Lizzie defying gravity at CubaDupa in Pōneke.
After her inspiring mahi hosting the Ōtautahi Performers Wānanga, we had to ask MC, maker, and half of Rollicking Entertainment, Lizzie Tollemache, to return for the Pōneke edition next week.
While we have her in the building, we had to ask a few pātai about her wild and varied career.
1. When did you first feel the itch to perform?
I was 6 years old and we were doing a reading of a school journal play (remember those?!?). Pretty sure it was Cinderella. Anyway, I rocked up to school in full costume with lipstick smeared all over my face to play the Evil Stepmother and have been chasing that attention-high ever since.
2. What step on your journey has felt most integral?
Bowling up at the absolute last minute to audition for The Court Jesters as a clueless 19 year old - from that came 5 years with Scared Scriptless (longest running comedy show in Australasia) and my first professional theatre contracts with The Court Theatre.
3. Who is a mentor that’s been fundamental and your path?
Penny Ashton being generous with her time and advice is the reason I started touring shows on the Canadian Fringe circuit, and then securing Circa Theatre seasons.
Photo by Sam Millen.
4. What’s your favourite venue you’ve ever performed in?
An interrogation room at the Police HQ. I will not elaborate.
5. How has your community affected your mahi?
I was diagnosed with ADHD and autism late in life. Finding my people and realising that everything i thought I knew about neurodivergence was wrong, not only saved my life - for real- but also led to the creation of my new play, The NeuroSpice Girls (staged reading in Otautahi September 21st and 22nd!)
6. When did you mess up big time that helped you learn?
Apparently, numbing all feeling is not a healthy coping mechanism. Wild, right?
Lizzie eats fire in Seven Deadly Stunts at UPSURGE Festival.
7. If you could go back in time, what would you say to yourself at the beginning of your career?
Going home feeling like garbage is not a necessary part of making good art.
8. Which Kiwi artists inspire you the most?
All my neurospice girlies who are kind and playful and brave and talented and very flirty. Bek Coogan, Waitahi Aniwaniwa McGee, Eve Gordon, Mel Dodge, Rachel Lenart, Emma Katene, Dea Doglione, Emma Brittenden, Kim Te Pairi Garrett.
9. What’s your biggest, scariest goal on the horizon?
Next year I'm touring Haus of Yolo to Canada with the Dust Palace (yay!) but I will have to learn speed sewing and a four person aerial straps routine for it (deranged laughter).
10. What’s bringing you joy for the near future?
Theatre maker, MC and sideshow stuntwoman. Lizzie Tollemache founded Rollicking Entertainment in 2014, producing and co-creating nine highly acclaimed productions. As a variety artist, she plays with broken glass, fire and aerial escapes everywhere from high falutin events to Edinburgh's infamous Hunter Square. Lizzie's been an actor with The Court Theatre, Centrepoint Theatre, Circa Theatre and Fortune Theatre (RIP). Tours of Lizzie's original work have delivered her sparkling eyes/wit/cleavage to seven countries and dozens of arts festivals.
Her newest project, THE NEUROSPICE GIRLS, features true stories, a diagnosis gameshow, shame spirals, unbridled 90s nostalgia, and the mystery of what exactly to do with the parts of yourself that you HIDE AND PRAY NOBODY NOTICES. Join the other high-masking weirdos as we zig-a-zig-ah our way out of existential crisis into hope.
