Sweet Verity’s Rhythm of Life

From a perfect in every way nanny to a dance hall hostess, Verity Hunt-Ballard has triumphed in some of the most demanding roles in musical theatre. As she prepared for a re-mount of the award winning production of Sweet Charity at the Sydney Opera House, Canberra Theatre, Melbourne Arts Centre and IPAC in Wollongong,she told David Spicer that even exhausting lead roles have nothing on the demands of becoming a mother.

Verity Hunt-Ballard was staring dreamily out of her favourite Melbourne café while I was trapped in a taxi that was scoring every red light. Where is a magic flying umbrella when you need one?

I rang the head waiter. Can you please let Ms Hunt-Ballard know I am running a little late.   Of course he knew exactly who she was.  Just a few years back Mary Poppins’ face was on every street corner.

When I arrived, flustered, she very politely said that having a few minutes on her own to watch the world go by was a rare treat for a mother of a toddler.

Life has changed for the 33-year-old since she starred in the Disney juggernaut.

“After a five show weekend I was knackered. I never left the stage, there were quick changes, singing high C’s, and being puffed from being lifted in ‘Jolly Holiday’. I thought I could not possibly be more tired than I am now.”

“Then I had a baby and that went out the window completely. What was I complaining about? Giving birth was really hard but I felt after a few weeks I could do everything,” she laughed.

Verity Hunt-Ballard won Helpmann Awards for Mary Poppins and Sweet Charity, but I get the impression that the Cy Coleman/ Neil Simon musical fits her more naturally. 

“The night Geoffrey Rush came to see the show (at the Hayes Theatre) he jumped up from his seat. He said, ‘she is such a clown.’ This was such a compliment to me as I do quite a bit of improvisation and commedia dell'arte. Charity is fun and wild and goofy. She is endearing as she gets into situations that are so awkward.”

Sitting watching her sip on a latte I could see flashes of those comic expressions come and go. As well as the comedy there is a darker side to the character of Charity.

“Back then Charity had no qualifications, no husband, and no family and thought what else am I going to do?  So we focussed on that and the family you create in the underworld where men slime all over you and everything else that goes with that.”

What she could directly relate to from her own life was the character’s determination to never give up, the loneliness of being an only child and the rejection she experienced in the early part of her career.

Verity though has never felt as isolated as Charity or lacked support. Raised in the then working class suburb of Port Adelaide, her parents (a primary school teacher and a social worker), both from modest upbringings in Northern Ireland, were very supportive. They made sure she had piano lessons, but she emphasizes they were not pushy stage parents. Dance classes were her initiative.

“I did an amateur version of Les Misérables playing the understudy to Fantine. I did not grow up in the area of Adelaide where the amateur scene was hot. My parents would drive me across town.

“I went to public schools and associated with lots of people from different walks of life, which is valuable for an actor. It gave me a street-wise social consciousness.”

As a child she was not even aware that you could make a living out of performing arts. Then at 15 she saw Les Misérables and ‘that was it’. Her career goal was set.

Applying for WAAPA after leaving school, she missed out at the first audition, instead spending a year travelling and doing odd jobs.

“As an actor you are going to have to get used to the rejection. It is awful but you appreciate it in the end.”

She got in a year later and relished being in an environment of like-minded people. Years of struggle followed her graduation.

“I am glad I did not get a big gig straight out of WAAPA.  My friends who did say it was a bit of an assault. They did not know what to do when they did not get work after one big role.”

She worked odd jobs in Sydney including a stint as a nanny, which was manna from heaven for the publicists down the track.

”I was terrible at auditioning because I am such a perfectionist; I would work myself into a state. I could never show them what I could do.

“I was so bad. (Slowly) I got better at showing people straight off the bat.”

Her first gig came in the chorus ofEureka.

“Maybe it was confidence, timing or the stars aligning. Eureka proved my work ethic.”

Next came being the Dance Captain and understudy to Magenta in Gale Edwards’ production of The Rocky Horror Show.

“There definitely was a shift in me.”

She thought she could do the character of Lorraine the journalist in Jersey Boys and the production team agreed.

All this prepared her for the audition of her life – a call-back for Mary Poppins in Holland.

“I did a Tuesday night Jersey Boys performance, then popped on a plane to Amsterdam. Staying in this crummy hotel above a train station, in the morning I tried to warm up but somebody yelled at me in Dutch.

“I was picked up in a car. I got to the rehearsal studio and all these Dutch people in the local cast were looking at me.

“Cameron Mackintosh was in the room with ten other men. ‘Morning Verity, come on over.’ I was so jet lagged and dehydrated. ‘This is Kurt our Dutch Bert. Can you sing ‘Jolly Holiday’? (Gulp)  I thought it is now or never girl. I have just got to wing it.

“They offered me the part but said I couldn’t tell anybody when I got home.” 

A few days after she arrived in Melbourne came the launch on the steps of the Victorian Parliament. A blizzard of press flash bulbs heralded an avalanche of publicity that was enough to wallpaper the foyer of Her Majesty’s Theatre.

“It was a whirlwind. Suzie Howie (the late publicist) as bonkers as she was … wonderfully bonkers … directed me how to manage that time. I would run from matinee to evening performances of Jersey Boys for a couple of weeks in between shows to Mary Poppins then run back. I was running on adrenalin.

“Then the real hard work started, doing eight shows a week. It asked everything. It was so physically taxing and you were responsible for two children initially. The flying in the end came like a walk in the park. It was in the end of the show. I would just look at all the children’s beautiful faces.

“People say surely if you have played it for two years you can go on auto-pilot. I don’t know how to go on auto-pilot. It actually got harder. The brain is not supposed to say the same thing every night for two years. You started going where am I in the show?  I fully appreciate what Stanislavski says of being in the moment.  If you stopped listening, sometimes you had no idea where you were.”

When Mary Poppins closed she enjoyed an extended holiday in Europe with her partner Scott Johnson. They’d met when he was cast as the bad boy Tommy DeVito in Jersey Boys.   

Just four months after becoming a mother, Eddie Perfect and Simon Phillips convinced her to appear in a brief return season of Shane Warne the Musical. 

Verity had to think seriously about the offer to play the even more demanding role of Charity a few months later.

“Emmylou was not one yet. She is not a great sleeper. I was still breast feeding. I would be away from her at bed-time. There is no way I could have done it without a supportive family.”

Sweet Charity exceeded everyone’s expectations.

The producers behind the 110 seat theatre in Sydney’s Darlinghurst had barely put the paint brushes down when tickets started flying out the door. It won Director Dean Bryant, Choreographer Andrew Hallsworth and Verity Helpmann Awards.

“So many people have asked me (why) … I am not objective enough.”

She lists some of the ingredients. The producers were a force to be reckoned with; the director’s vision to tap into the grittiness of the original movie; the special acting chemistry between her and Martin Crewes; a collection of mature actors, many of whom were young parents and the extraordinary lighting and design of the space.

It was all put together in two and half weeks of rehearsal. Actors and crew were in a co-op. They were paid $2000 and a share of box office. Some in the industry felt the non-award payments should have disqualified the production from the Helpmann Awards but Verity rolls her eyes. She pleads that the industry is so small that “we have to support each other.”

Above all she credits the great story telling.

“There is a lot of not good music theatre out there. (My partner Scott and I) feel  that is because the story is not told well. And the acting comes secondary to how high I can kick my legs, how high I can sing.

“When we are teaching we say let’s forget about all the technique; that is your job to do in your own time. What is the story? What are we trying to tell here?

“People who came to the musical said, my wife dragged me along, and I usually hate this fluffy stuff, but I loved it and we entered into this world.”

To prepare for the return seasons in Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Wollongong she has to get back into training. This means someone has to do some babysitting while she works out to become show fit.

“Sweet Charity is more full on (than Mary Poppins) in different ways. She still doesn’t leave the stage. Neil Simon writes chunks of dialogue in that New York accent. My mouth was sore.

“I put a lot of pressure on myself during Mary Poppins but motherhood has taught me ten times over not to put pressure on myself. It does not help anybody.”

And what about future roles? She shrugs insisting she lives for the present.

“There are often times I will be a mummy for six months while Scott does his thing. I am very happy being a mum. I don’t think ‘I wish I was at work’.”

The café is closing. It is time for her to walk home to take over bed-time duties.

Images from Sweet Charity by Kurt Sneddon.

Sweet Charity plays at Arts Centre Melbourne from February 25 and at IPAC Theatre Wollongong March 11 to 21, following Sydney and Canberra seasons.

Originally published in the January / February 2015 edition of Stage Whispers

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Musicals in 2015 and Beyond

David Spicer's review of the Sydney season.

Neil Litchfield's review of the original Sydney season