Matt Hadgraft and I met a few years ago when we worked together on the musical The Boy From OZ. Matt is a huge Peter Allen fan. He has created his own Peter Allen cabaret show. He has also created an Elton John tribute show and he was part of an ABBA tribute band that toured Australia. Matt has been involved in community and professional entertainment for a very long time.
So I guess music and performing is a bit more than a hobby for you.
It is it is somewhat. I always wanted to be a film director or have my own sitcom. Something else like that. But as a kid I was a choirboy. Let’s skip forward past all of school to I went to uni at the Queensland Conservatorium. I was astonished to find out how much music I had already learned through the choir. Anyway, music just was so much in my bones that I noticed when it was missing. And I think that’s more how I fell into it as a Korea of sorts. But that said, I never started making any kind of a living out of music until I moved to Melbourne, which is part of the reason I came here because there was so much more going on. I played in an ABBA tribute band, which was easily one of the best summative experiences you can have in such a good way to see Australia because no matter where you land, people know ABBA and they are prepared to get loose screaming a lot
What do you personally get out of performing?
I think you’re dreaming if that’s the reason you go into performing in the first place. But what you get out of performing is it’s a it for me anyway. It’s a special kind of sharing. Because I think audiences have an expectation of what they want to get out of a performance. You’ve got something that you want to share in between the two of you for that hour or hour and a half or whatever, you have this relationship that you just do not get anywhere else. When you when you take on a song or Or when you deep into the narrative of a musical, whatever it is you happen to be doing this, this kind of like this outside raise and everyone else is there and bringing it to life and going through that, you know, bringing it to life as a performer but but also going through that journey. as an audience member, there’s something very special about it, you get to express yourself, people give you that instant validation through applause. You both get to feel the same kind of things. It’s tremendous. And you really build a relationship with whoever you perform to.
Do you feel different in different audiences on different nights?
Yes. Sometimes, if somebody’s sitting there with their arms folded or worse on the phone, you know you’re doomed. You’re going to have a terrible time you may as well just kind of read from the from the book the whole time. Sometimes the audience is in sync with you and they are ready to laugh and they’re just ready to take it all in. Some audiences are more easily pleased than others. I’ve got to say the easily pleased ones you just have the best time because there’s this appreciation that takes over the show.
You’ve been in your own shows you’ve been in cabarets, you’ve been in fringe festivals, what keeps drawing you back to community theatre?
Everyone comes from different walks of life for the same reason. And that’s to bring that show to life and put it on stage. And you get different mixes of abilities, different mixes of nerves, different backgrounds, all sorts of things, but the product draws everyone together and I’ve every single show I’ve ever been in, has just had this special heart to it. You make new friends you. It’s just such a wonderful thing to invest in
Matt, when we met you were Musical Director and I was Production Manager for MLOC’s The Boy From Oz. To say that you’re a Peter Allen fan is a bit of an understatement. What sparked your fascination for all things Peter Allen?
Anyone who’s done The Boy From Oz, I think is on the same page where they didn’t realise just what a magical legacy Peter Allen left. And the further you dig into his past and what he achieved, the more appealing it becomes. When you think of, there’s only a handful of the songs he ever recorded that he didn’t write. But when you consider everything he wrote, he performed and he meant it. He also wrote it in this really cleverly ambiguous way where it speaks to any gender. Anyone who needs to hear the song can hear it and it is validating for them. More people sigh and get wistful at Tenterfield Sadler than any other song. They just absolutely love that. As far as Still Call Australia Home, I mean that brings the house down and everyone knows that and everyone’s prepared to laugh and sing it even though they don’t know a lot of the words. That’s fine. That’s not the point. It’s that song. You know, they crossed from being a novelty into, you know, part of the national lexicon,
It’s a really hard time for a lot of people at the moment including people in the performing arts. How do you think theatre and cabaret and performing is going to change?
There will probably be more of an appetite for something new. I feel like people will have more of an appetite for original ideas, but in equal measure They’ll want to just be entertained. I’ve picture in my mind that once all the restrictions are lifted, the world goes back to normal. There’ll be a flood of people going out lapping up theatre, taking it all in having a wonderful time for about a month and then it will die on back down again and people will renew there all these streaming services that popped up out of the woodwork. I mean, who would have thought you could get 24/7 Disney. Personally, I think that there’s going to be a big appetite for original work
We are friends on social media. Daily push ups? Olivia Newton John? Speedos? Old ladies in church? What’s going on??
If somebody’s posting a video of themselves doing push ups every day it is supposed to raise awareness of it’s supposed to be raising awareness for mental health. But how is somebody doing push ups going to inspire? It doesn’t! That’s the problem. So I tried to make this as entertaining as I can, so that if nothing else, if somebody is having a tough time of it, if they watched the video, they can have two minutes of, of, you know, escape from, from how serious life can get and how the bad cards that we’ve all been dealt lightly. But the old women in churches, they are the masters of those platitudes that make you feel better about themselves. You talk to any old lady in church, you will feel like a superstar by the end of the conversation because they’re like, Oh, that’s nice. Oh, that’s great. You know, I’m not going to do the same video again and again in the media or people aren’t going to watch them It better be worth watching. What people are going to churn out, forget it and what happens to all those people with mental illness