Donna Lee: legend
High School Musical at the Capitol Theatre, 21 December 08 to 1 February 09; www.mytickets.com.au
Donna Lee has to be one of the most familiar and most loved fixtures in Australian musical theatre and cabaret. Her first experience of the stage was as a child appearing with her famous mother Gloria Dawn; most recently she “signed a ten week contract to do Menopause the Musical and I was in it for three years!”
Now she’s back on stage but in a very different role: as the drama teacher Ms Darbus in High School Musical. Or, to give its proper title Disney’s High School Musical Live on Stage.
I’m the drama teacher,” says Lee. “A very passionate advocate of the performing arts – but not a bit like Mr G!”
Three years on the road with Menopause (one of four performers who made the unmentionable not just mentioned but the subject of screaming hilarity for thousands of women of all ages across the country) was a mind-boggling preparation for her current role, she says.
”Sometimes in rehearsal I look around and think – omigod! How did this happen to me? And I’m surrounded by this amazing youthful cast. It’s a big transition and it’s fantastic.”
The show that started out as a hit telemovie for Disney, then a surprise stage hit in the US and an even bigger hit as an ice spectacular is one of those phenomenal shows that capture a moment for a generation of weeny and teenyboppers (and their parents).
”It’s gone from strength to strength,” says Lee. “I think the secret is good old fashioned niceness. And I mean the opposite to nastiness and there’s too much of that around at the moment.”
For kids and young teenagers you have to think there is nastiness aplenty in the wider world and Lee is very keen on the High School message. “I think it’s lovely for kids, it says believe in yourself, don’t be frightened; you’re not alone. I know I’m a bit of a Pollyanna, but I’m sick of nastiness. The world is so small and you hear every bit of negative stuff so quickly – and see it too. For kids it’s really too much, I think.”
Pollyanna is possibly one role Lee hasn’t played in her amazing career. Take a deep breath, here’s a sketchy list: Les Miserables, Sail Away, Annie Get Your Gun, Fiddler on the Roof, Gypsy, Jesus Christ Superstar, Showboat, They’re Playing Our Song, Snoopy the Musical, Dames at Sea, Summer Rain, Steppin’ Out, Crimes of the Heart, Forbidden Broadway, Nunsense II, Dello Dolly, Anything Goes and Oklahoma!. And that doesn’t begin to take in her TV credits and cabaret shows. It would probably be easier to list what she hasn’t done.
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During the mammoth tour of Les Miz she was asked what she would do after it. “It had taken up a year of my life and that was in 1998/99 and I wanted to do something different. I thought I’d go back to the clubs for a bit, but that was all changing – dramatically. I noticed everyone was doing tribute shows and I didn’t really want to do that.”
But someone heard her singing a Doris Day song (she drops into a few bars of “Sentimental Journey”) andsuggested she do a Doris Day show.
”I’ve always been a fan, I think she’s wonderful,” says Lee. “Then I read her autobiography and that started it. I did my first show at the Cremorne Orpheum. It was a morning show, I did my bit then they all had a cuppa and a biscuit before they showed Pillow Talk! It was a real old style variety morning and everyone loved it. I loved it.
What she didn’t know was that members of the Australian Doris Day Society were there. They were totally tickled by Lee’s performance. “They really liked it because it was a tribute to her artistry, not an impersonation,” says Lee. “They wrote to Doris and told her about it and she sent back a signed photo for me.”
The Doris show has been put to bed for the time being while Lee takes on Ms Arbus, but it hasn’t been put out to grass. “No, I love doing it and it’s very popular. I did it at Victor Harbor in South Australia for the 50th anniversary of the release of Calamity Jane. That was quite an event!”
In her spare time – between inspiring young persons to showbiz heights in High School Musical – Lee is now engaged in a biographical project to honour her late great mother, Gloria Dawn. “David Sale is writing it,” says Lee, “and I think that’s really important.” It’s an astute choice: Sale is a writer whose credits include The Mavis Bramston Show, No. 96 and the stage version of Careful He Might Hear You.
”It’s a bit of a journey with this one,” says Lee. “But I’m so thrilled to be doing High School Musical it’s really peaches and cream.”
