Quiet Please, There Are Leading Ladies On Stage

Our writer Coral Drouyn is a self proclaimed “Music Theatre Tragic” and an outright fangirl where Leading Ladies are concerned. She talked to four of our best, exploring the history of those Divas who bring us the show stopping 11 O’Clock numbers we adore, in preparation for a show that is all about Leading Ladies.

We know them first by their character names. Often that name is in the title – Charity, Mame, Dolly - or else it is so closely connected that a show like Gypsy could just have easily been called “Rose”, while The King and I could have been “Mrs Anna”.

But there’s always a fabulous woman playing that role, and if she does it well we forget that she’s an actress, a singer, a dancer…we just believe she IS the character. That’s the mark of a great leading lady.

Audiences love them, possibly because more women go to see Musical Theatre than men, and women identify with or fantasize about being the Leading Ladies. But of course they wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the composers initiating our love affair with the strong charismatic women at the centre of so many shows. And many of the shows we still see revived every decade were written especially for those Leading Ladies. The Sound of Music was commissioned for Mary Martin and Gypsy for Ethel Merman, while Jule Styne championed then little-known Barbra Streisand for her career launching role of Fanny Brice. And so Funny Girl was born. That’s something that rarely happens in this day and age. Streisand may have originated the role, but here in Australia it belonged to the incomparable Jill Perryman.

All too often we dismiss those leading ladies who have shaped Australian Musical Theatre. Nellie Stewart could fill every seat in a theatre for an entire run in the late 19^th century. Gladys Moncrieff – “Our Glad” - was beloved even by people who never saw her on stage, yet knew her through her dozens of recordings in the 1930s and 1940s.

Evie Hayes may have been American born but we claimed her as our own. Nancye Hayes, perhaps our greatest Musical Theatre star, remembers that it was seeing Evie in Annie Get your Gun that made her decide she had to be in Musical Theatre.

“I had been taking dancing lessons since I was three because of a hip problem, but I must have been five or so when I saw Annie Get Your Gun and I absolutely knew I had to be on the stage, doing what she was doing.”

More than 40 years later young unknowns would be inspired by Nancye herself and stars like Chelsea Gibb would break through in shows like Chicago with the great Caroline O’Connor.

Generally there is only one leading lady in each production. Imagine how excited I was by the prospect of seeing ELEVEN leading ladies on a stage together. It’s like imagining the classic film “The Women” set to music; and not just any music, but the music of Jerry Herman, the man who wrote Hello, Dolly!, Mame, Mack and Mabel, La Cage Aux Folles and Dear World. Herman’s adoration for his mother, who died when he was a young man, is at the core of all his leading ladies. She was a woman with “pizzazz” who could light up any room, glamorous like Mame, witty like Dolly, and she was an inspiration he could never replace - so instead he created some of the best high-powered characters in musicals.

Now eleven of our most talented leading ladies take on a revue with 37 of Herman’s songs in The Production Company’s Jerry’s Girls – opening this month at Melbourne’s Arts Centre. Despite singing those leading lady songs, the phenomenal cast won’t actually be playing any of Herman’s iconic characters. Instead they will be playing versions of themselves, and that gives us a chance to get closer to them.

Four performers, representing different generations - Nancye Hayes, Rhonda Burchmore, Chelsea Gibb and Christie Whelan Brown - agreed to share their thoughts.

Nancye quipped that she put the geriatric – or should it be Jerry-atric? – into Jerry’s Girls. The truth is she has been a true star for nearly 45 years, and is still working. She has paved the way for those who followed, just as Evie and Jill paved the way for her.

Since Nancye had already told me how Evie Hayes inspired her, I asked the other three Leading Ladies what inspired them.

Rhonda played leads in school plays and somehow avoided having to play male roles because of her height - “they just got taller boys” - but it wasn’t until she went to see her sister on stage in Irene that she became determined. “I so wanted to be on that stage and I knew nothing was going to stop me.” And it didn’t.

For Chelsea it was more a case of looking for somewhere to hide, and Cats was the show that inspired her. “I felt in my teens that I really didn’t fit in anywhere. I guess I was looking for an escape, and pretending to be someone else gave me that. But then I saw Cats…and no-one was recognisable behind the make-up. And I thought – ‘What a beautiful place to hide’.”

Christie is the youngest of the group. “I never believed it was a possibility. I mean I didn’t even know anyone who had gone into professional theatre, so I never had that moment when the lightbulb goes on. But I did some community theatre, and the roles got bigger, and I started to think well…maybe I should try.”

So, since the show is about Jerry Herman’s music, what are their favourite Herman songs, and are they singing them in the show?

Nancye loved Dear World as a show, and Angela Lansbury is her favourite leading lady. “I saw her in the show the very first time I ever went to New York. There is this beautiful song called “And I was Beautiful” … so poignant, so lovely. I’m hoping to sing that. And I got to have lunch with Angela and James Earl Jones when they were in Melbourne. I was totally starstruck.”

It was an easier choice for Rhonda because she has actually played the super eccentric Mame in two productions of the show. “Oh, I don’t even have to think about it,” she says, “It’s ‘If He walked Into My Life Today’ … it’s maybe my favourite song from any musical at any time. And yes, I will be singing it.”

‘I Won’t Send Roses’ is Chelsea’s choice. “It’s such an odd love song, simple and yet really deep.

Christie’s choice comes out of left field. “I love ‘Look What Happpened to Mabel’, but it’s because it has a nostalgic connection for me. My mum used to sing it to me when I was little.”

For me, I’d love to see Hayes and Burchmore sing “Bosom Buddies”.

What would be the dream leading lady role, past or present, for each of them?

Nancye says wistfully “Oh, Dolly Levi, without a doubt. I was in the show, but I never got to play Dolly.”

Rhonda has recently been playing the witch in Sondheim’s Into The Woods, but her dream role is a little more offbeat. “I would love to do Victor/Victoria, partly because it has never been done here,” she tells me, “but I also feel I’ve reached the age when I could really bring something to Sunset Boulevard.”

Chelsea’s choices are Sally Bowles in Cabaret and….wait for it….Ursula The Witch in The Little Mermaid. She explains it must be because she has young kids.

For Christie it’s Elle Woods in Legally Blonde, but she knows that time has passed, and is not likely to come again. Still, at least she got a role written for her in Shane Warne The Musical.

So, with all the new ensemble musicals, is the day of the real Leading Lady a thing of the past? “I hope not,” says Chelsea, “but it is exciting to see someone you don’t know break out and steal the show.” Nancye is more pragmatic. “The day of the Leading Lady will only be over when composers stop writing fabulous larger than life roles. I hope that day never comes.”

And so say all of us, Nancye.

Images (from top): Jerry's Girls Silvie Paladino, Christie Whelan-Browne, Rhonda Burchmore and Kirby Burgess; Nellie Stewart; Gladys Moncrieff; Evie Hayes; Nancye Hayes; Christie Whelan Brown; Rhonda Burchmore; Chelsea Gibb and the cast of Jerry's Girls.

Jerry’s Girls runs from the November 21 to December 6 at Arts^, Centre Melbourne, featuring Rhonda Burchmore, Nancye Hayes, Silvie Paladino, Christie Whelan Browne, Virginia Gay, Claire Lyon, Kirby Burgess, Chelsea Gibb, Debora Krizak, Josie Lane and Natalie O’Donnell.

Article originally published in the November / December 2015 edition of Stage Whispers.