Interview: Helen Dallimore, Lucy Durack, Amanda Harrison, Jemma Rix of WITCHES WITH YOUR SSO at Sydney Opera House

77 years ago, 'The Wizard of Oz' changed the game for what it meant to be a witch. Since, we've had Maleficent, Samantha, Witchiepoo, Sabrina Spellman, The Halliwell Sisters, Willow, Thessaly, Hermione Granger, Fiona Good and Melisandre, among many others. What is it about these women that so enthrals us? One can imagine a little insight will be shed this coming July when four of Australia's most renowned witches will take the stage of Sydney Opera House and cast a chorus of the songs we've all come to treasure as the musical anthems of some incredibly powerful women. Fortunate enough to be granted audience with Helen Dallimore, Lucy Durack, Amanda Harrison, and Jemma Rix, Witches with your SSO is sure to transcend their wicked performances for a truly enchanting audience experience.

"It's going to be a magical moment on stage, and something we've never seen before I don't think, four leading ladies singing all together" notes Jemma, known as the longest-serving Elphaba with six years in green. However, I'm assured by Amanda - the first to don the colour in Australia - that no-one will be undergoing that transformation for this show, "not green, we're going glamour instead!". It is hard not to distinguish speaking to these performers as though their names aren't synonymous with the characters they played in Wicked, the world-renowned stage show brought to life from a book written by Gregory Maguire about pre-Dorothy Oz for Glinda and The Wicked Witch of the West. "It [the role] really put me on the map" says Amanda, echoing sentiments from all the performers about how grateful they are for the recognition granted by the show. Lucy's audition for what would be her next starring role in Legally Blonde was nearly jeopardised because she "sound[ed] too much like Glinda!".

On top of sharing cast members, Witches also shares musical director Kellie Dickerson who premiered Wicked in Australia. "She has worked through the song list, we had a meeting all together, threw ideas in and then left her with that to have a flow-through of the set list. Not necessarily a story but just a good flow of the repertoire. I think everybody's going to get what they're hoping for" shares Jemma. Amanda agreed "It was an interesting process deciding what to do. It wasn't down to us in the end, but when the list came to us, we were all like 'this is awesome'". What we do know about Witches with your SSO is that it will feature a wide range of songs from musicals, will revisit many of the visual moments and even give some room for a token male to sing a few bars. Of course Ben Lewis, renowned for his turn as Phantom in Love Never Dies, is far from tokenistic and a major announcement for this show that he returns to Australia from the UK to share the stage. "Apparently we need to reflect the population's diversity zeitgeist!" quips Helen.

It is clear that Witches with your SSO has an important place on the theatrical landscape to empower female performers, or as Helen so succinctly put it "Girl Power, chick power, for sure!". Upon unanimous agreement, she went on to suggest musical theatre "tap[s] into some kind of hormonal rage that's going on. To show that women can be strong, and women can be stars, you don't need to be someone's wife, girlfriend etc!". This idea that musicals resonate strongly with women, and have been a long-serving but not necessarily acknowledged safe place for women's voices, could be fleshed out by Jemma's belief that "when they work the best, you meet this emotional point where words are no longer effective enough so then it goes into song and it just lifts the emotion tenfold. Every single song is for an absolute purpose". That being said, Lucy observed that access to this space for passionate expression beyond verbalising, particularly in Australia, is still new - "there was a time where if you weren't in 'Dusty' in Australia, you were not in a musical". Helen concurred "shows like Glee and shows liked Wicked, it's a great comeback for musical theatre".

This isn't to say that there aren't still frontiers to overcome, in the spirit of how 'Wizard of Oz' arguably gave contemporary culture a new perspective on witches, and Wicked arguably brought a new perspective to friendships between women. For Amanda, that frontier is age: "it feels like roles for women stop at a certain age, so it might be wonderful to have that same relationship on stage but with older women. So that there is a spectrum of roles that you can look forward to playing throughout your entire career rather than feeling 'oh Christ I've hit 40, there's really nothing out there for me anymore except your supporting roles'". Helen and Lucy shared concerns about how Australian female performers were under growing pressure to compete with overseas talent, as modern conveniences make importing all the easier. "That is terrifying! As an onlooker, I didn't do this last round of auditions, there wasn't a lot in it for women, and to see a lot of the leads go to overseas people where it wasn't necessary, it's hard to take" Lucy felt, "I look back on my time with Amanda getting cast in Wicked, and Jemma, that changed our lives in the Australian landscape and our careers. If they just brought in people that wouldn't have happened". One can only hope that the trends of gender parity and generations of talent safeguard Australian shows, although we'll continue to overlook Helen herself being an import to the UK cast of Wicked when she premiered the role of Glinda there (it's cool she was born there so it doesn't count!). To Jemma it's completely logical - "We've got such talented women! I'm 100% behind it, and passionate about it, happy for our industry in Australia that women are being represented and valued for the talented people that they are".

Back onto lighter topics, another thing that united the performers was their excitement to be working with Sydney Symphony Orchestra. "If there's a heaven it's singing with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra" says Lucy, with Helen adding "this'll be my first time!". For Amanda's part, what is most thrilling is also nerve-wracking as the singers will not rehearse with the orchestra until quite close to opening night - "you get this massive sound and accompaniment that you knew was coming but didn't quite expect to sound so marvellous. There's a trick to performing in front of an orchestra because you can get nervous, as in any performance, you've got to catch yourself and be in the moment. I'm glad we've got two opportunities, perhaps the second concert we'll get to really take it all in. It's a real treat for a performer".

It's a treat they've all worked astoundingly hard for, which mustn't be forgotten. Speaking of her audition process, Helen revealed "Mine went on forever! I nearly had a nervous breakdown, my whole life was hanging in the balance, the amount of work I did on that one song 'Popular', trying to get all the tops as well! Keeping your voice in that kind of condition, you really have to keep stretching your cords if you want to sing that high all the time". Lucy added "in the role of Glinda, you cry a lot in the show, and to start and finish the show in soprano it's a big ask! I spent the first year not really doing very much else other than Wicked, not [even] talking on the phone". Jemma came into the Elphaba mantle a bit less traditionally, first appearing in an abridged Wicked at Universal Studios in Osaka! "They were doing a Wicked-Land, it was all a bit hush hush. That's the first time I got to be green and play Elphaba but it was in a half-hour version in Japan! I was living in Australia when they said the auditions were happening for the full production, but because that was my first kind of gig, I knew that the possibility of me landing a role like that or even understudying a role like that was quite unlikely, I just wanted to be part of the show! I didn't care if I was just in the ensemble".

It was hard not to get caught up in the fascinating conversation with these phenomenal women, who each represented different journeys but clearly have so many things that unite them, making them great friends who promise a night of performative alchemy, sisterhood and of course that spellbinding set-list sure to encourage every audience member to embrace their most magical self and emerge into the Sydney Harbour belting out the tunes.

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