‘Like being a professional athlete’: Queensland star reveals physical toll of eight shows a week
Courtney Monsma has come full circle from seeing Wicked at QPAC as a child, to performing on that same stage in a lead role. She reveals the huge physical toll the show takes on performers.
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The first time Courtney Monsma saw Wicked at Brisbane’s Lyric Theatre, she was on a school excursion with her classmates from Palm Beach Currumbin State High.
Monsma was then a theatre-mad teen who could not wait to see the hit musical, and ask its two leads, Lucy Durack, as Glinda, and Jemma Rix as Elphaba, for their autographs.
“We went up from the Gold Coast on the bus,” Monsma, now 26, recalls, “I remember waiting at the stage door to see Lucy and Jemma and I was so excited to be there, and completely star struck.”
Wicked tells the backstory of two young women who live in the Land of Oz before a girl called Dorothy famously drops in wearing red slippers. One of the young women is destined to become Glinda, the Good Witch, while the other, Elphaba, is fated to be born with emerald green skin – and become the Wicked Witch of the West.
Wicked recently celebrated its 20-year anniversary since its premiere on Broadway, and since then the show has been watched by some 67 million theatregoers worldwide, bewitched by its soaring songs, lavish production, and its central theme of the unlikely friendship between the two witches.
Equally enchanted by the show on that school excursion all those years ago was Monsma, who had no idea that she, too, was destined to become part of the Wicked fairytale.
Come September it will be Monsma who starstruck theatre kids will be milling around QPAC’s stage door to see when Wicked once again brings its green-tinged magic to the Lyric.
Monsma stars as Glinda, with Sheridan Adams as Elphaba, with both women winning rave reviews for their performances during the show’s Sydney and Melbourne seasons.
And for Monsma – whose Glinda is both a vocal triumph and a lesson in comedic timing – it’s also the role which will finally bring her home to the Gold Coast after seven years of “living in a suitcase”.
“I am so happy to be coming home to the Goldie,” Monsma says, “I can’t wait to have home cooked meals, go to the beach, Mum will put a set of new pyjamas on my bed, Dad will make one of his excellent dinners from random ingredients, I’ll see my friends and family, it’s been a long time.”
Monsma has been on the road, and starring in some of theatre’s biggest shows since she was 19. In her last weeks of studying for her Musical Theatre degree at Brisbane’s Conservatorium of Music, Monsma won a role in the professional ensemble of Mamma Mia! and had to ask the school for permission to exit the course early.
“I couldn’t go to my graduation ceremony because I had booked Mamma Mia!, and it was such a wonderful role for a young performer. And after Mamma Mia!, I just kept working.”
In the incredibly competitive theatre world, Monsma has had something of a dream run; Mamma Mia! was followed by major roles in Aladdin and Six, before she won the lead role, critical accolades and the adulation of young girls all over Australia – as Princess Anna in Frozen.
“I do feel lucky, because I have never really stopped working since Mamma Mia!, and it’s barely work in some ways in terms of enjoyment, but it does take total commitment, doing these big shows,’’ she says.
“It’s like being a professional athlete, you do these big roles in these big shows eight times a week, and you have to give your all each time. You have to be fit, you have to look after your voice, you have to do steam rooms and saunas and physio, you need to rest your voice in between roles and you have to give your audience the absolute best of you.
“But I feel so grateful every single time I step out on to a stage, and I can’t wait to play Glinda at the Lyric. It’s a bit of a full circle moment for me, so it’s pretty special.” Making it even more so is the fact that Monsma steps out on stage at the Lyric as Glinda in her glittering gowns and glamorous mode of transport (you’ll have to see the show) and joining her in the Land of Oz will be her older sister Emily.
Monsma followed her sister to the Conservatorium, with Emily, 28, also pursuing a successful career in theatre.
“Emily is in the ensemble, but she also understudies Glinda and has played her in this production. She’s pretty amazing in the role, and this show is just so special to both of us,” Monsma smiles.
“When we were growing up on the Goldie in Tallebudgera, we were always singing duets together and we were both so into musicals. We would perform the songs from Wicked together at home. But she was always Glinda because she had the blonde hair, and I was always Elphaba, because I think my character was a bit more Elphaba in those days, so for both of us to now be in Wicked makes me very happy.”
Monsma says her big sister also takes care of her during the gruelling production.
“She’s always checking in on me, to make sure I’m all right. She’ll check that I have eaten and sometimes I’ll come back to my dressing room and she would have tidied it all up for me. She’s a pretty amazing big sister.”
Opening night for Wicked at the Lyric will be a distinctly family affair for the sisters, with their parents Megan and Michael attending as well as “our brother Corey, our nan and pop – I think half the audience will be related to us somehow,” Monsma laughs.
Her old classmates and teachers will also be cheering her on, with Monsma crediting her time at the Conservatorium for her brilliant career.
“It’s an amazing place, both Emily and I went there. I auditioned in Year 12, got in, and I loved every second of it, but you have to take it very seriously,’’ she says.
“I was there full time, my parents didn’t have the financial means to support me so I worked two jobs, taking singing lessons in my bedroom at home to get money, and also working at Dreamworld in all the suit characters – yes I was was Belinda the Koala, and then catching the train up to Brisbane to study, it was exhausting but I knew how worthwhile it was.”
Monsma’s long-term dream is to star on Broadway.
“I want to perform there one day, so I just keep working really hard, developing my skills and learning something from every single role.”
But in the meantime, she is thrilled to be back on stage at QPAC and in Brisbane where her Wicked journey began.
After all, as a certain young woman who blew into the Land of Oz in those bright red slippers, famously says, “There’s no place like home.”
wickedthemusical.com.au
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