher sadly tripped on it and broke both her legs. Very sad story. She was off for six months. I saw her when she came back, and I very sheepishly apologised. So, there we go, but I should I shouldn't be flippant about it. It was very nasty accident, but I mean, we had a good arts program at my school. It was a public school, but we did have a school hall but didn't have terrific theatre facilities. So, we weren't blessed in that. And we didn't particularly have a teacher who was passionate enough to want to put on a very ambitious musical each year because it is big. You know, the teachers generally don't get paid for that extra work they do to put on the show, so they've got to be passionate about it and the general trend is for schools to perhaps usually do a musical once every two years. That's more common unless they're really gung ho and they just blitz it. But generally speaking, traditional schools will do a musical one year, and then the second year to recover.

Jackie

Absolutely. And I think sometimes we need that recovery time as well. In terms of your connections with school, what are some things that you've seen work really well for preparing students for pursuing their talents within a music theatre industry?

David

Well, I think the thing is that teachers should explain to students is that this is a really exciting industry to be involved in. But there are more jobs than just being on stage and that they really should be a whole school experience to see how a lot of different departments of school could be involved. So, look at a musical like Reg Livermore's Ned Kelly. I went and saw a production of it in Sydney's western suburbs, and it was terrific. The woodwork department and the metal work helped build the set, and then they had little models of it, and then there was a history aspect to it and the school projects. And then, you know, then you get the business subjects. And what can you do? Who wants to run the business side? Who wants to do the marketing? And who wants to do the social media right? You know, who's interested in lighting? Who loves wardrobe, making costumes, who's passionate about that? So, I think what really needs to happen is that schools need to try and dip into every department. To have a supporting principal who is passionate about it and wants to put on huge production and involve all the different departments and getting kids interested and, you know, familiar with the theatre. So, I think the whole of school experience is the way to go. And, of course, picking the right show. That is, you know, doable. Do I have the cast? Do I have someone who can sing the lead of Galileo in We Will Rock You, who can do Bohemian Rhapsody at the end of a 1.5 hour show. If you don't then don't touch it, you know, find something easier. Now what show can I pick that, you know, has got a good spread of principles, or do I have some amazing talent this year? And if so, then I use the talent as the lead then go on to select the show. So, there are some sort of ideas to making it a success.

Jackie

Obviously, your company, David Spicer Productions, looks after a lot of shows that are suitable for schools. What kind of help are you able to give schools in terms of getting a show up?

David

Well, we can't put the show on right. Essentially, I try to provide good rehearsal tools. So, a lot of my big musicals have terrific backing tracks, and in some cases they can be used as the band, although not usually. But for instance, some of the backing tracks are of the live band, and so that's a terrific tool. Of course, it's never as good as having an adept pianist who can repetiteur, who can sort of teach the parts slowly and then ride with the singers as they sort of, you know, get more competent. But it is an important tool. And also, look some of the other competitors they do have excellent tools as well, which allow people to change the key of certain songs, which is a useful device. Essentially, you know, we provide the foundation, which is script and music. And you know, if there's anything wrong with the parts, we hear about it very quickly, of course.

Jackie

So finally, what would your advice be to a school teacher or a bunch of school teachers in a school who are really interested in putting on musical? What would you say are the steps that they need to tick off before contacting someone like yourself and paying the rights for show because obviously paying for the rights could be expensive. What are some of the steps that some of the teachers who are listening could take?

David

Well, I think you need to try to get the whole production team together beforehand, because you can't really put on a whole musical yourself. You've got to have a whole production committee, and, if you can, reach out to the parents as well. Is there anybody out there that wants to help build the set? Is there anybody else who wants to be in charge of marketing? You know. So, I think assembling as many partnerships within the school and also within the local community as possible to make it easy. I mean, you know, when I put on my first musical I remember my grandma sewing my little dwarf sneezy dwarf costume.

Jackie

My grandma used to make the slices.

David

Oh, that's right. So, every everyone needs to help. I think assembling the production team, choosing a show that is suitable for the talent you've got and, of course, you got to get the kids excited. They've got to, you know, want to do it. I mean, of course, you can't expect 15 year olds to have encyclopaedic knowledge of the Broadway Cannon. That's why I think my jukebox musicals are very good for perhaps trying to attract students who, you know, aren't necessarily all that music theatre. But say “oh yeah, I wouldn't mind doing a show with eighties music or nineties music or Queen.” Once you've got a tradition in the school of doing a musical, then you can perhaps try something more ambitious.

The expense. The great expense, is not in the copyright. The great experience is usually in the tech. You know, you just got to think how many radio mics do we need? How much to spend on professional technicians? And that's where it becomes more expensive. I mean, the copyright's usually a fixed fee and you pay a share of box office and so the more successful was the school is, the more you pay. But you know those mountainous technical costs, that's where you need to be very careful.

Jackie

Yeah, and I love how you have suggested trying to be collaborative. Be smart about it. I really loved the idea of bringing in woodwork, bringing in the sewing people, bringing in Vis Art to paint the sets and things like that. I think if you make it like a whole school project or a project across lots of different departments, obviously all of the funds are not coming out of the Creative Arts department, and also we can maybe have a whole school budget going towards it as well - because obviously it's not cheap, but it's expensive to put on a show, but I mean, the show's can make some money as well.

David

Well, that's what I get this sort of feedback from, you know, we've only got a small budget for putting on a show us. And I'm saying, “Well, hang on, you do sell tickets, so you actually do recoup some of the cost or all of the cost.” But as I said, I think as much as possible integrating it into the school fabric, you know, and getting as many kids involved across the curriculum, you know, particularly in middle high school before you’re very, you know, strictly attached to HSC syllabus. But from getting middle high school really heavily involved. Uh, you know, it is a lot of fun.

Jackie

And the idea of also filling out all of those theatre jobs so we can make ourselves a little theatre agent if we need to.

David

That's right. Absolutely.

Jackie

Yeah, we can build all sorts of careers, and you're right, there's more careers than just the people who are on the stage. There are lots of other people.

I'm just thinking we haven't really touched on Stage Whispers at all, which you've obviously managed since 2008. Do you want to just quickly give a little bit of information about what Stage Whispers is about?

David

Well, Stage Whispers is the National Performing Arts magazine, we're print and we're online. We cover the industry vertically. We cover elite professional theatre. We cover community theatre and we also cover school theatre. Whereas, you know, other media tend to only be horizontal. And we have lots of resources, we have we put out free soft magazines, we have something called Spark, which is a school performing arts resource kit, which comes at the beginning of the year, which lists what shows are on the tour to schools as well as resources for putting on a show, costumes, sound lighting, copyrights. It's called Spark. And we also have a fantastic free training publication which lists all the performing arts courses around Australia as well as all of the different in different disciplines and features and listings, and that comes out every year. Our free Guide Stagewhispers.com.au/training and we've got a new publication, which is called Let's Put on a Show, which is also guide to stage resources in the different disciplines. So, we've got plenty of content on our website. It's a quite a monstrous website when you think of all the content on it. We also, of course, do reviews and news, but it's a resource for people that are theatre doers and theatre goers, they're often the same.

Jackie

They are often the same. I wasn't aware of the resource. I think that would be a fantastic thing for teachers to be able to tap into and the putting on a show resource.

David

Well, they're compilations of our print magazine.

Jackie

Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for your time today, David. I want to finish with a final fast. Five questions for you. So, here's the first one. What high school did you go to?

David

Carlingford High School, Sydney's Northwest.

Jackie

What was your favourite subject in school and why?

David

I think it has to be English. I did like English. I'd like reading novels and analysing them.

Jackie

A favourite teacher and why?

David

There was a math teacher called Mr Merry that used to make me laugh. There was my English teacher, Lynne Archer. She was excellent English teacher.

Jackie

Okay, what is your favourite school memory?

David

I can remember the moment my HSC finished. That was good.

Jackie

And the last question, final piece of advice to our creative arts teachers.

David

Stick at it. It's worth it. It will be a treasured memory of being at school of being in the school musical. It's worth the overtime that you don't get paid for on. Keep going. Keep up the good work.

Jackie

Thank you, David. Thank you for spending the time with me today to have a bit of a chat about putting on a musical in schools and obviously give us some information on how you can help with that with your David Spicer Productions and some of the shows that you've got. I personally really love some of the shows that you have, and I know putting on musicals is something that the students really, really love.

David

Absolutely, thank you for inviting me on the show.

Jackie

The musicals discussed throughout this episode are suggestions only and imply no endorsement by the New South Wales Department of Education of any writer, composer or publisher. Repertoire intended to be staged at school for public audience should be considered and respectful of the local community's values and beliefs. We hope you're enjoying the creative cast industry chats linking our curriculum to the industry. Next week, tune in to hear music theatre legend Michael Cormick talk about his career and how it all began with the school talent quest. The theme music for this podcast was composed by Alex Manton, and audio production by Jason King.

[end of transcript]

Jackie King

The following podcast is brought to you by the Creative Arts Curriculum Team from Secondary Learners Educational Standards Directorate of the New South Wales Department of Education. As we commence this podcast today, let us acknowledge the traditional custodians of all the lands on which this podcast will be played around New South Wales. Their art, storytelling, music and dance along with all first nations people hold the memories, the traditions, the culture and hopes of Aboriginal Australia. Let us acknowledge with honour and respect our elders past, present and future, especially those Aboriginal people in our presence today who have and still do guide us with their wisdom.

Welcome to the Creative Cast podcast series. My name is Jackie King, and I'm a creative arts project officer with the New South Wales Department of Education. Today I'm excited to be having an industry chat with one of Australia's most recognised faces, having performed in Star Wars and featuring in iconic Australian shows like Water Rats, Home and Away and Play School. Please welcome Jay Laga’aia.

Thank you so much for joining us today Jay. I'm really looking forward to having this chat to discuss your journey in the arts and how your education and schooling has sort of moulded where you are today. I'd like to start right at the beginning, though. I have done a little bit of research and I see you were born in raised in New Zealand with six brothers and sisters and two half-brothers, and I love watching the Laga’aia family each year at the carols do their thing. And so, I was wondering, did music play a really big part in your upbringing in New Zealand? And what was it like growing up as a kid, obviously in a big family, and in New Zealand?

Jay Laga’aia

Music is always a big part in any ethnic family, mainly because it was the first form of communication. I mean, in Polynesia, we didn't have a written language. So, our stories are always told in song and dance and verbally as well. So, you'll find that a lot of Polynesian and ethnic performers started out performing, or we got our performing chops from church, you know, in the choir and doing nativity plays. And then from there you get the confidence to perform. You know, once you go to high school, the opportunity of being in the school play or doing certain things arises, and that's when you start to latch onto them. So, from my point of view, it was very much music was very much part of lives.

You know, we grew up with all of the families. We grew up with the Osmonds and the Bradys and the Jacksons and the Partridge Family and the Carpenters. So, we grew up with, you know, all of these, whether they be on screen or off screen on, through the sixties and seventies. You know, that's when songs and had melodies. I mean, nowadays, you know, you're beaten to death by musical phrases and beats, whereas in those days you were quite happy having A C A B A. You know, it's just an introduction, middle bridge and about something really simple. A song about I saw a girl, I fell in love, we lived happily ever after.

Jackie

Yeah, that sounds so much more simple than some of the pieces that were here today. Although some pop pieces can be pretty simple in their structure.

Jay

Yeah, I think that people have to also acknowledge the fact that what is now has come from beforehand. You know, you look at that experience and then they build on. That's not to say the music nowadays isn’t great, because there are some fantastic composers and musical performers as such. But for me, you know, my brand is back there. You know, I quite like what I like. And my kids like what they like.

Jackie

Yeah, yeah. Fair enough. And, I think every family is probably the same like that. Do you remember what your first performance ever was?

Jay

Oh, yeah. My first performance was actually leading the choir. My brother, who's a year older than me, he was always the leader of the choir. He would get up there and sing, and so I was always in his shadow. You know, we're matriarchal society. So, my sisters are older and so we had to fall in line. If they said come in here, we’d have to go in there and wash the dishes, do this or that. So, we were rehearsing one day for a big, huge festival and my brother decided he was going to go out and play with his mates. My brother was probably 15 at the time. So, you know, he thought he was Leif Garrett. He thought he was Peter Frampton, you know, and he was out there playing. And my sister said “get in here because you've got to learn this stuff,” and he wouldn't. And there was like probably 30 people in the choir, these were a youth choir, and we’re all learning the song. So, my sister said “stuff that! Jay, come and learn the song.” And so, I learned this Andre Crouch song, To God be the Glory and we performed it. He came in later on in the afternoon goes “Alright. Okay. What’ve I gotta do?” She goes, “there's your part.” He went “Hold on. This is harmony part.” She just said “Yes. You stand with the boys over there.” He, was not happy. Then we went to the competition and we won and all of a sudden we were performing next Sunday. My mother was full of pride and my brother never let me down. From then on, I realized, you know what, I quite like seeing the world from in front. I might get used to that.

Jackie

It's a nicer place to bay, that's for sure.

Jay

Well, you know, there's the old phrase that once you go to the top of the mountain, it's very hard to go back to the valley.

Jackie

That's true. So, did you do a lot of the choir performances like that throughout your youth?

Jay

Yeah, look quite a lot, and cultural performances. So, you know, we would do cultural dances from the different islands because it was a multicultural church as such, and that would bleed over into school where they would have Culture Club. So they would have a Samoan, a Rarotongan and Tongan club. The Kiwis then said “let’s have a Maori club” and all the white kiwis said “Well, what are we going do?” I said “you know, well, you could pick up rubbish.” So, it was always that you've got your culture. You know, you could go on, and play your music and stuff. But I don't think the teachers really encouraged us to play Thin Lizzy ‘The boys are back in town’, even though it was a great piece in that era, but it gradually came from the church and into school. And once it made that transfer tastes changed. All of a sudden, it wasn't acceptable from our parents’ point of view because it became entertaining for God and then, all of sudden, entertaining for the devil, you know, go out and perform. And so, I was a bit of a rebel, and I decided, “No, I quite like this. I might join this band and we're going to do clubs.” I was 17 and already doing the club scene. Much to my parents’ horror, I would sneak out and we would gig and I come back at one o'clock in the morning and then get up for school, which is just a bit crazy really.

Jackie

Wow, that is crazy. But it sounds like a lot of fun. Just to touch on that, your schooling was in New Zealand.

Jay

Yes, It Was.

Jackie

Fantastic. So you really started your career as a musician?

Jay

Look, I was I was a clarinet player. I am a clarinet player. Up until when our music director decided that we were going to play the theme from Hawaii 50. And right then and there, I made the decision to play sax because I wanted to play that really juicy part. Nobody hears the clarinets anyway and so I said to the teacher “Oh, so I'm gonna play saxophone” and he said “Okay, not a problem.” Then they handed out the music and I looked at the music and I went “Oh, wait, Hold on. Are you sure this is the music? Cause this one goes (sings) dum dum dum dum dome dome. Don't… Because….” “Oh, yeah, No. The trumpets play that part” and my brother laughed because he played trumpet. What the hell? You crazy? I was very disappointed. There's an old saying that if you're a Kiwi your badge of honour is that you can play three different instruments and harmonize. So, if you can't do that, you're Australian. So, in my family we all learned to sing in harmony. We all played various instruments, depending on who had what at any one time and so, we had a very musical household, and I have a very musical household as well.

Jackie

That's wonderful. Your career is so diverse that you've got television roles, movie roles, theatre roles. How did you come to go from being a musician? To, then moving into, say, television, movies or theatre? What came first?

Jay

My career was backwards. I went to television first. It's about opportunities for me. I would love to say that people head hunted me. They could see, you know, the talent. That was the raw talent that was in me and they were going to take me under their wings. But no, it was very much luck. I was working as a social worker in South Auckland. I had left school. I was about 18. Our job was basically to gather some of the young homeless into a hall that was in Mandara East and we would teach them stuff like guitar or just, you know, talk to them. We were trying to get them to get off the streets. In doing so, a director from Television New Zealand came down and they were doing a documentary on the plight of the homeless. And this was during the apartheid protest that they had in New Zealand. And so, I became the liaison. I mean, I was no older than the guys that we were pulling in, and so we would teach the guitar and on the bank of the stream, because they didn't like to go into establishments as such. And after three months of filming these guys, the film crew went away. But the director rang me up and said, “Look, we're auditioning for a new drama about four musicians who form a band in Auckland. Are you interested?” Look I couldn't act to save myself, but I thought, I'll come over. You know the phrase I'll do it for a laugh has got me into more trouble than then I'd like to say, but I went along. This was in 1983. I went along and in this room there were about 15 different instruments. And I played all of them because I knew that I'll never get to play these some of these things again. Then they gave me a script and asked me to read it. And I read the script like I was a three year old. You know, (trying to read) “when I went, I went down. This this kind just kind. What's that? What's What's that? Appeared, just kind of appeared.” I was terrible. I was shocking. I thought, ‘Well, I got to play that stuff’ and I went away. And about probably a month later, I got a phone call and they said “we'd like you to come in and just have a chat” and they had the potential cast there. And got me up to said, “Look, we're just going to get you guys.” some were musicians some were actors, “get you guys tolearn this song.” And it was, you know, James Brown's ‘I feel good.’ I knew that. They wanted me to play guitar on it, which was fine. But then we were playing it and the keyboard player was covering. He was genius. He was covering a lot of stuff. And I said “I want to play the sax” between the vocal phrases. So I ended up playing the sax on it, and in doing so, they basically said, “We've got a utility player here. Jay can not only play the sax, but he could also play double on bass for one of our girls who was an actress. And she's learning play bass, so he could play bass while she sang. So we've got this utility player that can play several different instruments here and cover just in case the actors aren’t up to scratch.” And so, I got cast and you know, I got to work with some amazing New Zealand actors. And that was the first time I realized how bad I was. You know, when the television series came out, even though I didn't really consider myself to be an actor, I knew enough to try and talk over my dialogue. Well, my mother would say “get away from the television. Get away!” I would say “Okay. No, no way.”

To make matters worse, I was learning to drive. And I was a courier driver with the Bedford truck for the show. That was a manual. So, the amount of times they would call action do do (engine stalling sound). I would have one of the car wranglers say, “Listen, if you're going to sit on the clutch for that long, you're gonna have to buy it, okay?” So, yeah, that was my first sort of foray into it. I went backwards and I realized the power of television, you know, it was one of those things. It was a job. That was a great distraction, you know there were great people, they feed us well and I get paid. Oh, my goodness. Gracious me on.

Then when I finished that, I answered an ad in the paper for the Mercury Theatre. Now, at that stage, this was beginning of 83 going 84, Mercury Theatre was is equivalent to the STC here. So, it was the top theatre company in Auckland at that time, and I answered the ad that they were just looking for bodies/chorus members. They were doing Sweet Charity. And so, I went along and sang and I did a bit of dancing, badly, but I got cast. And I remember on the first rehearsal day a great multi actor named George Kennedy, who played Dumbledore in the Harry Potter played down in Melbourne, and he was there with another New Zealand icon, she's passed now, the late Lee Grant, and they were doing this Fandango ballroom. I never even heard of the Fandango, let alone know what it was, but I was watching them, and in the rehearsal room they were in plain clothes, but he was sitting and said “You don't understand what we're doing here, my darling.” And for some reason I just got this tunnel vision and I just went in and I was in the Fandango ballroom and I saw Victoria Vidal. I kept looking at everyone else and they were watching it, but I was discovering it. And, you know, people say you have an epiphany when you find something that you love and think this is it. And that was my epiphany. That was when I went “I don't know what it is, but that's what I want.” And then I went about just stealing people's ideas and trying to imitate people purely because I thought that's how you acted. But it was great because the director for that piece, Jonathan Hardy, took me aside and said “what you guys, what you have to understand is this; acting is like standing up naked and turning around slowly. That's what acting is like. It's awkward, it's frightening, it's confronting, and what you're doing at the moment is understandable. But what you are physically doing is you're jumping faces and grabbing shirts because you think that looks great. I'm gonna put that those shirts will never fit you. What you have to do is you have to take the essence of what you see on then you have to mould that essence and turn it into what you can use because you can't be them. You can't be like the wonderful Nat Lees. His voice is too deep. The presence that he has, the stillness that he has, you could take that essence and slow yourself down” because I was a firecracker man. Man, I was just turning 21 at the time. I understood what he said, and so slowly I just became this owl and I was just watching everyone and what they did because, you know, obviously I wasn't formally trained, so I was just stealing ideas and going into a corner and trying to work it out. Where does she say that without going into your throat? And then you would ask questions from other actors and they'll go, “Oh, no, no, no. You have to do it like this. You have to bring your voice out. You have to use your theatre voice.” I go “why do people look up?” “Because if you look up, just people could see your this. This is your money so people could see your face.” And in the old days. People used to walk around with your hands like this (out) because that's how big you would be and from the view of the gods. There, they could still see you because you're that big. But if you had your hands down by your side, you disappeared. And I was just filing this stuff away. Look, I could have gone to drama school. I didn't know that there was such things as drama school. So, I could have gone to drama school, but the best education I had was the idea that you have to fail to succeed. And one of the great actors, I asked “why? I don't wanna fail.” And he said “because we don't save up your mistake's for this stage.” Don't not say rehearsals is about going. In the workshops that I take I keep saying that this is where you make your mistakes. You have to make your mistake's here. People ask why and it’s because if you don't make a mistake, you can't replicate. If you don't make a mistake, you can't go back and fix it. You know, you bake a cake and it rises to go. How did that work? I have no idea.

So, you make it again, but it doesn't rise. You can't replicate. So, for me, it's always trying to get into people's head that failure is part and parcel of success. It's the hop in hop, step in jump. And if you fear failure, you will be mediocre. You know when people say, “Oh, you know, my wife and I, we've never argued our entire lives.” I say well, then you have never had a marriage, you know, because you have to argue whether it be loud or soft or big or, you know, physical. You have to have some kind of disagreement. Otherwise, you are not being changed by the situation you're placed in. You're not learning something because you're set in your own ways and you're if you're both set in your own ways, then you're two different vessels going in the same direction. That doesn't mean that you have any relation to each other. It's used to, I am used to you, not in love with you. And so, from my point of view it was always that thing of learning this way was great because it was visceral and it was tactile. And I would ask, and the actors around me were so gracious that it was something that I took on myself and making sure that I go ask because you don't know. And don't start with I'm sorry, but because if you don't know the question or, you don't have the answer to your question. Then don't apologize for it.

Jackie

So I really love that idea that failure is a part of the learning process. It is so important. And so many people fear failure.

Jay

It is important you grow from failure. You grow from making a mistake because you're not going to make that same mistake again. You know, there's that old saying, don't hold on to your mistakes just because you took so long to make them. So, with kids, it's also drumming into their heads that rehearsal is about making mistakes, because if you don't make mistakes 9 times out of 10, your director will recast you because he will think what am I doing here? If you already know what you're meant to be doing, what am I doing here? You need to be the director’s vision. It's not the other way around. And so, it's getting them, especially students to understand it's okay to fail, because failing means that you're trying, you know. But the thing is, is that if you don't fail, then you're never going to go forward because you're never going risk. So, you're always going be meat and three veg. You're always going be regular, and then at the end of that, you're going to turn around and go “I didn't have a life at all. I didn't live a life I watched the life on.” I think, especially with young people, it's getting into their heads that you have to fail because society has it earmarked that it is something negative when it isn't. It's part and parcel of success. And they've got to understand that, because, at the end of the day, we don't learn new things unless you crack an egg. You don't learn new things if at first you go “well, I thought it was this, well, actually, no, it isn't. It's this. Oh, alright. Well, now I know.” That doesn't only apply to acting. It just applies to life. In general, it applies, especially applies to relationships. Yeah, and so people have got to understand that I'm not expecting Superman. I'm just expecting you to understand what your job is. And if you don't ask, you know that not an indictment on your I Q. It's simply that you're asking what should you do? I'll give you the answer and then we continue on that way.

Jackie

That's fantastic. So, touching on successes, you've obviously had quite a lot of success in your career since then. Once you've started to learn the road. I just want to touch on some of those successes and what it's like in the various industries that you've worked in. Well not really industries, but genres that you've worked in. So, you obviously graced our screens for a long time a senior Constable Tommy Tevita in Water Rats and you've been in Home and Away. Can you tell us a little bit about working on television in Australia?

Jay

Working on television? Australia is interesting. I came over in 95 to work on Water Rats I had just finished touring Jesus Christ Superstar, the Harry M. Miller production. So, that was a great juxtaposition. I also just finished filming in New Zealand, the first episode of Xena, the Warrior Princess. So, when I flew over I thought, you know, I'm gonna be here year, two years. I've never been to Australia for a long period of time so two to three years. And then, you know, I would go back. I’d already been working in New Zealand for nearly 15 years. So, the training I had over there put me in good stead. When I came here, I made a conscious decision not to be the all smiling, all playing, brown skin guy. I would be that quiet guy who people would turn to for information and in doing so turned my character into a dramatic character and not so much a comic foible. And in doing so, what it did was allow people to see a different side of me.

And then I was able to add the musical flavour to interviews and stuff. I remember being invited onto Roy and HG for the first time. And I was in the green room and I was a mess because I kept listening to them, and I'm going, I don't understand what they're saying, you know? I was going, um?? So I have to really concentrate when I went on there, but we had such a blast, and it was one of the breakout sort of interviews that I ever had because he was going right. They said “So, Jay you know, you must be really excited about Water because it goes right around the world, including the Pacific.” And I went “yes, my relations in Samoa are looking forward to a to seeing Water Rats.” They said, “I suppose you're sending them over televisions.” And I said, “Well, yes, I am, and the next year electricity.” Then I also realized that I was an exotic, because you can always tell the rhythm of a city simply by what you see on the television, you could tell what kind of country it is when you have a look at the television because their television normally reflects the communities you've got. New Zealand, it's multicultural, you know. There's Brown, there’s Asians, there's Indians, there's, Europeans and they’re all there fronting shows or reading the news or doing stuff. But here in Australia, its mostly Caucasians, you know, with the occasional brown skin or token Italian here or there. And so, for me, when people say, has it changed since 95? I go “Well, no, it hasn't.” And that's the reason why we've had so many issues with, you know, the Rob Lowe Endowment Awards that they, of course, the big stink when they came out and musical theatre casting at the moment that theatre producers have to adhere more to giving our people here more of a chance to get in the jobs and sending them overseas.

So, I think, you know, for me, as far as television is concerned. I mean, what I loved about it was the immediacy of it. People would call me by my character name. So, I ended up having to make a deal with my wife to say, “Hey, call me Tommy or any other names. I'm not gonna turn around.” Then, when people call out and say “I was calling you back there, you know?” “Oh, you told me. I'm Jay.” “Oh, yeah, Jay Yeah. I love your show”. And when I was in doing Home and Away, I mean, I was in a relationship with Ada Nicodemou, and it was the same sort of thing, you know. People are hell. Or A Bed of Roses with the ABC. Harry Armstrong. And our characters had an on again, off again relationship and I had old women come up to me in the aisles and movies and go “You should marry her.” “Marry who?” “You should marry it. I think you two would make it great couple.” And my character was a mechanic, so you'd have guys, you know, road crew guys would stop. “Hey” “Do you reckon I should change the air pressure in my tires back like two.” I like “I'm a pretend mechanic.” Clayton's mechanic one that you get when you don't have a mechanic. You know, that's the nature of this beast of television itself, it's immediately impactful.

But, you know, you have to make sure that whatever you leave on the table as far as recording is concerned, that you're happy with it because you know that in the editing suite that they will chop around and chop it on. So, you have to be really happy that whatever they left, you know, it's quality.

Jackie

There's no way I can do this podcast, actually, without talking about Star Wars, because I have a Star Wars fanatic household. My son actually begged if he could stay home today and be involved in this because you are Queen Armidala’s personal security guard as Captain Typho. Do you get the same kind of recognition from having done a huge film like that?

Jay

Star Wars is part of the social fabric. I mean, you go anywhere in the world and they know what you're talking about. You talk about, you know, R2D2 or CP3O people know what you are talking about. For me, all of a sudden as an actor, I mean, I was just no actor, but you raised above all of that because you worked on that hallowed turf. You worked on that. You know, even if it was for 15 seconds or, you know, 15 minutes or 15 hours for me, you know it's a job. I've always been a Star Wars fan. You know, I collected refundable bottles with my brother to take them in to get four cents back on the bottle so we could save up enough money to go to town and watch New Hope for the first time. So, you know, I’m a huge Star Wars fan. And when I got to be part of it, you know, I was blown away and then being on set, it was just the coolest thing people go, “ What was it like? Was difficult?” No. It was cool. It was so cool and George Lucas was great because he wanted to start working at seven to finish at five. Unlike most directors who would wanna push past that. No, we started seven working at five because we worked in studios. We could create night all day. And then one day I got tapped on the shoulder and they said, “When you are finished here, they need you in the studio 48 which is the back studio. There's a photography studio. They want to take your photo for your toy.” And I went “Sorry.” “Uh, then we're gonna take a photograph for you for your toy.” Right. And so, I walked into this room and there was this big, huge table with post four posts down one side with lights on them. Okay. And I was in costume. They said “alright. You got to stand up on there, Jay, and I want you just to take a pose and hold that pose” and what they did was these laser lights would come down and they were basically take these photographs of me. Then I would sit down in this chair and they would take a laser print off my face and this thing would just move around my head like this. I asked what was all that for and they said basically you know the Hercules and Xena series? Yeah, well all of the toys look like Hercules. Even Xena looks like it, they put the same head on with a long long hair and called it Xena. So, this time around that has very developed it on and to the point where this is me, can you see it.

Jackie

We're looking at a toy.

Jay

Yep, that's right. It's a figurine, thank you very much. It's not a toy.

Jackie

sorry figurine

Jay

Yeah, And so for a lot of my friends who were active, it became real for them. When I was working in Auckland doing this show called Street Legal. I was playing a lawyer and we were doing a scene, and then we're breaking for lunch and this van turned up and the guy said, “We've got a box here of 25 of your toys. Could you sign the other box, please?” So, I signed all these toys and during lunch, and the other cast asked “What's that?” And then slowly came forward and saw. “You got a toy!” All of a sudden, I was a real actor. A lot of them were just like gobsmacked and the camera crew laughed. But, you know, look for me. It was a great experience. I took that experience, and like most things, I ran with it.

Jackie

We better get it onto schools and education. Now, you have touched on already that a lot of your learning has been through doing and through being in the right place at the right time. And my understanding is a lot of this business is like that. You said you did study some arts subjects at school?

Jay

Art in my time, in 77, was about drawing, you know, it wasn't about theatre.

Jackie

Did you do music or drama at school?

Jay

I did music. When they're talking about drama, you know, I wasn't a member. The girly boys, the drama I did was when the coach needed a faster player on the field and I pretended to have a sore leg. That's when I was outstanding in my own field. But, you know, I never realized that. I think for me that the turning point was when a teachers’ training college, true, came to do a play at our school. I was watching them and there was a Polynesian guy in this teachers’ training group doing these plays, and I though “Hold on. You could do this for a living?” And something tweaked in me.

That sort of reaction has stayed with me for a long time because what it did was it reminded me that why do I keep fighting for, you know, ethnics on screen is because kids don't learn they imitate. They see themselves and they go “I could go there because they're there. I could do that because I could see that person doing that. And he looks like me or she looks like me and so on.” For me it was like, how do I do that? Because they call that acting. What I do, they call showing off. So, there's a transition somewhere?

Jackie

Yeah, fantastic. So, did your school have any sort of creative arts programs? You weren't involved in them?

Jay

No. No. They did have though culturally creative arts. We would translate myths and legends into song and dance. And for me, it was like, well, I get that at home. I want to be European. I want to do that stuff over there. But after a while, I realized that in telling stories with your hands, (demonstrates) it's almost like a bird tree. You know, the wind.

As I continued on through my music teacher also said anyone could sing. Not everyone could perform. And he goes. Everyone can act, but not everyone can perform. I couldn't figure that out. And then he was just like, it's the difference between doing one song and doing 15 because you have to have continuity in there. You've gotta be able to sustain and you gotta find your highs and lows. You gotta be able to find the narrative in that. It allowed me as a performer, especially either in the band or as a dancer in our cultural group to be able to tell the audience where I was going. And it was like ballet with narration because, you know, the narrator will go on and so the canoes set off in the sunset, fighting the waves and looking for a new home. And that's all they needed. And then we would enact all of this stuff, you know, going through the waves and the hot sun. And that's when I sort of went, I'm really telling stories. I can see all this stuff, you know. And for me it wasn't so much about acting because I didn't know what that was. So, you know, it was more about survival than anything else. That’s when I realized that if I stayed in the moment, the moment moved. I didn't have to worry about “Where do I go to? You don't have to say after this.” I just have to finish the sentence or finish this voyage and it will appear. And that's where I learned to trust the process. And in doing so, understand that people will go with you. If you if you see it, they will see it.

Jackie

That's a really interesting perspective. So, what would be your thoughts, in this day and age, for preparing students in the classroom who are gifted in acting or music?

What would be your advice to teachers for trying to help students prepare for a career in the entertainment industry today? Is it about getting them to build stamina, to be able to sustain a longer period of time acting or be able to play 15 songs? Not just one? What? What would be your advice?

Jay

Look, first, I would say to them, why do they want to do it? Because, you know, if you want to be famous, rob a bank, because acting is a job. And I'd also explain to them that beliefs around the arts. Everyone can sing a little. Everyone can dance a little. Everyone could act a little. But not everyone can lawyer a little or mechanic a little or plumber a little. So, everyone thinks that they can quantify your worth because you know “my cousin? He sings so. What's the big deal?” You know, ours is the only job that we have to re-negotiate every single time. If I was a doctor with 30 years experience, you would take my bill and you would pay it. But as an actor, I've gotta constantly dance for you. So you know, everyone wants to discount. And I will say it is one of the things that it has to be within your soul. And people always ask me what makes a good actor, which is you have to be a good human being to start off with. You have. If you're a good human being, then you could be a good plumber. A good actor. A good lawyer. A good father. Good mother, good brother, sister. But you have to be a good human being. First and foremost. The next thing is get a job that’s not in the acting industry. Just get a job because you'll be amazed at how much having coin in your pocket will give you confidence. The other thing is, is own your actions. If you own your actions, you will save a lot of heartache. “Did you learn your lines last night?” “Well, you know, the problem is my mother, she had a you know, she had an episode and she had to go to the hospital.” We’re actors. We used the ethos a lot. The last thing you want to do is muddy the waters up there by, you know, making up stories about dead relatives. It's one of those things humans in general, when you're in trouble, the first thing you do is go “Please, God.” You know, even if you're not religious, “please God.” So, you know, I believe it's always performance is very much about not for your audience as such, because if you translate applause for the quality of your work, you will always be disappointed. So, for me, a performance is very much about performing for a greater being. When I did Lion King, Julie Taymor who created the Lion King told us a story about in the seventies she had an argument where she was in Bali. She had an argument with her boyfriend, and she was sitting in the courtyard of a temple. And it must have been midnight. She heard a bell ring door opened, and about 30 priests fully dressed, came out as she looked around. There's nobody there and they came out into this courtyard and then for another hour or so they sang, and they performed. She kept looking around to see that there's no one here and then after that, another bell rang and they all went back in. They were fully dressed and they performed and they sang and everything resonated around her and she sat there in the silence. Once they left and back into the doors, she saw this guy, but there was nobody there. And then she realized that's what performance is about. Performance is about performing for something greater than yourself, performing for something that is for the ethos itself because, you know, honestly, that if somebody came in and said that was a great performance, but you phoned it in, you would take it on board, but you will feel a little ashamed, right? Whereas if you perform for this ethos out there, that's as good as it's gonna get right now. And as Julie said, you will win the war, but you may lose the battle, but the great thing about it is you open yourself up to coming back next week or coming back tomorrow and doing the same. And she goes, and when you lose yourself in the bright lights, in the applause and in the loving arms of your audience, go upstairs and perform once again for the ethos, for the greater being out there, and you will realize that it not only cleanses the soul, but you can't lie to yourself. If you phoned it in, you will know automatically. So, you have to put it out there. If I've got a sore throat, this is all I can give you. That is all I want. That's not a problem. This, you know, it has to come from a place of truth, and doing that every now and again allows performers to not get too big to them for themselves, and it doesn't matter if you're an amateur, it doesn't matter if you're a professional. Doesn't matter if you've been doing this for years. If you stop every now and again, and just perform, you realize the extras that you put on, the twinkle in your ill, that little turn of the head and you realize I don't need that stuff. Who's that for? And you realize I'm just creating shapes because I thought this. I saw somebody do this and I thought I'd just be really sophisticated and throw my hair back like that. But at the end of the day, you're not telling the story. You're not being truthful. It doesn't come from a place of truth. And so when you break it down to brass tacks like that for me, and I do it constantly, you know, two o'clock in the morning, my wife is going, “Hey, we're trying to sleep!” You know, for me, its fulfilling, and it's cleansing the soul and also makes me accountable for not only for myself but for that brown skin kid who's sitting in the audience because that's what I want. And when they see you, they see the real you, they don't you know, they will see a character performing and they'll go “That was amazing.” But I say you know, the person you see on stage shouldn't be any different from the person you see offstage. Even though you may be playing a character, the essence of your character when you come offstage should be just the same. And that way, you know, people don't run away from you. They run to you.

Jackie

I love that. Obviously, you run workshops and you teach as well at the university with the occasional workshops. Obviously, the students at Mudgee High School are really lucky as next week they're going to be experiencing one of your workshops. Do you have the time to do lots of workshops like that in high schools? Is that something that you do?

Jay

I'm really lucky in that doing 16 years of Playschool allows you to ring up high schools and ring up places of education and go, “Hey, I'm coming down. I'd love to come” and people scramble to make it happen which is great. I worked from 2011 through the 2017 as the ambassador for Queensland kindergartens and so travelled the state up there. I have a simple philosophy that wherever I tour, if I'm on tour wherever I go, I'll ring up the teaching establishment there and volunteer my services. It not only keeps me grounded but also allows kids to see what they can do. It was just allows brown face kids to go “I could do that, too.” The classes that I'm doing down in Mudgee's because I'm working on Doctor Doctor. So we're filming down in Mudgee on the Wednesday, so I said, “Look, don't drive me down. I'll drive down early and I'm gonna do a masterclass for schools.” So we've got three schools coming in at Mudgee High School. I'm gonna do a masterclass from 11.30 to 3.30 and then we've been able to get a bunch of the community together, and we're gonna do a senior master class for adults from 5:30 to 9:30 and they're free.

Jackie

Huge day, and so generous.

Jay

Yeah, look, I think for me it's that thing of just going $10 in Mudgee is the same as $10 in Sydney. Rural people want just as much as anybody else. People in Mudgee also have aspirations and dreams. In my master classes, I teach life skills. They don't teach acting skills because then you can apply to anything you know. It becomes this universal pocket knife where you know. I always tell them stuff like, “a good scene partner always knows what your eye color is. The best time to grow trees 20 years ago, the next best time is now.” Look, I think the thing is that it's always this thing we’re going, “you could make excuses or you could just get on with it.” And the evening classes, I say always for the could have would have should haves. I could have done this. I would have done this. I should have done this. So, for me, it's about reintroducing them to that. Some people just want to hear their voices. Some people wanna be just confident enough to stand up and know the process of how to go about doing that. Some people want to face their demons. Some people wanna be performers.

Some people also, you know, want to be able to overcome certain fears. For me to go “No, that was terrible” is harsh, you know? But you also give them that philosophy that as a group, we need to shine on all of us. If we shine on everyone, then we will grow. But if you throw shade over this way, then some of you will grow and some of you won't grow. Some of you will fail and some of you will succeed and understand that we all grow at different rates. So not all of us wannabe stars. That's fine. There are moms there. They just wanted to come out and to do something different. Let's sing a song.

I also cover how to do auditions. How do you know to conduct yourself in an audition situation? Do I need an agent? If I do, what am I looking at? Why should I need an agent? Do I need to be part of the union? Finding jobs, getting jobs? Who owns what? Down to song selections. You know, I will say to them, why is it that people choose songs that are out of their key? For goodness sake? You know, find out what your key is. And also with people who are going for musical theatre auditions. I mean, I'm lucky we're just celebrating the success. My son is a cast member of Hamilton. But I'm always gobsmacked when people go to auditions, but have never had a real piano player play their music. You know, I've been in an audition where beautiful young girl stood there for a musical. The pianist has started playing the song, the intro came and the intro winked and he went, “Oh, sorry that that was me. I'll just go back again.” Intro came and she went on. He went “Okay, so this is your intro right here.” And she turned to him, and I swear she turned to him and she said, “Oh, I know I come in after the drums” to which the director went “so you've only rehearsed this with a backing track.” “Oh, yeah.” “So you haven't actually rehearsed us with the music.” “No.” “Okay. Um, you know what I'm gonna do? We've got another rehearsal pianist out there. Could you go out and ask Douglas to take you into rehearsal room three and we're going to see you in half an hour. Okay. All right.” Which is great. I mean, they gave them a chance, but I was just sat in this window gobsmacked. And, you know, and so it's lessons like that. It's really life lesson. It's making them understand that idea of claiming the stage. You know the meaning of the word claiming stages. Basically, you walk onto the stage on you walk right to the edges, and you walk right around. And it's not because you're nosey. It's because you're telling yourself, see, nothing to scare me here. Nothing to scare me here. I could go all the way back here. Nothing scared me there. You claimed the stage. Now I'm just like claiming the room where you're walking for an audition. You go up to people, you look him in the eye, you shake their hand and introduce yourself. If you go along, even if they're talking, you stop and introduce yourself. Why? Because that's the first impression that they'll have how to address the auditions. What to do? So, it's the little nuances that they're sitting. Before they hear you, they will see you. You know, word to the wise. Wear interesting shoes. Jackie – Interesting shoes?

Jay

Yeah, because that's what they were doing. They look at you, but then I look at your shoes. If you want wear high shoes to an audition it looks like you have no idea why you're here. It's not modelling call, you know. But if you have sensible shoes that have good arch support but also will allow you to move if we say can you dance and do this, then they'll go. “You thought about this?” The guys are the same. I always wear these imiatation Crocodile skin shoes. Always a talking point. And they go “alright. Hey, Jay, How are you? great shoes.” You make an effort, and you've now got a conversation.

Jackie

I would never have thought of that in a million years. One to remember. Obviously, with your workshops, you contact the schools when you're free. How might schools tap into expertise of an artist like yourself to enhance their programs? Obviously, listening to something like this today is a good help.

Jay

Yeah. Look, I think the thing is that I'm really easy to find, you know? Teachers will always get they’ll google my name, they'll see my INSTAGRAM account or something. They'll contact me through there and say “Could you send this shout out, you know our girls here at Riverside are about go into the year 12. Could you send a shout out to them?” So, you know, I sent the shout out. You know, if they asked politely and it's done in the right way, you know? I don't have an issue. I'm my own worst enemy, you know, if I'm going to go down there and we’re going to be down there let's just do something constructive. And I was fine. This is a great way to get a good idea of the of the town itself, know its people. The good thing is that you make friends automatically because the next day when we're filming, I must see some of these kids on the street or some of the grownups on the streets. So, you know it's a win win situation.

Jackie

You are so generous. Thank you for your time. I want to finish with my final fast five. Here we go. What high school did you go, to?

Jay

I went to Marguerite College, which is in South Auckland between the years of 77 and 81.

Jackie

Your favourite subject at school. And why?

Jay

Lunchtime? I went to school to eat other people's lunches. So yeah, lunchtime was fantastic. I used to hang out with my European friends because they had really great lunches.

Jackie

Okay. I wasn't expecting that. Your favourite teacher, and why?

Jay

My favourite teacher was a teacher named Mr Thwaites. He was our music teacher. He, was a jazz drummer and he would always speak in scat. You know, I need you to drop by, but by, okay, alright. Another problem. Not only that, he encouraged so many of my fellow Polynesian brothers and sisters who had really had no money to become musicians because he would allow us to hire instruments. And he was so bad at paperwork that he would never chase us up for the hire fee. This saxophone became the church's saxophone, became the band saxophone. To this day, I thank you from the bottom of my heart because I know I could never learn these instruments. A lot of us could never learn these instruments without having somebody like that who, you know, absent mindedly allowed us not to pay for these things over a five year period

Jackie

That is actually beautiful, though. Your best school memory.

Jay

My best school memory was as an athlete, I was in senior high jump. I won the senior high jump, but it went over. It went to jump off. Basically, I finally won and as I lead that I rolled off and then was told “hurry up there waiting for you at the 100m.” I looked up. The entire school was in the middle of the field waiting for them to run the finals of the 100 m. So, you know, you hear “Congratulations, senior boys record. Now, he's just making his way down to 100m final.” So, I had to run down to the 100m final, and luckily, the teacher said “just take a deep breath, have some water.” And then I got started blocking you. Take that. I ran and I ran a personal best off 10.8. So that was my best memory.

Jackie

Okay. And what is one take away or advice that you want to leave teachers, creative arts teachers, music, dance, drama, art teachers, with today?

Jay

Choose a job you truly enjoy and you'll never work a day in your life. And nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission. To our arts teachers out there. Your job is not to finish the sentence. Your job is to help to pronounce it. Your job is to help them recognize what their strengths are and carry them over to the next part of their journey. You can't take on the responsibility, especially with young children and young students, of where they want to go. I think for you it's simply about sewing simple seeds for them, you know, Please and thank you. Basically, the standards that you're willing to walk past are the standards that you're willing to put up with. The other thing is a clown will always be a clown. You have to ask yourself, why do you keep going to the circus? So, for me, it's always asking, what do you want and especially trying to get them? To understand, you have to dream big and you have to follow your crazy ideas because crazy ideas will put you in a place where a lot of people don't want to go. But a lot of people will want to talk about crazy ideas who will allow you to create characters that end up taking over the world. A talking mouse is now the head of the world. They call him Mickey. Even though Walt Disney's editor said you couldn't draw. You look at people like Branson and Bill Gates who left school early. It's to each their own. So, I suppose, in a long-winded way to the performing arts teacher, your job is to sew the seeds and then allow them to find the way

Jackie

I love that. That's a beautiful piece of advice. Thank you so much for your time today. I think we've talked way longer than I said, we were going to talk. But your stories have been fantastic. There's so much, I think, that teachers can take away from what you've said today and put bits and pieces of that into their classrooms to support our students to dream big and to follow their dreams, because I think that's really important.

Jay

Yeah, look, ultimately, I would love to be able to do a master class or forum for performing arts teacher to be able to strip back their idea of what performing is so that they allow kids to be. I suppose you know it's difficult when you're trying to control them and let them go at the same time. So, its finding the balance between the two. So, I think one of my ultimate goals is to try and run a performing arts workshop for teachers on getting them to learn to fail.

Jackie

I think that's something that we need to talk about in the future because I think that is a fantastic idea. Thank you very much for your time today. I really appreciate it.

Jay

Thank you very much. May the force be with you

Jackie

In the coming weeks, we'll be speaking with industry professionals, including cast members from Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Hamilton and other Australian theatre royalty. Next week we’ll be speaking with Australian theatre licensing agent David Spicer with fantastic ideas about staging musicals in secondary schools. This podcast was brought to you by the Creative Arts Curriculum Team of Secondary Learners, Educational Standards Directorate of the New South Wales Department of Education. Join us on the Creative Arts Statewide Staff Room as a source of all truth regarding New South Wales curriculum. Or you can follow us on Facebook or Twitter at Creative Arts 7 to 12 or email us at Creative Arts 7-12 at d e t dot nsw dot edu dot au. The music for this podcast was composed by Alex Manton, and audio production by Jason King.

[end of transcript]

Jackie King

The following podcast is brought to you by the Creative Arts Curriculum Team from Secondary Learners Educational Standards Directorate of the New South Wales Department of Education. As we commence this podcast today, let us acknowledge the traditional custodians of all the lands on which this podcast will be played around New South Wales. Their art, storytelling, music and dance along with all first nations people hold the memories, the traditions, the culture and hopes of Aboriginal Australia. Let us acknowledge with honour and respect our elders past, present and future, especially those Aboriginal people in our presence today who have and still do guide us with their wisdom.

Welcome to the Creative Cast Podcast series. My name is Jackie King and I'm a project advisor with the Creative Arts Curriculum Team with the New South Wales Department of Education. Today we will be having an industry chat with a director and choreographer with over 30 years’ experience across multiple art forms. Some of her credits include founding Force Majeure Dance Company, choreographing the stage production of Dirty Dancing and most recently, directing My Brilliant Career at Belvoir Street Theatre. Please welcome Kate Champion.

Hi, Kate. Thanks so much for joining us today for our creative cast industry chat. I'm really excited to be chatting with you because, as I've just been reading, your career has been so diverse that you've you sort of started as a dancer and done some choreography worked in theatre dance, physical theatre, even film and opera, which sounds all so very interesting. So, I was wondering if you could start by sort of talking through how you got involved in the performing arts. Maybe, I'm presuming that you started dancing as a young child as a lot of dancers do. Would that be a correct assumption?

Kate Champion

Yes, it is a correct assumption. And look, I don't know if this is just family lore, and I'm not sure anymore how true it is. But I believe my sister displayed some natural talent very young. She would have only been four, and I was probably six, and I believe I was sent to help my clumsiness. But you know, we were lucky that dance school that was closest to us was a woman who was the daughter of an abstract painter, and she was only 19 herself, and she started a dance school. Karen Kalkhoven had started a dance school behind a petrol station, and she it was quite unorthodox. In fact, encouraging creativity was more important to her than technique. Even though we absolutely learned technique. She taught us to choreograph and improvise and all sorts of things which I, because you don't know anything else, you think that's what it is. And then you realize as you get older, other, particularly girls, not many boys went to dance lessons, and I guess there are more now but there's still not an equal amount, you realized it was a different environment and that they didn't have as much creativity. And I'm endlessly thankful the way she taught us and encouraged that. It just it was, I've never, I've always been interested in making work more than, even though I was before, for 26 years it was always just to learn how to make it. That's always what turned me on and was part of the storytelling and connection to what it means to be human more than the technical achievement as such, although I do like that challenge.

Jackie

Yeah, that's really interesting because, uh, well, it's interesting that you say about boys, my son dances his eight and there's maybe one, there's only one or two in the class, and he does the eisteddfod thing, too, and it's mostly against girls all of the time. So yeah, it's one of those things with boys dancing. They don't do it as much, but certainly get involved.

Kate

They do more hip hop at least or some street dancing. There's a lot more boys here.

Jackie

Yeah? What? What sort of disciplines did you sort of go down?

Kate

Um, well, Karen taught modern dance techniques, but also ballet. I think I knew fairly early on that I didn't have the physique. I had quite a tendency to be muscly. And it's certainly not something encouraged in a ballerina. And I've always been told I don't have very good feet for a girl. Apparently, if I was a boy, they'd be okay. But no, I can't. My feet don't point beautifully. So, ballet was out of the question. Mind you, I was never really drawn. I really admire people who achieve positions in ballet and who can do it well because it's a very demanding discipline, but generally for me, it doesn't display as much of humanity as I'm interested in. It's a very narrow aesthetic that we're talking about in ballet, so I wasn't naturally drawn to it. So yeah, I think I'm not sure if we did Graham technique, but we certainly did Limon. Limon, which is a version of a contemporary, and Cunningham a bit, I think. I think it was a mixture of a lot of things, floor technique, but ballet as well. And then, as I said, improvisation and choreographic and creative tasks which we would spend weekends as an eight year old making up dances, too, and learning the structure of music, which was really great as well.

Jackie

That’s really fantastic because, like, I think now most would sort of do your RAD and or your tap exams or work through exams. So, to have that option to be creative and make up your own dances from a young age, I think is really important to bring that out in students.

Kate

Well, I'll tell you one story that's very unusual, and I guess it's divulging a bit of family history that's a bit sensitive, but due to something that was going on in my family, we had to go to family therapy. And when I went to dance lessons one of the afternoons after going to family therapy Karen Kalkhoven asked what we did. And I said the therapist asked us to put the family in positions in the room as we saw how we related to each other. So back to back or far apart or close or sitting down, standing up. And she took that task. And then we did it in our dance class and everyone made up, I guess, photographs of how they related to their family. And she took something that I guess could have easily been quite painful or traumatic into something creative. And, yeah, it was extraordinary.

Jackie

That is so special. So, through your study with Karen, you then ended up studying in Munich as well. So, you went overseas with your dancing?

Kate

My father was an academic, so every seven years we would spend in another country. So, when I was six weeks old, we were in New Haven, Connecticut. When I was seven, we were in California, and when I was 13 14, we went to Munich. We tried to go to school there. My sister and I, she would have been probably 12, I guess, and 11 12 and I was 13 14, and we progressively were put into lower and lower schools in this German school because we didn't speak German. So, I ended up with eight year olds, and it was kind of pointless in the end. They were able to send my sister to an international school. And in the end, I ended up, my mother found this amazing dance school that just was so eccentric and wonderful and had some of the best teachers from London and New York going through it, and they offered me a scholarship. So, I ended up at 13, dancing all year and going to a German language school in the evening and doing some study by correspondence, but mainly dancing. And yeah, I was incredibly lucky. They wanted me to stay because they were going to start a dance company, but my parents weren't going to leave me there alone at that age. But then, as it turned out, I came back to Australia, finished year 10, hadn't heard anything from the company in Munich. Then they wrote saying that they had started the company. They had a performance in six weeks. They'd send my airfare. Could I be there in two weeks? And so much convincing was needed from on my part to my parents to let me go. But I did eventually convince them that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity and because they knew the people that I was going to, they let me go. And so, two weeks after my 16th birthday I travelled alone back to Munich and joined a dance company.

Jackie

Wow. And how long did you stay? There for?

Kate

I stayed a year, and then I came back for a year. And then I went back for two. So ultimately, I spent four teenage years 14, 16, 18 and 19 in Germany. And the three of them in this dance company. Evanston Dance Company run by a Swedish woman, actually.

Jackie

Oh, wow. And you obviously got to do a fair bit of performing with that dance company.

Kate

Yes, a lot. Um, and teaching. I taught a lot. I taught disco to German housewives with my very limited, because Saturday Night Fever was all the rage. I taught Graham technique even though I've only just learned it myself. Yeah. You know, I guess I was earning my keep as much because it was even though we did performances, it wasn't a full time company.So there were other ways we needed to, they needed to finance it. Yeah. Yeah. I taught from a very young age.

Jackie

Fantastic. That is so interesting and so lucky that your parents did let you go and do that. That's such a like a big experience for a 16-year-old to go overseas, but by yourself.

Kate

I think they were apprehensive. And my mother was still, I think, you know, a lot of other parents are shocked when they hear that, but I guess they trusted me enough to know that'd be okay.

Jackie

Fantastic. So here in Australia, you were a founding member of Dance North in Townsville and founding artistic director of Force Majeure. So, you’ve done quite a bit of work as a dancer and artistic director for dance in Australia. And in London you were also in DV8 physical theatre, which sounded very interesting as well. Can you talk about your work, I guess here in Australia, as a dancer with those two companies Dance North and Force Majeure.

Kate

Well Dance North was based in Townsville and I was quite ignorant. I didn't realize quite how far north it was, but it was a wonderful experience, is a very small company was six dancers. It had been North Queensland Ballet before it transferred to become a contemporary dance company led by Cheryl Stock. And it was just great because we did so much touring to really incredible places some of the islands of the Barrier Reef to central Australia to Nhulunbuy in Arnhem Land. Just incredible experiences of place, seeing regional Australia and parts of Australia that I think you don't experience in the same way when you're a tourist and you get to know local people in a way you wouldn't otherwise and I certainly got you see a lot of Australia and I think when it's six people, you become quite close and we were all very young and it was a real adventure. It was very, God, Townsville can be so hot. So, we didn't have air conditioning in the dance studio, so I remember there was a power strike once and we would be doing a demonstration or a performance by candlelight, and we were just slipping off each other. We were sweating so much, but, you know, go flying in a tiny plane to Nhulunbuy in Arnhem Land and performing for Aboriginal communities there and doing workshops was a real eye opener and incredibly humbling. And, yeah, eye opening experience and something I, yeah, I think because we were the age we were at the time was early twenties. It was all quite a big adventure.

Jackie

Yeah, I'm sure it would have been.

Kate

And then I was in the Australian Dance Theatre between then and with DV8. So that was in Adelaide. Um, that was a bigger company. And I was two years in that run by Lee Warren, and that was a bit different. But again, some wonderful regional touring. Lee was an incredible teacher. I was able to gain even in my late twenties, a lot of techniques. So, I have had a very unusual way into my career in that I didn't formally train and I didn't do a lot of schooling, it's quite rare for that to happen. So, I've always felt like I always need to keep learning. And even though I used to worry about my lack of formal training, I now, I'm kind of proud of the fact that I've always learned on the job, and it doesn't mean that I don't admire a formal training immensely. But I do think that this idea that you train and then you know it's not really useful and that I'm still learning today and I just turned 59. So, I think it's a lot, and I was always learning because I felt I didn't know. But it's put me in such good stead to have that attitude all my career,

Jackie

Something that we talk about in education a lot is turning our students into lifelong learners. And I really love that philosophy that you've just shared because I don't think at any point you can know everything.

Kate

There's always more to learn.

Jackie

Always, absolutely, so that's very interesting.

Kate

Yeah, I founded Force Majeure, which was a lifelong dream of mine, to have my own company very much a dance theatre company. When I say that, it certainly has dance in it and dances. But equally, half of the performance was made up of text, and half the cast were always actors. So, it was a real blend of multi art form, designing the set from scratch, using a lot of film elements in the live performance, working with composers from scratch, writers, as I said, actors and dancers. So, it was, I'd like to call it more, almost a performance company. Then it's always labels you have to come up with labels and in, you know, this country dance theatre seems to fit what we were doing. But it eventually became more theatre than dance. So that is why I've ended up directing plays. But yes, it was a lifelong dream to work with particularly colleagues Geoff Cobham, Roz Hervey, who I've known for both of them for about 30 years, and the various other people who worked with Force Majeure. Just getting credit when you find that you have a chemistry as creatives or artists together, and how you can keep building on that so you end up having a shorthand. You try not to repeat yourself, but you also already know what you've done together. So, you can just keep discovering. And that's what we did for the other thing. It was 13 years that I had the company

Jackie

Fantastic. I really love how you've got this, like amalgamation of dance and drama. A lot of our dance teachers out there are a lot of them are dance drama teachers. So, it's kind of nice that you've your career has both of those elements inthem.

Kate

Um, think possibly if I hadn't been sent to dance classes when I was younger, I would have just gone into theatre. So I'm very grateful because you can never even, if I direct a play that has no movement component, I'm still very aware of what we give off with our body and our body language and how you inhabit a role physically as much as you do with your words and characterisation.

Jackie

Yeah, fantastic. Where did your interest in, I guess theatre start to begin? So, moving from dance into more story, well, I guess I'm going to say into more storytelling, but it sounds like the storytelling started at the beginning.

Kate

It did. I admire dance technique a lot, and there are some abstract pieces that I find very mesmerizing and meditative and can affect you deeply. But generally, I'm not so interested in want of a better word making shapes like I'm not interested in. Generally, there's definitely exceptions. I do like when there's some meaning associated with what's up there imparting some sense of the human condition, which obviously can be done without words. And it doesn't have to be. But I guess it's the storytelling that I am interested in and real-life human situations. And sometimes dance without theatricality or words or storytelling can be so open ended to interpretation that it can still be moving. But I guess I've always wanted more specificity in in communication. Mind you, I can also find just talking head plays, where they do nothing but speak and stand very still, quite sometimes tedious as well. So, I guess I just, it's what your taste is, isn't it? And it's what's turned, what turned, what pushes your buttons? And that's why I encourage all students and to expose yourself to as much as you can and find out what you like. And it might not be what everyone else likes, but that is a big indicator to what you should pursue, because there's a reason why when you see it, you get a reaction and it and you talk about it and it stays with you and it affects you. And I also had quite, I didn't have a religious upbringing. And I guess sometimes religion for people fulfils that mode of why are we all here and what's it all mean? Whereas sometimes for me, when I've seen artwork by people who don't know me at all or read a book by someone who can't know anything of my life? And I've been so incredibly astounded at how similar and articulate the way they've articulated the same experience I've had as a human, and I feel that that gives me a great sense of I don't know, some sense of purpose or meaning or connectedness that I think art fulfils a lot. And so that's why, in long winded answer, that I was drawn more to storytelling aspects or work that has clarity and meaning.

Jackie

So in 97 you began your collaboration with Neil Armfield. Was that sort of your first foray into moving in a like drama direction?

Kate

Um, Let me think. Look, my brother studied drama at Victoria College of the Arts and we got to go to plays that he was in. He also joined circuses, and so he was quite influential in some work I did early on that was related to physical theatre. We did a show called Suspense that had circus, text, dance, multi-platform. Steven, my brother, was the reason why I went to some of the first plays. My dance teacher was connected to the old Tote, which was a theatre company in Sydney, I think. Early ensemble days. So even though she was in dance, she had theatre connections. So, I think there's been a myriad of people and influences. But I think Neil was the first theatre director I worked with. So yeah, in that regard, possibly. Yes, I'd say so. You know, I've worked with him quite a lot and learned a lot from him. Yeah.

Jackie

So was there a show in 97? I read that you began your collaboration with him in 97.

Kate

Alright. 87 was an opera called Frankie in Adelaide. But probably the first major collaboration was about 97. You're right. 98 on Cloud Street, the original Cloud Street, which was a five hour play. Um, that had quite a bit of movement in it, actually. And was an original Australian, you know, based on Tim Winton's book and ended up being incredibly successful and toured the world for quite some years, but that that was our probably our most significant collaboration. We have also more recently worked on the Ring Cycle, which is an opera.

Jackie

Yeah, I was going to ask you about the Ring Cycle because I know it was massive. It was in 2013 and that then relaunched in in 2016. So how did you find working on an opera like the Ring Cycle? In comparison to the work that you had done previously in dance?

Kate

Look, I learned a lot from it. It's incredible. The Ring Cycle can be like this extravagant, you know, full music and requiring massive theatricality. And then it can suddenly boil down to three people on stage. And even though they're singing, it's almost like they're in a Pinter play. So just understanding how much Wagner has influenced music that's been written since, so I kind of learned it backwards. I listened to it and think, that's like a movie tune, score from a film and realized that it was influenced by Wagner. So, it was quite an education for me. Yeah, it was eye opening. I'm not sure Opera generally is my natural home, but I have incredible admiration for the scale of it. I love the scale of it. I love what can be achieved visually, and how singers need to work in such a different way. Um, and how I just love performers, though, that are up for anything. And usually it's the most professional ones that will give anything a go. And I love that rather than needing to just stand and sing. I had to work with a lot of people, there was 75 volunteers, 40 chorus, I think we were aiming, I think we had 120 people on stage for the opening Rheingold and I had to organize them all into moving, you know, moving river of human flesh. And that was quite extraordinary and demanding. And so, I think it was paid off. I'm not sure I'd race to do that again, because it's just such a full-on thing. But yeah. And its a once in a lifetime experience.

Jackie

I can't imagine there'd be too many other art forms where you have that many people on stage at once, either. Like in music theatre, companies aren't that big. No dance companies. They're not that big either. Are they?

Kate

No, I guess we're talking Olympic opening ceremony style. Yeah. Volunteers. Because you wouldn't, you know, be able to afford that.

Jackie

Yeah, well, I saw too that you choreographed Dirty Dancing. The world premiere of Dirty Dancing. And I wondered, how did you find that? Given that it's so iconic, like, everybody knows the Dirty Dancing lift, how you were able to maybe take what was there and already old, but then also bring in your own sort of style to that?

Kate

Yeah, well, look, I never had any intentions to be involved in musicals, and I didn't have an agent. I wasn't in the phone book as it was then, in 2003. But they tracked me down because they've seen, someone had seen one of my shows, works and the way I've incorporated live actors on stage with filmed imagery. And anyway, they finally tracked me down and I said, it's not what I do. And they said, could you please come in for an interview? Because it's taken us a long time to find you anyway. So, I went in to explain why I wasn't the right person for the job. And the more I said, I don't really do unison. I like people to really look like human beings, I like a wide range of body shapes. The more I said this, which I thought would turn them off completely, the more Eleanor, who wrote the original screenplay for the movie became more interested in me. So anyway, long story short, I ended up choreographing it. If you've seen the film, because it's got such an incredible cult following, you have to. It would be like you can't do Rocky Horror Show without doing the famous dance, and like you say, you've got to have the lift in it. So, there were things that I knew I had to have in it, and there was a legal arrangement where a certain percentage from the original film company we were allowed to use. But then, if you watch the film, there's a couple of the couples dancing, but there's not eight couples, so there were ways to find new things into it, but it was both paying respect and homage to what existed and contributing new material, so it had to be a balance of both. But the thing about Dirty Dancing is the audience, just to see how much they love being there, and it's just the way they drink it up and just almost go back out, buy a ticket to come back in. It's kind of this incredible, addictive experience, and it's a wonderful thing to be part of something that brings so much joy to people. It was it was a challenge because it wasn't like opera. It wasn't a natural fit for me, but I have since grown a soft spot for musicals.

Jackie

Yeah, is that the only musical theatre that you've done? Oh, you've got spring awakening.

Kate

And I also did a brand-new musical at the Hayes two years ago called Evie May. So yeah, and it was a positive experience. I had a good time on that. Yeah.

Jackie

I see you've directed plays as well. I noted that you've done Every Brilliant Thing that at Belvoir, which students of mine went to a couple of years ago and they loved it. It really made them have to think.

Kate

I think, I don't say this lightly. It's kind of a perfect play in how it's conceived and what it does with a little. You know, basically, the first page says it should be performed in the round with no lights or no set. So, it's incredible. You can see it and HBO have done a recording of that. I don't know how easy it is to see it in Australia, but, um, if you can see it, it's worth it.

Jackie

I know the kids from our school really loved it, and so did the teacher.

Kate

Right. There's a lot of participatory theatre now where the audience are involved. I think it's a really great example of how to do audience participation in a way that's not cringe worthy. And that honours the subject matter of the play, doesn't embarrass anybody. And such an incredible thing to deal with the subject of suicide in a way that is both serious and yet somehow light-hearted, because it was devised with the writer and a comedian to perform. Johnny was, he's a comedian, so he brought that to it. But now, it's been all around the world, performed in so many different languages. So, it's an extraordinary thing to be involved with, actually.

Jackie

Do you like moving into the directing plays as opposed to dancing? Where do you sort of feel like you're most natural fit is these days?

Kate

Oh, look, everything is a challenge. And because I move around the way I do, there's inevitable imposter syndrome that comes with it because, you know, what's the choreographer doing directing a play or what's all the different things I've done? And I've always been drawn to putting myself on the line to see whether my bag kit of tools that I've developed over the years can stand up to, you know, putting myself somewhere which isn't my comfort zone. So, when I say natural fit, it's a combination of something you're drawn to because it excites you and combined with a challenge that you're to prove to myself. So, I've done. I've directed about seven or eight plays since I left Force Majeure and they've ranged from participatory, small like Every Brilliant Thing to Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge. Um, various. I just opened My Brilliant Career last week. The joke is that at Belvoir I only direct plays with brilliant in the title, because Every Brilliant Thing and My Brilliant Career. I don’t know how to say if it's my natural fit. Depends on the play. It really depends on play, whether I'm excited by what it's trying to say to people or not. Say what it's trying to the angle. It's presenting for people to potentially look at something differently. Or here's something that they haven't been exposed to or all those things. So, it's really the material more than the form.

Jackie

I'm feeling like it's how it connects personally with you or with the human experience?

Kate

Yeah, and the team. Look, it's never me. It's the designer, the composer, the writer, the theatre company itself, the actors that you know. It's what that combination is, that is the attraction and that all those things have to be weighed up.

Jackie

Last question before we delve into schools. I noticed you've done some work on films doing the movement sequences on films. So, the film Somersault with Abbie Cornish and Sam Worthington and Red. How do those experiences differ from, I guess, the theatre, the dancing and the film world?

Kate

Well, I haven't done as much film as I would have liked to, and you have to really commit to film, and I guess because I'm so involved in so many art forms to just single out film didn't happen. But I still hope for more film experiences. I guess it's not different in a lot of ways. For Somersault, I worked with Abbie and Sam the same way I've worked with any performers on anything just loosening up their physicality, giving them tasks to think of. So rather than thinking of, say, a lovemaking scene or something to not think literally, but to give them something else. For example, if you ever see Somersault, you'll see this really sexy dance she does, and all I did was ask her to keep her hands on her thighs while she moved. But it was because of the way she interpreted that task, that it became what it was. And with Red, it was working with Cate Blanchett, who is just the most phenomenal, I mean, everyone knows her as an incredible actor, but she's an incredible physical interpreter. She'll try anything and she's very inventive physically, so it didn't make my job very hard. So, it's again. It's a conversation. It's a collaboration of what can I give that will help this incredibly inventive creative person to hang on to something while the cameras are rolling. It's more about filling their mind with something that's going to be useful in the moment. Whereas when you do something that has to be a regular performance, it's a different way of working. Whereas film is capturing something more fleeting. So, I guess it's just adjusting to those two differences.

Jackie

Yeah, delving into schools. It sounds like your schooling experience was quite diverse as well, obviously being a little bit here in a little bit overseas. Were you able to study any sort of arts subjects at school or be involved in the creative arts at school? Or was it sort of too a little bit all over the place in different places? And you got it mostly from outside of school?

Kate

I didn't get it mostly from outside of school. I did do arts visual arts at Pittwater High, and I enjoyed that a lot. But yeah, I guess because dance is so all consuming and honestly from when I grew up as a child, you didn't do six different activities. You didn't do guitar piano, language, soccer, you know, people didn't do it. I don't think as many things, and I was quite content to focus on dance, but I do remember enjoying visual arts a lot at school. It was a great balance to dancing because it was, you know, such a different way of expressing yourself. So, it was a good balance. Yeah, because I wasn't at school a lot. That's what I thought I thought before this interview. I'm being quite fraudulent here and maybe should have warned you how little schooling I've had. It doesn't mean I don't value schooling. And it's just happens to be how my life turned out.

Jackie

Yeah, sure. So, what are your thoughts for our teachers? Because we obviously have dance and drama on offer in the New South Wales syllabus. What are your thoughts on preparing students for a career in, say, dance or drama through our subjects at

school? What sort of things can we do to help their mindset or prepare?

Kate

Yeah, Look, I think it's hard to know. I mean, with dance, it's easier to know whether you want to pursue it from a young age. I think, with acting, it can come later. I know this is quite a cliché at the moment, but I do think resilience is incredibly important because yeah, sometimes actors call, they jokingly call auditions humiliations. It's just you have to, they're not, it's just that you have to somehow make a joke about being rejected. You have to become so used to it. There are so many reasons why you might not be the right person for the role, and it can have sometimes had nothing to do with your talent. But even going back further, two things I'd like to say is, well, one in dance in particular, I think dance is such an incredible discipline, but also a wonderful way to appreciate music. Um, a discipline for fitness, a way to not be in your head because we're stuck so long at the computer. So even if you don't make it as a professional dancer, it will always be a benefit to your life. And I know that because dancers often, particularly ballet dancers, end their career, particularly they have children, often don't get past mid-thirties. I would say to any employer if they see a dancer rock up who applies for a job, but they don't have qualifications, hire them, because they will work harder than anyone I know. They will be on time. They're usually really smart, although they're not often asked for their opinions, so they often don't articulate because they asked to just shut up and copy and do and train their body. But I also think more than anything for me, the most important thing that teachers can do at school, yes, people students might become actors or dancers, but most importantly, it's an appreciation of what the arts mean in society. So we need to train our audiences as much as we do the people who are standing on stage. And if we have wonderful people in all sorts of professions nurses, lawyers, truck drivers, anything you name having an appreciation of the arts, understanding what it brings to our lives and what it brings to our culture and what it the benefit it gives to social cohesion, then we will be a much better society. So, I think it's just share. Imbuing and enthusiasm for the importance of the arts and creativity in life is the most important thing a teacher can do and that I personally value as an artist in what teachers do in schools more than anything else. And I think it's an incredible job.

Jackie

I love that. It sounds like mostly just sort of exposure and getting them interested in lots of different elements.

Kate

Take them to as many, expose them, especially things they think they don't like. They need to become articulate as to why they don't like it, because if they don't like it, then they'll know more why they do like what they do. Tenacity. You know, it's again. It's like resilience. Sometimes so much can be luck. So, you have to be prepared. You have to have trained. You have to train your mind as much as your body, and often it's being in the right place at the right time. But yeah, if you give up too easily, then you're not going to survive anyway. So, it's probably, you know, it is a bit survival of the fittest as well. Um, sometimes people that have enormous natural talent end up not lasting long because they haven't had to fight for what they've got, because it comes more naturally. So, if you're not naturally talented, that doesn't mean you're not going to make it with a lot of tenacity and hard work. So, yeah, I think it's you know, and I guess a lot of people say, put the fear of the fear into people that they won't survive financially, and all I know is that the richness I've had from being involved in the arts and creativity has given me so much more worth than monetary or financial gain. But you have to know that's what means something to you. You have to decide that for yourself.

Jackie

Yeah, and connect with the work. I really, really love that. Thank you so much for sharing some of that expertise today and just those philosophies, I guess, on the performing arts and your diverse career. It's so interesting to hear all of the different sort of facets. And just to think that just because you've trained as a dancer or that you started your career as a dancer doesn't mean that that's what you're locked into you. There's lots of different pathways, I guess that you can explore.

Kate

Yeah, I think Julie Taymor said, her name from you know, those big musicals on Broadway. I'm pretty sure she started as a dancer. And there's some also leaving dance. There's been some quite incredible lawyers and people retrain as well, and I always thought that although it hasn't quite happened that you can you can continue to educate yourself as formal education can go right through to very old age. It's from it up.

Jackie

Beautiful. I'd like to finish with my final fast five. So, five quick questions about you. Well, they never end up quick. Actually, I'll try and we'll see how we go. So what high school did you go to?

Kate

Well, I went to Queenwood in Mossman. Queenwood Girls School for one year and two years to Pittwater High school. And as I said, one year in kind of correspondence in Germany.

Jackie

Wow. So were you able to have a favourite teacher? And why would that teacher has been a favourite?

Kate

Yes, it was Mr Thomas and he taught history and he would teach history by just telling stories. It was like going in. And it was like bedtime stories. And we all kept thinking when's he going to teach the syllabus. And there were a whole bunch of us that were in awe and would listen to every word. There are a couple of kids that mucked up up the back. And then one day he said. I'm going to test you on everything I've told you on the Ming Dynasty this last week, and the kids at the back freaked out and had to stay up all night studying, and we've been listening to him, so we weren't worried. And he came in the next day and he asked the kids out the back if they studied. And they all said yes, they had. He said, “Good. We won't need to do the exam.”

Jackie

Very interesting.

Kate

Yeah, he just had an unorthodox way, and I guess again, that storytelling thing that just I just found, I kind of tune out when it gets too dry with how some things taught and when it's given in an imaginative way, you don't even realize you're learning. It's a bit like exercise. There’re ways you can exercise. You don't realize you're exercising. There’re ways that is just very, very tedious and hard work.

Jackie

I love that about the storytelling, though, and you can. It's a very good technique for teaching, I think is to teach through storytelling because they pick it up a lot better.

Kate

I think so

Jackie

Your favourite subject at school and why?

Kate

Well it was history because of that. I think and look, I did really enjoy German because I got the opportunity to be there, and so when I came back, and it's just an amazing experience and I think because we're an island, although we should learn more languages of countries much closer to us, but learning any other language, I just find a wonderful experience. And that's something I value a lot, even though it's rusty, my German, but whenever I go there and can communicate, it's just a real buzz. So, I enjoyed that a lot.

Jackie

I bet. Your best school achievement or memory?

Kate

Look, I think it's the friends I made, even though I wasn't there for a long time. I've reconnected with four women that I went even one when I was in kindergarten, where and we're back in touch, and there's nothing that replaces the friendships that you've had for like over 50 years. It's just an incredible thing to look into someone else's eyes when you get much older and realize you've known him that long and you can, even though there was a big gap when we lost communication, it's just picked up as if we were always in touch. And that means more to me than anything from school. I mean, I loved learning, and I loved it. But the people you meet, um, and if you can stay in touch with them there, there's something very precious about that

Jackie

I can relate to that and the last one, whichever way you want to answer this; your one takeaway from your schooling experience or some advice to teachers?

Kate

Oh, I always appreciated not being spoken down to. I appreciate it. I mean, I guess obviously people are younger, but I always think they rise to you. Not meaning, you have to be buddies or friends with them at all. But I think children can take on quite complex and mature arguments or premise or subjects if you give them the opportunity. So, I think the people are the teachers I valued the most, gave me that respect and gave me at the time to express my opinion, and it wasn't just telling it was a conversation, and that's what I appreciate it.

Jackie

Thank you so much for your time today and for sharing so much expertise on what has really been a really diverse career across sort of dance and drama and even into film and opera. It kind of covers all of our creative arts subjects. So, it's been fantastic to talk to you. And yeah, I really thank you for your time. And hopefully I can see one of your plays at Belvoir or something in the near future.

Kate

Yeah, well, My Brilliant Career is on until the end of January. I've really enjoyed this conversation. So, thank you so much, Jackie. And anyone who's listening. Thank you.

Jackie

Thank you. This podcast was brought to you by the Creative Arts Curriculum Team Secondary Learners Educational Standards Directorate of the New South Wales Department of Education. Get involved in the conversation by joining the Statewide Staff Room as a source of all truths regarding curriculum or email our curriculum advisor, Catherine Horvat using the email address creativearts7-122@det.nsw.edu.au. The music for this podcast was composed by Alex Manton, an audio production by Jason King

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