The Arts industry has faced two years of disruptions due to COVID-19, but Brisbane Girls Grammar School alumna, Leith McPherson (1992), believes when the industry comes ‘roaring back’, it will be an ‘incredible place to be’.
Leith, who developed her passion for theatre well before starting secondary school, was halfway through her degree at the Queensland University of Technology when she realised she was happier off stage than on.
‘You don’t know the spectrum of opportunities available in any field until you start to explore the field,’ she said. ‘I loved theatre from a young age, intellectually and imaginatively, it was really engaging for me, but it wasn’t what made me happiest. I was actually much happier supporting people who were performing and enabling them to perform to the best of their ability.’
Leith studied Music and Drama throughout her education at Girls Grammar and explained finding her career path to Speech and Dialect was like ‘opening a map to find the commonality’ between both areas of performing.
‘The intersection of my two passions—being theatre and music—was voice, and it led me to what I truly, truly love, which is voice and dialect work.’
This realisation prompted Leith to move to London, where she studied at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Among her many career highlights, she worked in Aotearoa, New Zealand, for four years as a Dialect Coach on the Hobbit trilogy, directed by Sir Peter Jackson.
One of her favourite anecdotes is when she had to step in to be the voice of the Dragon as actor, Benedict Cumberbatch, was unavailable due to Star Trek filming. The scene was to film Martin Freeman, who played Bilbo Baggins, and needed someone to run through the script in Cumberbatch’s absence.
‘I was so nervous, but it was an absolute high point,’ she said. ‘Once I realised I was helping Martin and that Peter (Jackson) was happy, and I wasn’t doing a bad job, it was very fun.’
Leith recently started working for the Sydney Theatre Company (STC), and at the time of this interview, had only been able to meet and work with people via Zoom due to COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns.
‘It has been challenging to modify speech work over Zoom,’ she said.
‘It is a tricky balance to make people feel comfortable doing voice exercises in their personal lockdown situations.
‘If you have a nice big rehearsal room, you can get very expansive with your voice, but if you’re in your home, rightly so, you might get a bit self-conscious, or need to consider neighbours, or partners and children working from home too, so for me to say ‘explode your voice’ could be inconsiderate with people’s living arrangements.’
Leith describes the Arts industry as being in a ‘holding pattern’ at the moment, but beautiful, creative things are on the horizon.
‘The work that will emerge from this time, and the performers that will come roaring back onto stages, will be looking for and needing support from everyone who has ever enjoyed theatre and live performances of any kind,’ she said.
‘I think when the industry does make its grand return, it is going to be an exciting thing to witness.’
Banner photo by Stephen McCallum
