Joy will take the stage in Whanganui in the first week of March. Photo / Supplied
Joy will take the stage in Whanganui in the first week of March. Photo / Supplied
Whanganui expat Joana Simmons, aka Banana Jolie, has been in town to rehearse for her upcoming one-woman cardio comedy cabaret show.
While most of her New Zealand tour has now been cancelled due to the Covid-19 Omicron outbreak, she will still be performing in her hometown as part of LaFiesta women's festival in early March.
Simmons stars as Joy in 'Confessions of an Aerobics Instructor', which she wrote in 2016.
She performed it for two seasons in Melbourne before writing 'Spiritual Banana', the show she brought to New Zealand in 2021.
As luck would have it, one of the many arrows in her quiver is teaching aerobics.
"Joy is a really fun character for me to do. I do make myself laugh a lot," Simmons said.
"With lots of fitness instructors, you kind of love them, but you're also a bit afraid of them. They are always telling you anecdotes where you think 'did that really happen?'.
Simmons said she received some good advice for anyone wanting to make comedy for the first time - set the expectations before you go into it.
A measurement of success wasn't just applause and ticket sales either.
"When I was doing Adelaide Fringe Festival (2019), it was the first time I was doing a season of 10 shows. I also did seven other performances throughout that period, and sometimes there were only six people there.
"I got booked by the festival to perform at the airport. I knew I wouldn't get a crowd, because everyone was just having a coffee and waiting to go to the Gold Coast.
"What was my measure of success there? I think it was just to have fun."
A lot went into writing, producing and performing a show completely alone, Simmons said.
"I made my first one-woman show when I was 24, and that was just a bunch of stuff I liked and had been making my friends laugh at around the house. I was a clown, and it was just a bunch of skits.
"For this (Confessions), I did a bunch of research, but fortunately there are a lot of stories from my own instructor career which I made theatrical.
"Being an aerobics instructor in front of a bunch of people is already like a performance."
Simmons' path to the stage began while she was still at school, and she did a "whole bunch of theatre" while attending Whanganui Collegiate.
Joana Simmons on top of her trusty tour van outside the Amdram Theatre. Photo / Bevan Conley
"I did a gap year, saw some shows on The West End, and was like 'I want to do that'."
After completing two years of full-time dance and musical theatre study in Melbourne, she got an agent and began to audition, gig, and dance commercially.
It was during that time that she started her "side job" of aerobics instructing.
"I was also the Hamburgler for a touring McDonald's show. That was pretty fun, and I got to work on my clowning and stuff like that.
"There was some work on creative teams and with youth dance, and a lot of the work I was getting was for my brain and my ideas. A friend of mine, Elizabeth Dawson-Smith, just said one day, 'Why don't you make your own show?'.
"She mentored and looked after me, and that was priceless."
Her first solo show was called 'Tinserella - Keeping Christmas Safe'.
"There are still a couple of skits from that show that I still do. They are like my gold."
On top of performing and instructing, Simmons is completing a double degree in Psychology and Arts.
She is also a trained yoga teacher.
"Basically, my vision and dream is that everything is going to combine.
"It's not so much about what I do in terms of the title of the job. It's about the values of what I can contribute to the world.
"I can spread joy, I can serve other people, and I can ignite things in them."
Simmons' Whanganui shows will be at the Amdram Theatre on Ingestre St.
"It's high energy, it's fun, and it's funny.
"People can expect some witty banter, innuendo, and sweaty secrets are laid bare."
Original songs and pop and rock staples would also be making an appearance.
"There's the human side of it too, and some truths about my relationship with body image, diet culture, and the fitness industry come out."
She will be performing shows on March 4 and 5, along with a Joyrobics fun fitness workshop on March 3.
