Ali Harper plays six very different women in her touring comedy-drama one woman show Bombshells, coming to Hawke's Bay early next month. She's quite used to wearing a few different hats herself - as an actress, singer and mother of three.
Bombshells, for which Harper won Wellington's prestigious Chapman Tripp actress of the year award in 2008, was written by Australian playwright Joanna Murray-Smith. Beneath the polite surface of the six characters' lives simmer the social pressures and hidden desires of a modern day woman. "I play women from every walk of life, from a 16-year-old about to compete in a talent show and anything you think can go wrong does, up to a 64-year-old widow for who you think life must be pretty tame but isn't."
Singing was Harper's first love, the acting came later. The only one in her family to establish a career in the performing arts, she scored her first professional gig at 19, appearing in Chess in Dunedin. Having discovered the joy of acting, she auditioned for Toi Whakaari-NZ Drama School, graduating in 1994.
Since then, she has worked with many of the country's professional theatre companies, singing, acting or both, in shows including My Fair Lady, Sweeney Todd, The Sound of Music, Calendar Girls, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Evita, A Shortcut to Happiness, Grease, and this month's tour of Pirates of Penzance. Her first solo show was Andrew Lloyd Webber's one woman musical, Tell Me On a Sunday.
She has also appeared on TV in shows such as The Strip and Market Forces, was the resident singer with the Carl Doy Band on Dancing with the Stars, and sung at Christmas in the Park and with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra.
