Alex Hughes stars as Velma Kelly in Act Three Productions' Chicago

Alex Hughes as Velma Kelly. "You wanted advice? Well here it is, straight from me to you, keep your paws off my underwear." Photo / Ben Pryor

By day, Alex Hughes crunches numbers. By night, she also crunches numbers but of a different kind.

The 23-year-old is playing Velma Kelly in Act Three Productions' staging of Chicago next month.

It will be the Palmerston North woman's first lead role. She started dancing with the Dean McKerras School of Dance when she was 5, the same age she was when Chicago the movie was released with Catherine Zeta-Jones as Velma.

Alex was the choreographer for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat last year with Steve Sayer the director. He's also directing Chicago and asked her to audition.

As she loves to dance she said yes. "It's a bit of a bucket list show as a dancer," Alex says.

She's never had singing lessons but her confidence has grown as she's started believing in herself. She has received help with her technique from musical director Lottie Perry and a visiting vocal coach.

Alex has a Bachelor of Accountancy from Massey University and is a business analyst at Toyota New Zealand. She is studying for a Graduate Diploma of Chartered Accounting.

Alex has gone on to build an impressive dance CV, including teaching, choreographing the joint Boys' High and Girls' High annual shows and participating in international workshops. She's also been in the chorus for Abbey Musical Theatre shows.

At Palmerston North Girls' High School she was the dance prefect and in Chicago will be performing alongside PNGHS head of dance Tamzin Price.

Alex says nightclub singer and murderess Velma is sassy, sexy and confident. However, as soon as she starts to feel threatened there's a lot happening internally.

Alex describes the Chicago cast as the "best of the best" with about 40 people culled from the audition pool.

"You are going to see amazing singing, amazing acting, amazing dancing. There's definitely something in there for everyone."

Alex's favourite song to sing is I Know a Girl, in which Velma bemoans Roxy's ability to always land on top and come up smelling like a rose. She says it's fun to sing with its random lyrics, which include "what that mouse is selling the whole world buys and nobody smells a rat".

Her favourite song in the show is Cell Block Tango in which the murderesses tell their stories with zingy one liners. Chicago has so many different characters even among the ensemble, she says.

Alex is finding dancing and singing simultaneously her biggest challenge as when just dancing she sort of holds her breath. She is running every day to increase her fitness and so she can belt out the big notes. "Learning to do that has been the biggest challenge for me."

Jessie Feyen plays Roxie Hart and Lindsay Yeo is Billy Flynn.

Rehearsals started mid-January and Alex is there three nights a week and all day Sunday,
always with those high-heeled dance shoes on.

The Details
What: Chicago
When: April 9-24
Where: Wallace Development Company Theatre
Tickets: www.actthree.co.nz