Alisha Jacobs will perform at the Sydney Opera House later this year.
Alisha Jacobs was never supposed to be the “drama kid”.
But now she is starring in Indian Ink’s latest touring theatre production, Balloon Dog, taking her from a Hamilton classroom to stages across New Zealand and Australia, including the Sydney Opera House.
Balloon Dog follows an Auckland family unsettled when their daughter befriends an immigrant, exposing fear, prejudice and questions of trust, Jacobs said.
“This is my first major tour and suddenly we’re at the [Sydney] Opera House. I’m like, how is this even real? There was a point where I wasn’t even sure I’d act at all, and now this is where I’ve started.
“I feel so grateful.
“Waikato to the world.”
At school in Hamilton, Jacobs was academic and involved, the student who turned up to everything.
Debates, councils, committees.
Drama, by comparison, was never that serious to her.
“It was just the one place I could relax,” she said.
“It wasn’t something I was trying to pursue. It was just fun.”
One of her earliest theatre memories sits somewhere between painful and funny.
It was a Year 10 audition for Peter Pan at a small local theatre. She went in convinced she would land Wendy.
“And then the audition was so bad that by the end it just felt awkward.”
Despite this, she was offered a role, just not the one she had imagined.
“They were like, you can be an ostrich in the back if you like.”
It did not sting so much as it clarified things. At that point, acting was not a dream.
That changed later, through training and persistence, but the reality of the industry hit quickly.
After graduating from drama school in Wellington in 2023, Jacobs returned home to Hamilton and walked into a sector still recovering.
Funding cuts, fewer productions, uncertainty about what was next.
“It felt quite hopeless. You’re looking around going, ‘If all of this is getting cut, what’s left?’,” she said.
Then, international productions were starting to return, which on paper sounded promising to an aspiring actor.
In practice, it was more complicated.
“They bring in their own people for the main roles,” Jacobs said.
“And then the rest of us, even if we’re trained, you’re kind of looking at glorified extras.
“I didn’t do three years of drama school for that.”
She received advice to take it in her stride and treat the first year out as a “fourth year” of training, learning how the industry actually works.
While she understood that, it didn’t make it easier to watch.
“You see actors who have been in it for years still going for the same roles you are,” she said.
“And you’re like, okay, something here doesn’t quite add up.”
Layered over that was another frustration: There were not only not many roles in New Zealand, but those that were available, Jacobs found “quite stereotypical”.
Looking at roles overseas, she feels that social media had become part of the selection criteria.
“You’re told to focus on your craft, be a good actor, do the work,” Jacobs said.
“But at the same time, you’re also thinking about your social media, your engagement, your followers. Because that can actually affect decisions.
“I’ve heard stories where it comes down to two people and they’re pretty equal, and then it’s like, okay, who has more followers, who has more engagement, and that person gets the job.
“That’s wild.
“It becomes a bit of a power play.
“And it’s not always about performance.”
In New Zealand, she said, things were more focused on the work.
“I think we’re still quite good here. You get cast because you’re a good performer or because you’ve done strong work before.”
Looking at the world with a broader lens is not new for Jacobs.
Born in Hamilton, she spent much of her childhood in India.
“I grew up there for about 10 years. So I’ve always had that kind of dual perspective.”
It came with an early understanding that the world of storytelling was much bigger than New Zealand.
“I grew up on a healthy dose of Bollywood,” she said.
“From a really young age, I knew there was so much more out there.”
That sense of scale, and possibility, has stayed with her.
“I do want to see the world,” she said.
Balloon Dog is touring Australia and New Zealand from May 16 until July 5.
The play will come to Hamilton’s Clarence St Theatre on May 21 and 22.
Tom Eley is a multimedia journalist at the Waikato Herald. Before he joined the Hamilton-based team, he worked for the Weekend Sun and Sunlive. He previously worked as a journalist at Black Press Media in Canada and won a fellowship with the Vancouver Sun.