Bubbles and Benevolence with Marisa Vecchio
Marisa Vecchio in conversation with some inspirational people we have met through Hanworth House. We wanted to create a place where we can collect and share their experience, knowledge and advice to you. Talking all things business, family and fundraising.
Bubbles and Benevolence with Marisa Vecchio
Diva to Director - Naomi Price talks theatre, comedy, impersonating Adele and embracing inclusivity in performing arts
Ever wondered how a British girl became a household name on the Brisbane theatre scene? Or how she successfully impersonated Adele and carved a niche in the entertainment industry? Our guest for today's episode, Naomi Price, shares her journey from the UK to Australia, her childhood in a musically inclined family, and her passion for theatre that led her to be a renowned performer.
Tune in as Naomi brings to life her experiences in theatre and comedy. From her education in Creative Industries and Drama at QUT to her first professional play and tour with the Shake and Stir Theatre Company, learn about the lessons she gleaned along the way. Discover more about the role of comedy in connecting with audiences and the privilege it offers to performers. Plus, get a taste of British and Aussie humor from Naomi's perspective, and how her roots and upbringing fuel her comedic style.
Finally, Naomi opens up about the magic of performing as Adele, the importance of mentorship in shaping her skills, and her entrepreneurial journey with the Little Red Company. Hear about her resilience amid a pandemic, her creative venture with the IsoLate Late Show, and her dedication to inclusivity in theatre. This episode is a testament to Naomi's perseverance, talent, and heart, and is sure to inspire anyone with a penchant for the performing arts.
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Welcome to Bubbles and Benevolence, the podcast where we pop the bubbles to success and dive deep into the benevolent hearts of those who have achieved it.
Speaker 1:In this podcast, we'll sit down with successful business leaders, philanthropists, nonprofit workers and more to discuss their journeys, the lessons they've learned along the way, and how they're using their success to make a positive impact on the world. So grab a glass of bubbles and join us as we explore the intersection of business and benevolence and discover what it truly means to be successful. On today's interview, we have a woman whose name is synonymous with talent, naomi Price, a talent that will warm your heart and tickle your ribs. Known for her uncanny appearance as a dell on stage, her appearance on the Voice, mentored by Ricky Martin, and an array of artist and movie soundtrack dedications that will keep you dancing and laughing all night long. After starting her own company with Adam Bruins, naomi Price and her team have created non-stop entertainment and dedicated time and effort to ensuring entertainment is accessible to everyone. So sit back and try not to laugh too hard as we interview Naomi Price.
Speaker 2:Well, it's a thrill to have Naomi Price here today, one of my very favorite people in Brisbane. Naomi, Thank you so much. You've been so busy. Thanks for popping into the office and saying hello to us today.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, I love it. I love being here. I even wore my Hamworth purple for you.
Speaker 2:You are so, so ready for this.
Speaker 1:On brand.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thank you so much so on brand. You also walked in with some of my favorite bubbles, but why did you choose Perrier-Jouette?
Speaker 3:Well, one of my best friends, bex Easterman. She bought me my very first bottle of it and I remember taking my first sip and thinking, oh my gosh, this is heaven in a glass, and so I think it's my go-to, go-to fizz. You know, I think we've got a big jar at home of corks and we write the date and who we drank the wine with and we put that into the jar and I would say probably about 20% of them are Perrier-Jouette champagne corks. They just always mark those milestone occasions, so this kind of felt like the perfect occasion to have another drop and they're always such pretty bottles aren't they?
Speaker 2:Yeah, stunning, particularly there are vintage ones with the hand-painted stuff and, yes, I haven't got my knits on those too often in my life but they're usually behind lock and key, aren't they? That's correct. They're the ones. Well cheers and thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 3:Naomi, we're so thrilled to have you.
Speaker 2:You burst into the Brisbane scene. I actually think it must have been around 20 years ago now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's 20 years since I moved to Brisbane. Isn't that wild. I can't quite believe it. It's gone very, very quickly and also, at the same time, it does feel like an entire lifetime. It's been my adult lifetime. So, yeah, it's incredible to think I've been here this long. And so where did?
Speaker 2:you come from and why did you come? Our game, obviously, but tell us that story.
Speaker 3:I grew up in Brighton on the south coast of the UK and I am the oldest of four. I come from a very musical family. All of my siblings sing and play instruments and we always grew up with music in the house and two very creative parents that just loved introducing us to different music and we had the most incredible music education everything from Chopin to the Beatles to the Rolling Stones and to the new romantics. We just we listened to it all in our house. So very lucky in that regard.
Speaker 3:And I spent the first half of my life in the UK and I actually got into drama school in London and I was going to going to go to university there and I remember the open day at Royal Holloway. I walked around and it was dreary and dark and raining and everyone was so miserable and I just thought I am going to hate this. This is just not me at all. And at the same time we had really good family friends who lived on the Sunshine Coast and they'd been saying to me for years move to Australia, you'd love it here, it's, it never rains, it's such a beautiful place to live.
Speaker 3:And so I applied for university here in Brisbane and I got in and I packed my bags and I flew the next day and I didn't really know anybody here. I just, I don't know. When you're that age, you just think anything's possible. So I think now what a horrible child to like leave my parents and leave my empty bedroom behind and just take off to the other side of the world. But at the time I was so full of excitement and hope and the prospect of the future and so, yeah, I just, I just bit the bullet and went for it.
Speaker 2:It's a big decision for someone so young yeah definitely I think it's.
Speaker 3:I don't think I could have done it without Mum and Dad's support. They're very encouraging of me chasing my dreams and you know, look, I guess if I messed it up, they have three more to follow.
Speaker 3:So, you know it wasn't like I was their only chance, but they've been incredibly supportive over the years and, you know, have never said, oh, come back. You know you should move back here, and they've never put pressure on me to come back. They've always seen how happy and how I've been thriving here in Australia. So I think I'm very, very fortunate to have that support, because I do know that family support is everything in life and without it you kind of battle on resiliently and with it you can just step into potential. You know, and that support of my loved ones and people I love most in my life has undoubtedly contributed to where I am today.
Speaker 2:It feels to me that you kind of burst into the scene in Brisbane, though it was far from that, wasn't it? I was trying to think when we met, was it in the Brisbane arcade one night?
Speaker 3:Very likely, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think there was some kind of one of those arcade festivals. I think I was drawn to Luke originally because I'm the same, yeah, but I have a feeling I had seen him on stage prior to that Very likely. And some amateur or professional productions, I can't remember. So I think we sauntered over to him to say hello and got double barrel goodness, because we've got you as well. Two for the price of one, I think so. Yeah, so it would be more than 10 years ago, would that be right? I?
Speaker 3:would think so. Yeah, and actually I was talking to somebody at an event last Friday and they know you as well, and they said how do you know Marisa? And I said I don't know. I kind of feel like she's like Glinda. She just appears in the bubble when you need her, like some beautiful fairy godmother, and just blesses you with magic and then exits. And I'm like I was trying to think as well, when was that defining moment? But you've been such a constant presence in my life and such a huge supporter of, well, of all artistic endeavors here in Brisbane Like it's amazing the support you give to art.
Speaker 2:So we love the arts, but I was hoping that you could articulate the day, but I think you would be quite right.
Speaker 3:I think it was.
Speaker 2:Brisbane Festival Not. Brisbane, I think something happening in there. I just remember having a conversation that seemed like it was a bit stilted because we were newly acquainted, right? That's never happened since.
Speaker 3:No, never. I've always felt 100% comfortable with myself, with you. So I think there's something really collegiate about Brisbane and about the people we know, right, and that there's kind of a real cross pollination as well. I don't feel like there are groups of people that just do one thing. I feel so included in other industries and you know there's so much kind of intersection that happens between fashion and art and business and philanthropy, and that's, I think, one of the reasons I love it is that you don't really know how you meet people. You just meet them and then they become your fierce friend.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm very happy to be a fierce friend, although I think Sophia and Jamie might contest me being Glinda. I think they more have me on the other side of the wicked witch. Definitely not. I'm sure they could contest you on that one. That is slander.
Speaker 3:Absolutely not, no way. The wicked witch of the west is nowhere near as glam as you, marisa.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, so you're so complimentary, but when I saw you today I realized just how long it is since we've actually seen you face to face, probably since the Lord made Christmas carols, or something around there, very likely which we'll definitely go into.
Speaker 3:It's been a big start to the year. I say start, but we're more than halfway through, so it's just gone very quickly this year.
Speaker 2:So when you exited Brighton in the UK as a young one destined to the big world of Brisbane and was it QUT that you went to it was.
Speaker 3:QUT I did a Bachelor of Creative Industries and Drama, so I meant actually I'm a trained actor, not a singer or qualified to do anything else I do in my life. Yeah, but I have some amazing alumni from that year group. Dave Sleswick, who owns the Tivoli and the Princess, is one of my now one of my fellow students and now one of my colleagues. So there's some really beautiful people that we were all in that sort of early 2000s intake together and still see each other and work together today.
Speaker 2:Then what happened? Like after QUT.
Speaker 3:After QUT I did a lot of community theatre and kind of I feel like in a lot of ways I did my apprenticeship. You know, at uni you do a lot of theory, but I didn't in that particular course. I didn't get a lot of practical input or as much as I wanted to. So I did a lot of community theatre and really kind of got to tackle lots of roles that I would never usually get to play and I'm all the while working in like all sorts of things hospitality, marketing, again all things I'm not qualified to do but just wanted to support this performance work that I was pursuing. And over the years it kind of moved from being that thing that I would race home from work to do and do in my spare time. It started to kind of bleed into my day to day life and then I booked my first professional play in 2008.
Speaker 3:I was in the Wishingwell at Le Bois Theatre and that cast was just all kinds of wild Brian Probitz, eugene Gilfeder, helen Cassidy, leon Kane, sally McKenzie, andrew Buchanan, dan Cristani like it was just a baptism of fire for a young grad to be walking into a cast like that.
Speaker 3:But I got to work with Helen Howard and Michael Futcher and just learn the magic and the power of an actor on stage and how we could create these different worlds just using a napkin and a plate. And for me, it was the kind of work I love making. It's imaginative and it asks the audience to come on the journey with you, and it's not grandiose sets and costumes. You have to fill in the blanks as an audience member, but you go with it and it all makes total sense. So I was very lucky that that was my first professional experience and that I got to work with so many amazing luminaries of the stage. And then I just kept auditioning for things and I did Peter Pan at Q-Pack and Jesus Christ Superstar with Luke, and then in 2012 I toured into schools with Shakenstair Theatre Company.
Speaker 2:A lot of people don't know this. No, I didn't know that, but I heard about the theatre company yes, so tell us about that.
Speaker 3:So I was on the road with two other actors for a year and we learned eight shows, eight 60-minute shows.
Speaker 3:So we would do 60-minute version of Romeo and Juliet or of Hamlet or a play about sort of bullying and moral consequences.
Speaker 3:We learned eight different shows and we would do any combination of those eight shows every single day of the week, sometimes three shows a day, driving all over Queensland in a big green van, pulling the set out, setting it up in the classroom or a theatre, and I always say that was like boot camp for me. You can do anything in the world. If you have done the dying scene at the end of Romeo and Juliet in fluoro lighting at 8.30 in the morning in front of 50 grade 9s, you can do anything. So that just taught me to not be afraid of the audience and to always value that connection with the people that are watching you and never underestimating the impact you're having at any given moment. And for me it was yeah, it's definitely one of those moments that I realised how it's a privilege to be a performer and to have that platform, to have that voice, to bring someone's story to life. It's yeah, it's a real privilege, which not a lot of people would say about schools touring, but that was my takeaway.
Speaker 2:Well, I would have mentioned, there were a pretty harsh critical audience.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:So what did?
Speaker 2:you learn about, because I'm sure lots of people would love to get into theatre in any way, shape or form. So what was your take home message from, from that year of travelling around and a pretty hard, as I said, pretty harsh audience, I would suspect.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think my big takeaway is how much I love comedy. So for me, applause is something that you do because it's a social cue. A song ends you clap. A show ends you clap. You clap. If you hated it, you clap. If they sang really badly, you still clap because it's polite Laugh does not polite Laugh, that is involuntary. People only laugh if you are being funny. And I think that year on the road I was like I love comedy so much. I love the fact that you can flip a situation on its head by just having the most brilliant one liner and being able to improvise in the moment and just it's like sleight of hand or magician's trick. It's just so brilliant. There's nothing like great comedy. So that's probably my big takeaway and that's what led me to write my first show.
Speaker 2:What an amazing story. But were you like that as a kid? Were you kind of the the smarty one in the room? Were you the funny one?
Speaker 3:I never really thought of myself as funny. I mean now, obviously I think I'm an absolute hoot we do too but I don't think I ever thought of myself as funny. I was very studious as a kid, very academic, loved school, took way too many subjects and as a GCSE student I think I did like 13 or 14 subjects Would do, did some on my lunch break because there was no space in my timetable to do them. I was the head girl. I was misgoody, two shoes, academic and driven.
Speaker 3:I don't know if I thought I was funny, but I realized growing up I had so many comic idols. My brothers and I always used to watch things like Annie and I think Carol Burnett as Miss Hannigan is a truly iconic performance in any film or television series ever, and when she kicks her foot through the wall in Easy Street when she's coming down the stairs, I didn't realize. Those things go into your brain as a kid and they really do shape your sense of humor. And now I look back and I'm like well, it's no wonder my sense of humor is just camp and ridiculous, because I was watching Carol Channing, carol Burnett, like you know. I just absolutely adored anybody that was over the top and ridiculous and wasn't afraid to look silly. So I think it's probably really impacted the performer I've become today.
Speaker 2:Probably, though, a bit of an advantage when you think about some of the things that happen in life. Sometimes it's probably better to look at people as being quite silly rather than, you know, silly in a comic way rather than just saying silly, right, I remember there's a bit of a. I don't know if you've watched the White Lotus in Sicily. And my husband's like killing himself, laughing at this whole series because they're using dialect in Sicily, which he's been brought up with in his family.
Speaker 2:They laugh at the funniest things, like I think there's a I don't quote me on getting it right, but there was something when they were describing a man who they had just seen in White Lotus and said you know the man with the crooked nose. Well, that's kind of a humor that Phillips family in Innisfal has been brought up with their whole life, they'll call them. You know fluffy eyebrows, they'll call fluff. Have you seen fluffy eyebrows lately? And the fact that that humor in the everyday? That's why they love Seinfeld.
Speaker 2:So much is kind of it must be cultural, because when it was in White Lotus he was on the floor with laughter at the kind of the I guess, the subliminal humour in the situation because it was cultural. Yes, so I think sometimes humour gets you out of those tricky situations. But I'm sure these people didn't really appreciate being called fluffy eyebrows or whatever it might, crooked nose, but that's how they used to define people rather than their names. And Flop says, inevitably, if Seinfeld's his very favourite show because it seems to be a show about his life, that's amazing. He thinks he's George by the way.
Speaker 2:Amazing.
Speaker 3:He says I'm George. He says so much. I think the way you grow up and your culture and your background absolutely informs your sense of humour. I mean, I think for all of my camp American comic idols, you know, I also loved Monty Python and I love British humour. I mean I love Ricky Gervais, I loved Gavin and Stacy. There's just something really quintessentially unique about British humour that I really appreciate, and it's dry. I think that's why I really loved. I've always felt at home in Australia, I suppose from the European heritage that's here. But there's a very similar sense of humour. Aussie humour and British humour is very self-deprecating, very dry, very, we can laugh at ourselves and I think that's something that I've always loved doing as well. So yeah, I totally get it. Your background informs what you find funny, for sure.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Well. You always see it in your shows as well. There's always that very local, very current humour which I'm sure changes as the show is going to transition.
Speaker 3:Oh, always, always, the script's never finished.
Speaker 2:Sometimes we think you've just said that for the first time on stage, because everyone's in the back just killing themselves on stage.
Speaker 3:Sometimes I have, which is terrifying for everyone else on stage because they're like, oh God, where's she going? But look, you can't beat it. I mean, observational and situational humour is just. It's so joyous. One of my favourite things to do is go into the crowd and talk to an audience member because inevitably, they will always give you much better material than you could have come up with yourself. So I love that stuff.
Speaker 2:And you're very good at joining it as well. The voice yes, Of course we've got to ask you about the voice. Everyone wants to know what was it like, particularly what was Ricky Martin like?
Speaker 3:Well, the voice. I was weird. I was thinking about the voice just yesterday because some of the big milestones in my life have been marked by hair colour changes and the voice was no exception. And I remember vividly they wanted to dye my hair like peach, but the first time they did it it was like orange proper cartoon orange and they bleached my eyebrows so I looked utterly bizarre and I remember looking in the mirror and going, huh, I don't know who I am anymore. I haven't lost my sense of self. Thankfully, I found it back the next week when my hair was the right colour and they put these amazing extensions in. I was like I'm a pop star. But I was weird. I was thinking about it just yesterday and reflecting on what a truly bonkers experience it is.
Speaker 3:It's, there's nothing. You can never, ever describe what it is like being on a competition reality show. It's like the outside world ceases to exist for that, however many months you're on it, and you're in this weird bubble, this microcosm of society, where you care about really insignificant things like having your eyebrows bleached, and you constantly turn over in your head like am I doing it right? Am I presenting myself well? Am I being a nice person to work with. Did I sing as well as I could have in that episode? It's quite a bizarre environment to be in and a little like maybe any athletic competition where you train for the games for the Commonwealth games or this big match or whatever it might be. But it was like its intense competition environment and you're also trying to be a good person to work with as well as do your best work.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was a lot, but amazing, so amazing to be part of something that's got millions of dollars budget, incredible sets like I played piano in one song and they had like this enormous grand piano. It was just covered in candles where I lit by hand and like I'm sure I could have gone up in flames I had fire extinguishers waiting to put me out if I did but there was just some really cool things that I'm like I will probably never get to do that again, but how amazing. And one of those pinch myself moments was singing with Ricky Martin, was. It's one of those out of body experiences where I remember looking him in the eye and going is this my actual life? Is this really happening? And I could feel myself floating out of body and then going no, stay there, stay present. You want to remember this forever. So I feel really like it's quite a vivid memory for me, because I think I was just so intensely like locked into him and I was like remember this, remember this, remember this, I'd be locked into him too.
Speaker 2:If it happened to me, I'd be locked into it as well.
Speaker 3:It's. He's pretty easy to get lost in. He's an amazing guy and incredibly kind. Just show me the importance of remembering people's names and being kind to everyone around you, and that doesn't matter how busy or successful or fabulous you become at the core of who you are, that doesn't change. And he said an amazing thing to Luke and I once we went to his house for dinner.
Speaker 2:As you do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, another pinch for a South Maron. I was like, what am I doing here?
Speaker 2:What do you bring to his house for dinner? Well, I brought a bottle of wine. Do you want a glass?
Speaker 1:or something.
Speaker 3:No, I bought this really amazing bottle of wine and we didn't have much money at the time. So I remember thinking, okay, I've got to spend as much money as I possibly can. I bought this beautiful bottle of red. He opens the door and in that moment I remembered he wasn't drinking, he doesn't drink. And I went, oh shit, and he was like hi, how are you? And I was like hi, I bought this bottle of wine, thinking God. And it was the first time I met him too, because it was when Luke was doing the voice and we went over for dinner and I just remember thinking, oh well, that's that then, not knowing two years later I would end up performing with him.
Speaker 2:Sorry, you were saying we needed going to his house.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he said. I remember he said to us that night he pulled us to one side and he said to Luke you know, how are you going with the show and how are you going with people recognizing you and all these things? And looks like it's bizarre, it's just the weirdest thing. He said I want you to remember something Television is not real. It's not real life.
Speaker 3:Who you are when you go home at night and you close the door, that's who you really are. Who you are as a partner, who you are as a father, who you are to your dog, who you are to your family, to your friends, that's the person you are and I think that's something we've really held on to is like that sense of not losing integrity and, no matter where your career takes you and what opportunities coming away, not losing your connection to doing the right thing, being honorable, having integrity. I think that was something that really rang true for us and certainly that's the person we know no Ricky to be is someone that lives that every day and he's a beautiful father and so kind to his loved ones around him, and I think that was probably the best role model we could ask for really.
Speaker 2:And so that role modeling has been very important.
Speaker 3:You've mentioned quite a few of them already, yeah.
Speaker 2:But I know you've worked with some amazing other artists and local like Kate Miller, hi Key and. I know. So how do you choose a mentor, or I'm sure you mentor people as well. So really interested for give me if I'm wrong, but particularly in your industry, connectivity is incredibly important. Yeah, to be seen and to be thought about. I guess, when you're being advocated for I'm sure you've had lots of mentors Can you explain back to relationships and why were they good?
Speaker 3:mentors either come into your life and you discover them in real time and you decide this is someone I want to stay in touch with and I want to keep looking up to. And then there are people that you seek out, that you go. That person has got something that I want and I want to be like that. I want to emulate them, and you chase after them and I've had both of those. I've had people like Ricky that I thought, oh, every in a million years will I get to work with this person, let alone actually kind of engage with them personally. So this, absolutely those people that arrived by surprise.
Speaker 3:But then there's been people like a few years ago I was doing a beautiful the Carol King musical and I was performing eight times a week in this amazing show but it took me away from my partner and my stepdaughter and my home and I remember thinking I love being in the show and I love the people and I love the joy the show brings, but I feel like there's something more I want to do and I want to grow and I want to be seen as a leader and I want to advocate and I want to have a platform, but I just don't know where to start because everyone just thinks of me as this fun performer, and so I sought out this amazing woman who has led funded organizations and has was on boards and just an incredible arts leader, and she very kindly agreed to have, you know, a few meetings with me and she said some things to me that just transformed the way I looked at myself, the way I wanted to present myself.
Speaker 3:When I go about choosing a mentor, it's either through that authentic connection, when you meet somebody and you go this feels like you're at that place that I want to get to and I need to chase after that or you look around you and you go. Who is there in my life? I'm feeling this need to grow. Who can I ask? I don't really kind of actively think about it, but I feel like life's gifted me some pretty amazing people along the way.
Speaker 2:You do find your niche, don't you? There are people who you gravitate towards and who are gravitated with you, and I think that's part of life, isn't? It's part of the joy, and sometimes there's surprise elements that happen to you as well. And what about longevity in your obviously your career path? Yeah, we see yours energetic now, as I first met you probably as energetic when you stepped off the plane into Australia. But I'm guessing the Little Red Company became a fixture of your plan for a whole lot of reasons other than the fact that you thought being an arts kind of management organisation or an artistic developer would be a good idea. Tell us about Little Red and how did it come about?
Speaker 3:Well, I was touring with Shaken Stare in 2012 and rediscovering how much I loved comedy. Myself and my best friend, adam Bruins, were sitting on my back deck one day having way too many gins, and I started doing impressions of Adele and the way Adele speaks because English sense of humour and Adam started laughing so hard and I was like, oh my God, this is such a joy. I love seeing someone that I find so funny, finding me this funny. There was an open mic night coming up at a little showroom in Albion and Adam twisted my arm to get up and to perform as Adele in front of these people. And so I was going to get up and do rolling in the deep and then do a bit of that observational improvised comedy and then do what became a pretty infamous 11 minute version of someone like you, where I did an impression of Celine Dion and an impression of Taylor Swift and a whole bunch of different singers. And so I did it, and in the audience that night was the director of the local Cabaret Festival and they asked us to develop it into a full length show, which we came back and presented a few months later. That show, rumour has it was the start of the next chapter of my life and I've performed over a hundred times as Adele and we've done it at Sydney Opera House and Queen's Empathomy Arts Centre, adelaide Festival Centre, quai, le Lump Performing Arts Centre.
Speaker 3:It's kind of like that was what I became known as was the Adele girl. Adam and I were getting all these inquiries about could I come and do this festival? Could I do Sydney? Could I do Melbourne? And I was like, well, we need a company name, like we need people to take us seriously. They're not going to take us seriously if it's just Adam and Nim having a laughcom and that's all it was. It was just us doing something that brought us joy. We just plucked a name out of thin air. I played Little Red Riding Hood in a musical in Into the Woods in like 2005 and I really loved playing her and she was wicked and funny and delicious and I was like, well, that's kind of us. So we named the company, registered the name and then started touring Rumour has it and that was kind of the beginning.
Speaker 2:I didn't realise. Rumour has. It was the beginning, it was the start.
Speaker 3:It was the start and in a weird way and Adam always says this when he watches the show he says I don't know where Adele ends and you begin, because what I realised about cabaret, and about playing particularly with character in cabaret, is that when you put on the persona of someone else, you can say things that are your truth, but everyone just goes, oh, that's just the character.
Speaker 3:So you give yourself permission to say things that maybe I wouldn't say as Naomi, but Adele can say them. And Adam said but it allowed us to explore a whole bunch of things that he and I had opinions on, like parenthood and what it means to be a jilted lover and I don't know, just a whole heartbreak and growing up in the UK, Like it was all these topics that I identified with that were in her life as well, and I thought, oh, this is really interesting. It's really slippery between the two of us and I kind of feel a bit like I can say anything as this person and I think that's why people loved it so much, because you would arrive and, like you say, you wouldn't know what I was going to say.
Speaker 3:Next, it was just no filter, completely just able to tell people to f off if I wanted to, and because of who she is and she's so possible in her skin, that gave me permission to do that too. So, yeah, I've got a lot to thank.
Speaker 2:Adele, for have you ever received any kind of notice that she knows about this show?
Speaker 3:I've had an anecdotal bit of feedback that once someone on her management team saw our show playing at the Sydney Opera House and was like how come this girl that's not even Adele gets to play the Sydney Opera House? And like we haven't even brought Adele to.
Speaker 3:Australia yet. So I did hear once that maybe her team knew of the show. But I don't know. I mean, I've always said I would love her to know about the show because I think she would feel understood if she saw it. And particularly right at the start, like 10 years ago, we didn't know anything about her. She was a private celebrity. Now she's doing Vegas every weekend and she's sharing more about her life and she's a bit more open, does more interviews. But 10 years ago if we were just filling in the blanks.
Speaker 3:But I remember going to see her both nights that she played at the Gabba oh, that was amazing and I had so many messages from people that were there and they were like you wrote her into existence, like everything that she said on stage. It's like that could have been lifted from the rumor hazard script and it was kind of weird that synergy or there was. I don't know. I just always felt like I really on some level got her as a human being. So I hope one day she does see it. I will always send her the video. If you're listening to Dell, send me a message, I'll send you the show. Oh my God.
Speaker 2:I love that audition process that your people were auditioning for a Dell and she was one of them. Yeah, that's right. I think you one day you're going to see rumor hazard and suddenly out will come Naomi Price. I think we'd never be fabulous when she was here in Brisbane.
Speaker 3:She wasn't doing any press. I had the busiest two weeks of my life Because no one like nine news 10, all the radio stations, no one could get her into an interview. So they just put me. So there's actually an amazing viral video of me in B105 Studio and I said I'd be pre recording it because I'm going to swear. And they said go for it, you can say whatever you want, will bleep you out. So it's literally two minutes of me just swearing at the radio announcers. And they tried to trick me as well, because they were saying oh, you're at the Grammys, but the Grammys wasn't till that night. So they interviewed me and they were like and how was the Grammys? I was like it was good. Yeah, I just made it up, I just totally freestyle, because it hadn't even happened. Oh yeah, I had a busy couple of weeks.
Speaker 2:I'm the telly is Adele, amazing. So that was a really little moment. And then, of course, there was other similar but different wrecking balls.
Speaker 3:Yeah, then we created a show about Miley Cyrus called wrecking ball, and then we created a show full of what's 2017 season called Lady Beatle, which is the music of the Beatles told through the eyes of a mystery character who you only find out till the end, and that show toured to 42 venues in 2019, our biggest ever tour and we toured all throughout Australia. Yeah, that I'm really proud of that show. I think the first three shows rumour wrecking ball, lady Beatle. They were all exploring identity and I think that was absolutely in line with where Adam and I were at that point in our lives.
Speaker 3:We were really into reinvention and really drawn to people that were either reinventing genres or reinventing themselves, like Miley Cyrus, or reinventing that period of history. The Beatles had so much impact on the world around them Socially. I think we were really really kind of interested in exploring that as a concept and presenting people, songbooks, artists in a totally new light. If you love the Beatles, come to our show. We'll give you a totally new perspective on the songs that you love. So I think that's what we were really trying to tackle in that early stage of our artistic career.
Speaker 2:And then I think it went on to become a bit more wider based. So we might just take a little break and when we come back I'd love to explore what happens next in the exciting life of Naomi Price.
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Speaker 2:So, Naomi, we've just been talking about how the musical tributes based on identity and individuals. You kind of blossomed that into other genres or concentrations. Tell us a bit what came next.
Speaker 3:I think Adam and I realised that we needed to come up with a better business model than me being in every show, because certainly doing a 42-venue tour of Lady Beetle, you know, realising every single day that if I wasn't well enough to do the show, it wouldn't happen that really kind of helped me start to understand the importance of bringing more people into our brand and expanding the group and creating a whole bunch of stars out of these incredible artists. And we started that really with Christmas Actually, which is the Music of Love Actually live on stage, which we've been doing every December since 2018 and that features myself and three other performers during some of the heavy lifting and that's kind of then blossomed into other shows that have kind of bigger cast, have sort of four lead performers. There's something about music which is the music of romantic comedies, like those famous, you know, notting Hill when Harry Met Sally, bridget Jones' Diary, those iconic songs from those films, your song, which tackled the music of Elton John through real life stories that people gave us about loving his music. Sisters are doing it for themselves, which is the music of the Sister Act movies. So we just started to kind of grow and expand our offering, which allowed us to work with a much more diverse group of artists and to really kind of grow and develop as a company as well.
Speaker 3:I have loved sitting in the director's chair as opposed to being the person on stage, because for me, I just love theatre. It's not just about a love of performing for me, although I do enjoy performing. I've just always loved going to see shows and seeing things that really move me or impact me or affect me. So for me, I get just as much joy out of sitting in the chair, watching everyone being amazing on stage and feeling that sense of collaboration and joy and pride, as I do being the person taking the applause on stage. I think you get so much satisfaction out of it.
Speaker 2:So that whole turning on its head from being mentored to mentoring as well. You see that so often in what you're doing with the Lord Mayor's Christmas carols, for instance, which has been an amazing journey for you. Can you tell us a bit about that and the way you've engaged with the community and access issues that you've obviously engendered in?
Speaker 3:that as well. We were very fortunate to get the tender to produce the Lord Mayor's Christmas carols for Brisbane City Council from 2021 to 2024. This was coming straight out the back of COVID, so we were actually still in a situation where Queensland's borders were shut when we first got that contract, and we also got it mid-year. We got it in June and the show was on the 8th of December or something, so we had six months to learn how to put together this enormous production at Brisbane's River Stage, 7,000 people watching it and historically, the show hadn't been broadcast on television for several years. I don't know if it was because it was a COVID year. I don't know if it was just everyone having a feel good moment. Maybe it was the calibre of the artists and the team that we brought to the project, but from our very first year, the full two-hour show was broadcast on 9. And that's happened every year since, which we're so thrilled about, because now it feels like Brisbane has a carols that can compete Not that it is a competition, and if it was, we'd probably win but we can really kind of stand on that national stage with the Sydney and Melbourne carols. For me, watching carols every year is such a tradition it's a family kind of staple in the calendar at that time of year. So we wanted to create a new kind of family tradition and represent Queensland the best way that we could. So things that I'm super proud of. We're the only carols in the country that opens with a welcome to country. We engage with local elders and First Nations communities to produce that segment at the top of the show, which I think is so unbelievably vital gathering on First Nations country that we acknowledge that and we also lean in and celebrate the incredible richness and cultural background that we are surrounded by every day. So that's been really amazing.
Speaker 3:We've been collaborating with a deaf performer, shannon Kettleton, for the last three years to perform an entire song in Auslan no singing, just her. Everyone thought we were a bit bonkers when we first said this is what we want to do, but it is one of the most impacting moments of the whole show. It's just one of my favourite moments every year and that's been incredible because I do believe that arts are for everybody. I don't believe they're just for the privileged elite. I think arts and creative practice and engagement is for every single person. Think about the pandemic. When the world closed down, everyone turned to TV, movies, music, painting, reading. So for me, making that accessible to everyone is so important, and I know that there is a lot of people in the disabled community that are often excluded from being involved in large-scale events like that. We wanted to make sure this truly was a carols for everybody. So last year we had a dedicated Auslan area and we had 150 patrons in that area with their families, and seeing shots into the crowd when Shannon was performing of young deaf children, being able to engage with what was happening on stage, to be able to sign back with her, was just one of those amazing moments I will never forget. So we're hoping to grow and build on that.
Speaker 3:This year. We've got some really exciting new accessible features that we'll announce. I did a play earlier this year for Queen St Theta called Drizzle Boy, which was about a young man with autism. It was featuring a neurodivergent actor playing a neurodivergent role written by an autistic playwright. That really opened my eyes to realise that we can do so much more for the neurodiverse community as well. So we've got some really cool new features there for anyone who has sensory issues or any kind of sensitivity needs. We want anyone to feel welcome to come along, and we're also really connecting with blind and low vision patrons. This year as well, we'll be announcing some really cool things there as well.
Speaker 3:So access is something that I'm really passionate about. I'm not sure if you can tell, but it's something I really want to do more of, and I think we all have a responsibility to make everything that we're doing accessible and inclusive for everyone who comes along. So it's been a really exciting journey from that point of view, because I never really saw us playing in that space. We're a music company. I thought, oh, it's for more serious works or funded organisations. They can do that work.
Speaker 3:But I realised actually access is easy. If you want to put the time and effort into it, it's really easy. The community are super excited to engage. If you get access consultants and you do the work and you do the awareness training, you learn so many amazing things. We're working with an organisation this year called Hidden Disabilities Sunflowers, which is an organisation I'd never heard of until probably two months ago, and basically, if you have a hidden disability, you can wear a lanyard or a pin that identifies yourself.
Speaker 3:You can find people that work at the event that have a pin as well, and they're a safe person to go and approach and that just means you don't have to have an awkward conversation of explaining why you need something. You can just go to that person. Then they're a safe person, they're an ally that can help you with directions or something you might not be able to cope with by yourself. And I was like that's so simple. Why have I never heard of that and why isn't that just part of our everyday life? So I think we've been on a real kind of exciting access journey since taking over the carols and yeah, I'm really I'm excited to do more and to integrate a more diverse offering of performers and storytelling on stage every year. It's great. It's so awesome to have this creative playground that I get to just dream and imagine and work with all these amazing people every year. It's such a treat.
Speaker 2:And it's no wonder the carols is such a vibrant plethora of music and theatrical manoeuvres and accessibility, I mean all of that you've integrated into that in such a seamless way.
Speaker 3:It's such a joyous, it's such a joyous occasion, it is joyous and Christmas should be that time of year when we all feel loved and I just want everyone to feel that same thing that Christmas can be a really hard time of year for people. It can be really difficult. And if we can just give back just for two hours every December even though it's months of work, that goes into that two hours Again it just goes back to. You never know what impact you might be having on someone's life at that moment and who they are and what they're going through. For a young deaf person to see a beautiful deaf woman on stage performing in Auslan I don't know the impact and the reverberation that that has throughout that community, but for that young person that might be that moment when they realize that's a path that they could follow as well.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 3:And I think that's that's what I've talked about when I say it's. It's an honor, it's a privilege. I'm like we get to like do Christmas in Brisbane for two hours and we get to like show off all this incredible musicianship and creative athleticism on stage and we have a professional dance lineup. You know we have 18 elite dancers on stage. There's just there's no opportunity like that at Christmas anywhere else in the country. We do it. It's amazing.
Speaker 2:It's wild.
Speaker 1:We get to watch it on TV a day later, or two days later, exactly, and really all over again, exactly.
Speaker 2:I love it, so congratulations on that. And it's no wonder that the accolades just today twice I saw Naomi Price on my emails this morning, once accoladed for a finalist in the 40 under 40 awards.
Speaker 3:Yes, that's right. Yes, and it's the top 40 young leaders and it's a global organization, 40 under 40 and in Queensland and weekend edition have just announced their inaugural finalists for that award. So very exciting and nominated alongside my best friend and co-founder of Little Red, adam Bruins.
Speaker 2:And under 40 as well.
Speaker 3:Oh, I know, I know, I mean that fresh face, he's 30 under 30. And also Dave Sleswick, who I went to uni with, also nominated, and Courtney Stewart from the theater company. So lots of friends being acknowledged Well congratulations and well deserved.
Speaker 2:And also, just before you walked in the door, some finalists in Australian women in music yes, Australian women in music awards for live creative production.
Speaker 3:This one I was so blown away by because I've been nominated and won awards for performance before, which is amazing, but I've never been acknowledged for producing. It's so amazing, particularly as a woman in the music industry, to be recognized for those thousands of hours that you spend doing all the other stuff so that we can do that two hours on stage over Christmas is really cool. So, yeah, it was very chuffed. And the list of nominees this year for that, for those awards, is incredible Jessica Malboy, tones and I, jim Casadale, sarah McLeod Like it's just incredible. Women and yeah, and lots of women being recognized for their work behind the scenes, on stage and off, which is incredible. So, yeah, I'm stoked.
Speaker 2:Well done, I mean, and, as I said, well deserved. But I actually thought before we just leave the performance, I should really even though people are probably tired of talking about COVID, I just remember what you did during COVID Like in terms of bringing performance into our living rooms, and how did you go during that time. What was it like?
Speaker 3:Oh, it was a roller coaster. Yeah, it was wild. I remember when the government announced venue closures on March 18, I, hundreds of thousands of dollars went like that for us and that was our, you know, our next year of work. All lined up, gone, and all of my friends and colleagues were in the exact same position. Shows were closing down. That it was just unbelievably uncertain times for the arts industry, as it was for a lot of industries. But we seem to not really get very much help and support along the way, still waiting for that emergency arts package that was announced. It's never. It's never arrived. So, yeah, I think it was a really hard time, but I don't know what possessed me. Maybe just a little bit of stupidity, maybe maybe the same thing that maybe get on the plane at the age of 19 and just come to Australia. Because I just thought, why not?
Speaker 3:Within 48 hours of the venues closing, we launched a show called the isolate late show. We broadcast every week for 90 minutes, an incredible live music and variety show. We did 10 episodes, so 900 minutes of entertainment, whilst everyone was locked down in their bedrooms and in hotels. We somehow managed to motivate 350 arts professionals from across the country to make the show with us and it was wild Like talk about baptism of fire and you nothing about bringing together a broadcast program, nothing about pivoting into the digital world but we just kind of had to figure it out right. We were creative people so I think we brought really creative solutions Amazing team.
Speaker 3:I mean, I still can't watch some of it back because it just makes me cry from how proud I was of everybody and getting emotional now. But I think at one of the hardest times in my friends' lives they just decided that they wanted to look out and not inwards and that's probably, I think, one of the bravest things I've ever seen a group of people do was unbelievable and there's no question that got me through too. It got so many of us through. That first three months allowed us to actually exercise our creative muscle at a time when we were kind of being told that what we did for a living wasn't essential and I needed it, we all needed it. I'm so glad it found its audience and that the audience at home loved it and it connected with everyone watching. I look back and think I'm so grateful for it on a personal level. God, we were tired, we worked around the clock.
Speaker 2:Oh, I can imagine and it was just amazing what you did. But also I think we forget to ask those questions anymore. We tend to go gliding over this COVID era and go. Everyone's lives have become busy again and I wanted to ask because I just remember that that was such an incredible time and what you did was just like not going down when the going was tough. You just got going again because I guess doing something was better than doing nothing at all, totally. And we raised money too.
Speaker 3:We raised $115,000 for the Actors and Entertainers Benevolent Fund, and I know for a lot of people who weren't involved in the show but who were in our industry, just the fact that we were out there advocating and raising money was enough. That money wasn't used by those people. That was enough to know somebody was in their corner and someone was talking about the things that no one was talking about on the news Exactly. So yeah, it was. It is easy to skim over those times because in a lot of ways, everyone's sick of talking about it.
Speaker 2:And it's easy to do now because there's a different time at the moment.
Speaker 3:So I just I wanted to know that, but also it's like pretending that a trauma hasn't happened or grief hasn't happened or loss hasn't happened, like we lost a good two years of creativity, productivity, of economy in our industry, and we were still feeling that last year, we're still feeling this year, we'll probably still be feeling that for several years to come, and the graduates, the people that were meant to launch into 2020, getting their first big gig, probably had to go into other industries and we've lost two years of these extremely elite, talented, trained athletes from our industry because they couldn't emerge, they couldn't arrive. So there's all of these extra things that we're still chasing and sorting out and working through.
Speaker 2:But thanks for asking Because a lot of people don't Thank you for what you did. I think it was very valued by those who loved the Isolate Lake show. It was a good time. It was a good time. Maybe you could do another production on the Isolate Lake show in the future about how COVID impacted and what you did. There could be some really fabulous.
Speaker 3:True, you never know Totally, or we do. The 10 year anniversary 2030. Right before the Olympics.
Speaker 2:Maybe then we'll be prepared to talk about it again Exactly. I think Family is also important to you. You've already talked about that Life with Luke and being a stepmom. I mean, you know, tell us about that.
Speaker 3:Life with Luke is amazing. A lot of people ask. The main thing people ask is do we sing all the time at home? The answer is yes, but it's not to each other, it's only to the dog and it's only in a silly voice. But yeah, our home is always filled with music. There's always a record playing or somebody belting something out in some corner of the house. We just bought our first home at the end of last year.
Speaker 1:Congratulations, thank you.
Speaker 3:Which you know, for us both being in the arts and having suffered this kind of big setback in 2020, we were about to buy our house in 2020. So that was a big. That was a tough pill to swallow Not not getting, not getting that house. And then, of course, no mortgage broker wanted to give us money post pandemic either. So it was, it was a big. It was a big battle to get there. So when we got that house, it was like oh, felt like I immediately deleted the real estate apps off my phone. I thought I can cut that obsessive behavior out of my life once and for all.
Speaker 3:It was so lovely to finally go. We did it. When you've worked towards something and it's been a goal for so many years to tick it off the list is the relief. It's like you finally switched the white noise on the television switches off and you go calm brain space. Think of all the things I can achieve now that I'm not obsessing over where we're going to live. So that was really amazing and so beautiful to have a home for Luke and Olivia, my stepdaughter. She just started high school at the start of this year, so it's so lovely to get in, get settled before Christmas. And my parents were here last Christmas too for their first ever Aussie Christmas. So they got to stay with us in our first month in our home and saw the carols, I think, and came to the carols fresh off the plane. They battled jet lag and they were still partying with us and shepherd and swing on this on the roof in a rooftop bar until two o'clock in the morning after the carols. They were amazing.
Speaker 2:There were such a dream. And then you came up to Hamward the next day when we did the post branch and we were privileged to be there and so many other times. Naomi, you've been so kind a word that I would certainly use to categorise you and Luke and Little Red. We've had you here lots of times for some festival events which we all we both love as well, and I think we might be seeing you at the festival this year as well.
Speaker 3:Yes, we're back. We are back this year with there's something about music which is going to be at the Piazza, so we can't wait to come back to Brisbane.
Speaker 2:We can't wait to have you. But thank you, and I always remember your absolute kindness when we hosted a beautiful goodbye party for our daughter Isabella. She was heading off to the USA, basically almost two years ago now. Two years, yeah well it is, and we were having a party on the day that the Queensland government declared that we couldn't have a party. So we told everybody to come before four o'clock, but, unbeknownst to her, you and Luke had planned to do a beautiful impromptu performance. That night.
Speaker 2:Yes, we had, and I still well with tears when I think about what you did instead, when you contacted all her friends and they were with their hairbrushes singing in the bathrooms and you did a beautiful video to farewell Isabella.
Speaker 3:New York Medley. It was iconic, so beautiful, and I'll never forget your kindness.
Speaker 2:That was one of the most valued things that's ever happened in our life and we thank you so sincerely for that my pleasure. So I know we're kind of out of time, but we have to ask you two very pressing issues. What do you want to be when you grow up?
Speaker 3:I want to be the creative director of the Olympics opening ceremony 2032. And then, after I've done that, I want to be a vineyard owner in Tasmania. Oh yeah, I want the quiet life. I want to crush some grapes and pour some bubbles and I just want to be fabulous and have people, have people come to me. I just I love Tassie and I love wineries. Yeah, very much a wine enthusiast, maybe sometimes my detriment. So, yeah, I think that really appeals to me, that life. I'm sure there's almost no money in it, but who cares?
Speaker 2:Well, you will have already done the Olympics by then. That's right. You could probably retire Absolutely.
Speaker 3:I'll be retired and I'll be swimming in my coins like Scrooge McDuck.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, I'm going to become your biggest barricade for that, yes, I'll be on the reference list. I'll be on the reference list.
Speaker 3:I just consider everything I do in my life in audition for the Olympics. I'm like every single day in my life I'm just taking another step forward towards that dream.
Speaker 2:I love that.
Speaker 3:Isn't that funny, all the athletes have got their like gold medal dream. That's my gold medal dream. What is the gold medal? You just got to speak it out, right? It's just not me. That's exactly what I love about it.
Speaker 2:I love it so much as well. It's been fabulous and I'm going to be on the reference list. I'd be very intrigued to see your answer to the next question which is when we always end on. You're such a bubbly bright person anyway. What brings you happiness?
Speaker 3:What truly brings me happiness is a good belly laugh. I think I like laughing almost as much as sex. It's just so. I just love really having a great giggle with friends and family and I think feeling that moment it's. There's a magic moment in any gathering where you look around the room and everything's just sparkling and you feel completely yourself and completely accepted and completely loved. That, to me, is happiness. It's that crystal clear moment where you think life can't get any better than this. Look at who's here, look at the joy, look at how much love there is in the room. That's happiness. If you have those moments in your life, then you are a wealthy person, because I think joy is what brings us that abundance in life. So, yeah, that to me is happiness, thank you.
Speaker 2:You radiate and exude warmth, entertainment, happiness, and it's been such a pleasure to have you on the show today.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:Thank you, beautiful girl can't wait to see what you do next.
Speaker 1:Thank you, marisa thank you for joining us on Bubbles and Benevolence. We hope you enjoyed our chat with Naomi today and, as usual, if you have any questions, you can send them through to podcast at handworthhousecomau. That's H-A-N-W-O-R-T-H now if you want more from Naomi. There's something about music. The ultimate rumcom movie mixtape. Live tickets are now on sale through the brisbane festival website. This irresistible homage to romantic comedy soundtracks is on for 10 days only in September as part of the brisbane festival, so don't miss your chance and get tickets through the brisbane festival website or the link in the episode description. We'll see you there. If you enjoyed our podcast today, please rate, review and subscribe so you don't miss any incredible interviews and no-transcript. You such an interesting story and what an incredible adventure around the world at such a young age.
Speaker 1:As many of you know, or you should know by now, marisa will be once again dancing in dancing CEOs, this time alongside loralie cunningham, in the 2024 dancing CEOs all stars event benefiting women's legal service Queensland and katelin has an incredibly generous offer for the first person to register a my giving table event benefiting a dancing CEO for 2024. If you are the first to register, you will receive a free bait to plate dinner cooked by katelin and kev in your own home for up to 10 people. So head to the my giving table website now or go through the link in the episode description to register your my giving table party now. As usual. If you have any questions, you can send them through to podcast at handworthhousecomau. That's h-a-n-w-o-r-t-h. If you like today's episode, please rate, review and subscribe so you never miss an episode. We will be back soon with another special guest cheers.