the Arts Centre presents
Leading Ladies
A Creative Development Initiative

Interview | Biography

Marina Prior
Marina Prior chose to be photographed at the Arts Centre, as it was here that she made her theatrical debut in The Pirates of Penzance in 1983. Her portrait captures the moment in the dressing room just before the performer goes on stage.

Leading lady Being a leading lady Staying in Australia Inspirations Performing as a child Discovering the theatre Taking a risk Aspirations Straight roles Auditions The Pirates of Penzance Rehearsals Experimenting Feeling lost Jane Smart in The Witches of Eastwick Backstage Rituals and routines Standing in the wings On stage Stepping on stage Audiences Singing with José Carreras Without an audience: recording studios

Interview venue: the Arts Centre, Melbourne
Interview date: 14 March 2003

Leading lady

Being a leading lady
Marina Prior: Perhaps because of the nature of musicals, it almost has a connotation of a past era or a refined era… There's something quite lovely about it, I think - 'leading lady'. To me it's something to live up to actually, and when it was first kind of thrust upon me… I felt almost apologetic about the label. But now I'm a bit older, I feel quite honoured…

Staying in Australia
Marina Prior: I'm really proud… and very grateful, to think that I have made my name, if you like, in Australia and had the work to enable me to make a name and forge a career at home…

It would have been really fun [to perform overseas], but I can't say that I have regrets about it, because I'd rather be the first person to do something in Australia rather than the tenth to do it in London. And that's what I would have been if I'd done Christine [in The Phantom of the Opera] in London…

Inspirations

Performing as a child
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Discovering the theatre
Marina Prior: I didn't really have a concept of theatre, and I certainly didn't have a concept of music theatre where you could sing and act and dance. I remember going to see it [Jesus Christ Superstar] when I was about 11 or 12… and sitting there and just thinking, 'This is my world. This is where I want to be…' I just loved the immediacy of it and the passion of it.

Taking a risk
Marina Prior: I like to get out of my depth and get brave, and it's not until I get uncomfortable and feel unsafe that I actually, I think, start to push the boundaries of what I can do and stretch where my limitations are…

Aspirations

Straight roles
Marina Prior: Like anything, the more you work in this field, the more you realise that you don't know and have to learn… I certainly don't feel…'I've made it, I've done it' [in musical theatre]… It's just that over the years I've had a real passion for the acting side of things… So, I've been going after the more challenging comedic roles or character roles lately in musicals or trying to. So this just seems to be a natural progression for me. Perhaps I've just got the confidence now that I'm older and I've got the experience now that I'm older to… step over to straight roles as well.


Auditions

The Pirates of Penzance
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Rehearsals

Experimenting
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Feeling lost
Marina Prior: A lot of the time I usually go through a period about three weeks into rehearsal where I feel that I'm totally miscast and I can't do it and I'm totally out of my depth and I'm never going to find a way that works… Now I've learnt to recognise when I get to that point and know that I can actually get through it…

Jane Smart in The Witches of Eastwick
Marina Prior: I specifically chose… a role that was as far away from me as possible. The least likely; that no one would ever see the show and think 'Oh, that's a Marina Prior role if ever I've seen one'… Especially the terribly repressed, mousy, spiky, kind of bird-like, strange little character that turns into a vamp…

I was doing some dreadful stuff in rehearsal and I remember I couldn't find an accent, I couldn't find her speech patterns, I couldn't even find the way she walked. I just couldn't find her and I remember looking at the wonderful Pippa Grandison who was playing Sukie, who was a sort of girlier role… but I remember looking at her and thinking 'That's my role! I should be doing that and I'd be nailing it by now. And here I am doing this role…'

Simon Plant: But you did nail it.

Marina Prior: Yes, I did… and that's probably the best thing I could have possibly done at that particular juncture of my career.

Backstage

Rituals and routines
Marina Prior: Often I get to the theatre right on the half-hour call… I tend to do all my really hard yards in rehearsals and I find once I get to work, once I've actually broken the back of a character, so to speak… there's something that happens to me when I walk into the stage door. I can just click in… I have an open door in my dressing room and more often than not there's three people sitting on my couch while I'm getting ready and chatting…

Standing in the wings
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On stage
Stepping on stage
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Audiences
Singing with José Carreras
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Without an audience - recording studios
Marina Prior: I find it much more difficult singing in a recording studio than a theatre. I would have an audience, a live audience any night, because you have the journey that you've gone on in the show… You've got the energy that you get back from an audience…

In a studio it's a dry atmosphere and you're under fluorescent lights and there's sometimes a rather bored looking sound engineer and your musical director staring at you through the glass… I find it becomes more of a technical process for me. I think also because you have the headphones on and you are so hyper-aware of your voice. And I'm such a perfectionist and very self critical… You are so present in your own ears that you start judging everything the second it leaves your mouth, almost before it leaves your mouth and therefore you choke yourself up physically.