Event queen Ella Mizrahi: Rugby World Cup, Diwali, Pride, Matariki and HER

Ella Mizrahi has a penchant for taking on audacious challenges. Photo / Jason Oxenham

Ella Mizrahi is one of Aotearoa’s premier event managers, renowned for creating inspirational experiences. She also has a penchant for taking on audacious challenges, confident she can figure out the ‘how to’ en route. From entering Who Wants To Be A Millionaire at the age of 22 - and becoming something of a sensation more for her humour than her IQ - to stage managing the giant rugby ball that sat beneath the Eiffel Tower as part of the 2011 Rugby World Cup, she has also worked on major Auckland festivals from Diwali to Pride and Matariki.

Most recently Mizrahi spearheaded HER Festival, a ground-breaking hybrid of education, entertainment and ethical good times, a response to Auckland Council’s request for fun local events to bring communities back together after Covid. “A group of us came up with a multi-faceted nine-day women’s event. Three years in the making, we launched HER Festival last April and an estimated 10,000 people took part across 40 free events that included podcast walks, pole dancing lessons, roller skating and sex seminars. There was even a thing called ‘OK Now Ladies’, which is like Zumba but sluttier.”

Kiwi actor Jodie Rimmer says she was blown away by Mizrahi’s drive, describing the festival as “diverse, exciting and intoxicating, the thinking person’s crumpet”.

So who is Ella Mizrahi?

As the elder child of Mike Mizrahi and Marie Adams, co-founders of the renowned theatre company Inside Out, Mizrahi has big ideas in her DNA, with her creative spirit forged in an exuberantly artistic household. “I grew up in chaos, which is why I feel comfortable walking into chaos today, and why I keep doing it, because I’m okay in that space. I thrive on it. I’m also an optimist to my core.”

Her earliest memories are from the 90s, when she watched her parents create mind-blowing theatrical extravaganzas that would still be seen as cutting-edge today. “My sister and I were raised by a mad, creative village. A world where we’d spy on meetings, and run around with the children of the other actors, then fall asleep in little hallways around the Watershed Theatre. Don McGlashan was like an uncle and the Topp Twins were our nannies. Lynda Topp actually lived with us, so I was often put to bed by her.”

However, having brazenly bohemian parents did cause the occasional cringe. “We were mostly cool with it but I know my sister would’ve liked our parents to have been a bit more nine-to-five, because she really likes structure, and our parents were always late for things.”

Mizrahi remembers how their dad sometimes dropped them off at primary school wearing costumes he’d made, including a cape, which saw some of Ella’s friends label him weird. And, to suburban Kiwi kids, he probably was fairly eccentric, as a London-born Jew of Turkish, Greek and Italian descent.

“One of my most vivid memories is of my two best friends telling me they were going to stop playing with me because Dad was so weird. They both had lawyer and accountant parents, but that was really jarring so I told Dad to stop being so out there, and he said it was the most conservative he’d ever been.”

Ella Mizrahi. Photo / Jason Oxenham

But an unconventional childhood isn’t always a cushy one. “Dad tells a story about him and Mum doing a theatre show where the takings were all in cash. At the end of the run, they put all the money on the roof of the car. Then they got in the car and drove off. That was their rent for the next three weeks, all gone, and they had two young kids to support.”

Which is why, when Mizrahi was 10 and sister Leah was 7, their parents got ‘real’ jobs, with Marie becoming the casting director of the television programmes Xena and Young Hercules and Mike moving into events, creating pre-match entertainment for Warriors games, back when our National Rugby League team was still relatively new.

“Although they still did amazing things, I know it pained them to move into that corporate scene. But it also meant we could afford holidays, a nicer house, and our car didn’t break down all the time. I even had saxophone lessons, so changing lanes had pros as well as cons.”

An increased family income also saw Mizrahi attend Kadimah, the Jewish school in Central Auckland, for her intermediate years. “We call ourselves Jew-ish, which means Dad cooks really well but he doesn’t know Hebrew, but I found it fascinating. I learned to read and write Hebrew at Kadimah and I accessed all these elements of my heritage that I wouldn’t have at a public school.”

Mizrahi’s London-based grandmother was especially thrilled when the young Ella did her bat mitzvah, the Jewish coming-of-age ritual for females, and she travelled halfway across the world for the occasion. “Giagia, [pronounced Yaya] was a holocaust survivor, which is why she chose to have only two children. She explained that this was so she could grab one in each hand if she ever had to run, so she was pumped I was keeping up with tradition. But for us, Judaism is as much cultural as it is religion and I especially love all the fun bits, because Jews love any reason to party.”

In spite of her deep artistic roots, Mizrahi never thought of herself as overtly creative, yet with the surname Mizrahi, she knew if she was to forge her own identity beyond Aotearoa’s tight-knit theatrical circles, she needed to travel. So, after graduating from the University of Otago with a BA in English Literature and Philosophy, she set off for Melbourne, where she landed her first “real job”, working for an advertising agency.

Living in a new country and earning decent money was not only liberating, it made Mizrahi more daring, leading to that infamous appearance on the New Zealand version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, being filmed in Melbourne. Even though her time on screen was fleeting, she captured hearts, with one media outlet describing her as the programme’s favourite loser.

Even the host, Mike Hosking, was totally taken with the comedic contestant’s quirky answers. “I was definitely one of the dumbest contestants ever, but I still won $4000.”

Which was enough for Mizrahi to move to London where fortune continued to favour her. “I found a flat in Brick Lane, then I fell into an incredible job after randomly meeting a guy called Leo. He had this giant squat in the middle of Hackney near London Fields. It was just a shell. No toilets. No lights. But he had a 15-year lease and the backing of investors who were keen to regenerate communities like Hackney, which was still pretty rough back then, with fortnightly stabbings.”

Sensing Mizrahi’s creative potential even before she did, Leo asked if she’d like to help turn the squat into a collection of art studios. “It was called Netil House and we spent two years creating a space with 100 studios. We had taxidermists, shoemakers and tattoo artists all doing contra deals in exchange for rent. There was a big roof terrace, and we had mad club nights in the basement.”

When Netil House became infested with rats, Mizrahi took an unconventional approach to pest control. “Instead of using traps or poison, I bought a kitten and I’d go to work on the bus or the train with Nettie sitting on my shoulder. That cat had such a great life, trotting around the studios, dealing with the rats.”

A less successful innovation saw Mizrahi paint all the studio doors a single colour, a controversial shade of neon green. “That caused a riot. All the artists ganged up on me and signed a petition saying they didn’t want their doors all one colour. They were like, who did I think I was?” But she shows no hint of a bruised ego. “I was in the business of people management. That’s what I did.”

After three years, Netil House was a roaring success, with a huge waiting list for studio space, which is how Mizrahi learned she liked to build things. “But once they’re built, I tend to move on. Because I don’t like running things, when all that’s left to do is replace the toilet paper and fix the plugs.”

This meant it was time for Mizrahi to say ka kite to London, heading home via Paris and New York, having scored a gig with the 2011 Rugby World Cup. “Mum and Dad were working for Tourism New Zealand and they toured this giant rugby ball around the world, including planting it beneath the Eiffel Tower. I was to be their stage manager.”

Not that Mizrahi cared too much about rugby. To her mind, the giant rugby ball was merely a vehicle to tell cool New Zealand stories. “One guy came to the front door of the ball and said he needed to get in. I was like, ‘Sorry mate, it’s full.’ Then one of the techs came sprinting up to us and hustled him in. Apparently he was the All Blacks’ coach, Graham Henry,” Ella says with a laugh. “Who knew!”

Admittedly, being a stage manager inside a giant rugby ball was actually rather mundane, but there was a silver lining, aside from the buzz of travelling to some incredible cities - and Mizrahi’s greatest takeaway was meeting Celia Harrison. “Celia was my parents’ production assistant, based in Auckland. She had just finished an arts degree, and we got on like a house on fire. So when the ball was at Queens Wharf we both quit the rugby gig and started Celery Productions.”

Celery being a portmanteau of their two names, their first creative collaboration was Art In The Dark. “After finishing her spatial design degree at AUT, Celia had started a small light festival in Western Park, in Ponsonby, called Art in The Dark. So we expanded on that and did it for four years. Each year it got bigger and bigger until eventually it was attracting over 40,000 visitors over four nights.”

For five years the pair devoted themselves to creating ever more lavish events, until Harrison declared she needed to travel and Mizrahi became pregnant, so Celery shut up shop. But Mizrahi didn’t slow down, and she took a role at Auckland Council with the very bureaucratic title of “Regional Activations Lead”. “I worked with amazing people on all sorts of events, essentially putting on parties by creating free things for communities.”

Then Covid came along, and all of her in-person events evaporated in the blink of an eye. Rather than feel sorry for herself, Mizrahi and her husband, Shortland Street producer Oliver Driver, signed the lease on an old dairy on Neil Ave that they turned into a cafe and bar. Called Neil, it’s not far from the Te Atatū home where they live with their kids, Etta, 7, and Otis, 5.

It is a hectic life, but Mizrahi prefers it that way. “There’s not a lot that rattles me, because I have this powerful sense that everything is going to be okay.” And when you consider her achievements to date - not to undermine her enviable work ethic - it does read like a roll call of lucky breaks. Of being in the right place at the right time. A collaboration of kismet and chaos.

When asked how it has come to pass, that no matter where she is, she always seems to land on her feet, Mizrahi’s answer is simple. “I have got where I am with hutzpah. Pretending you know how to do something when you don’t, and figuring it out on the job. Dad did it. I do it. Because I don’t know any other way to fly, except by building an aeroplane in the sky.”

HER Festival is currently accepting expressions of interest for events for 2024. If you are interested in pitching email ‍info@herfestival.co.nz for more information.