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ROZ PAPPALARDO - SINGER/SONGWRITER
AMBASSADOR OF BOOK CREATORS CIRCLE
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Roz Pappalardo is known throughout Queensland for her prolific music career that has been underpinned by extensive national and international touring. She is perhaps best known for her recording career with Women in Docs www.womenindocs.com as well as her latest musical outfit Roz Pappalardo and the Wayward Gentlemen www.rozpappalardo.com
An unexpected door opened for Roz almost exactly one year ago. Roz answered an audition notice, on a whim, for a musical theatre play about Paronella Park, M & J Dream Production's "The Impossible Dream", based on the life of romantic pioneering engineer, Jose Paronella, creator of the iconic castle which sits majestically to this day in her hometown, Mena Creek.
She scored the role … this seemed too good to be true for an untrained actor, but established singer songwriter, who knew more about touring a band across the USA for 3 months of the year than acting! The job entailed a 6 month sojourn back 'home' in the North, acting in a role which she considered every day as a teenager as she ran through the jungle covered pathways of Paronella Park, Mena Creek. It was hard work, challenging, but a dream role. And the acting bug was firmly implanted in Roz.
As it happens, one door opening leads to another swinging ajar. All you have to do is stick your foot in the space and wedge it open!! |
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Roz went on to play the role of "Di", an uptight, stern and misunderstood lawyer in JUTE Theatre Company's highly successful season, "What Are The Odds?" written by celebrated local Cairns playwright, Angela Murphy, early 2011.
Acting in other people's stories inspired Roz to think about her own. She is a songwriter after all - writing story vignettes, wrapped up in 3 and a half minute soundwaves. Surely playwriting was just an extension on the songwriting genre?? She has co-written at least 5 albums with Chanel Lucas, her musical partner in women in docs www.womenindocs - a national and international independent musical success story from the North; she's written her own solo record www.rozpappalardo.com, and worked on various songwriting collaborations with communities as far reaching as Arnhem Land in Northern Territory to the Gulf of Carpentaria to Sudanese teenage refugee communities in Toowoomba to young women in Brisbane's Detention Centre, Wacol.
The process wasn't so easy… The play took 7 months and 11 drafts to write. Add to the mix two wonderful dramaturges, local celebrated actor and playwright, Kathryn Ash and nationally renown dramaturge, Peter Matheson, all the while supported, cajoled and pushed by Suellen Maunder, JUTE Theatre Company's Artistic Director, who also directed Roz in the piece.
In her spare time in Nth Qld (which was supposed to be a sabbatical from the craziness of busy city life in Brisbane), Roz works with emerging musicians through a part time job at Cairns Regional Council, connecting them with the broader music industry, program coordinates the Cairns Festival and continues her love of community arts development, travelling regularly to Arnhem Land and remote community to write with young indigenous people and learn from community elders.
What's next for musician, songwriter, actor, playwright, community arts worker, ex high school teacher and ex horse rider? Perhaps she'll write another play, definitely make another solo record, produce a live women in docs album absolutely, tour "Rosa" to regional centres and fringe festivals across Australia and possibly Edinburgh, maybe another year living in the tropical paradise which is Cairns … Who knows really? This time, last year, if you'd suggested to Roz that she'd have written her first one woman musical play and acted in it to standing ovations, she'd have probably wondered what language you were speaking.
But it just goes to show. Follow your heart, love what you do. And anything, absolutely anything, can happen. |
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ROZ PAPPALARDO
BOOK CREATORS CIRCLE |
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