Interview with DS Magid

Celebrating “Graduate House: 60 years a Residential College”

Continuing our interview series with residents, Councillor of The Graduate Union, Emeritus Professor Martin Comte OAM sits with Resident member DS Magid recently, to hear about her career in music and theatre; playwriting and her collegial life at Graduate House.

You’re here from the USA to undertake research. I’m always delighted when I meet academics, artists and researchers like yourself who have chosen to stay at Graduate House for short or longer periods. Tell me about your background and your studies in music and theatre.

When I was eight years old my eldest sister wanted to be an actress and found a summer school for kids attached to a local theatre in Cleveland, Ohio. She talked my Mom into letting her go – and Mom sent me along. Quite a few of us eventually went on to Broadway and some went on to television; it was an extraordinary place.

And this early experience presumably led to you studying music?

Yes, and I decided I wanted to be a classical singer. During high school I auditioned for Cleveland Institute of Music – which is part of Case Western Reserve University – where most of the teachers play with the Cleveland Orchestra which, as you know, is one of the five top in the world. I was accepted and completed two years there before moving to New York and going back into musical theatre (and singing classical music on the side). From there on all of my training in music and theatre was practical and professional. Some years later, in 2004, The University of Melbourne kindly accepted me to do a Masters in Vocal Performance and Pedagogy based on my 25year career (to that point) of singing mid-to-late-20th century American art songs. The wonderful Merlyn Quaife supported me in this and became my principal teacher. (As an aside, she gave a 70th birthday recital this week at the Recital Centre – and her magical voice still sounds like that of a 40-year old.)

So you came here to do a Masters degree having had a wealth of experience as a singer and performer more generally. I’m very interested in your early career leading up to this.

When I was at Uni and only studying music I was missing theatre – so I founded a little theatre company! Things were so much more ad hoc then, organisations would lend me their theatres and I would talk licensors into charging me basically nothing! We did the The Fantasticks, and Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, among other works. I was full-time at university and also producing, which meant costuming and directing and all of these things at only 16. You have such confidence at that age, and I had already been eating and drinking theatre for half my life. And Photo credit : Keliy Anderson-Staley

then I hit 18, moved to New York, and worked my way up to Broadway.

What were some of the Broadway productions you appeared in?

Camelot, with Richard Burton (Lady Sybil and occasionally the nymph Nimue), and The King and I, with Yul Brynner. Singing, dancing, and acting, I learned so much just by standing on a stage with those people. I did the first national tours after Broadway as well, and also went on the road with The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas with the Tony Award winner, Alexis Smith.

When you eventually came to Melbourne to enrol in the Masters degree in Vocal Performance and Pedagogy, was this because you wanted to do more work in coaching?

Just prior to coming here for the first time, during the Christmas holidays in 2003 – parenthetically, I stayed at the International House on Royal Parade – I had been offered a job teaching the History of

Musical Theatre at The University of New Mexico. I would have loved the position, but it was rescinded because I did not have a terminal tertiary degree. In the meanwhile, I found family here in Melbourne whom I had not previously known existed. My ‘new’ cousin’s wife turned out to be a gourmet chef and an executive coach. We would cook together and she would coach me, asking ‘What do you really want in your life?’. I told her the story about having a dream job offer withdrawn because I did not have that degree and she said, ‘Well, you need to come here and do a Masters so that you can teach in a university. So I did! Since receiving my degree in 2005, I’ve returned a number of times: I brought a one-woman show to The Fringe of the Melbourne International Arts Festival in 2010; in 2015 I participated in an International Directors’ Lab; and I’ve also come back on other occasions to see my beloved ‘new’ family.

Have you been doing much vocal coaching in the years since graduating?

After I graduated, I realised that while I’m good at it, my best strength isn’t teaching studio voice. What I am particularly good at – because of all of the years in theatre combined with my specialisation in midto-late 20th century American music – is coaching. Not only the vocal line, the arc of the music, and understanding the theory, but the acting. And it is a thing that I’ve noticed here: classical singers are technically, incredibly well-trained but their ‘presence’ lacks something. By contrast, it was such a pleasure to see Merlyn Quaife perform, not only is it a gorgeous voice, but she also always relates fully with her audience. My coaching includes that relationship, plus a performer’s understanding of where the music is doing your work for you, for instance, and how to tell a story that connects personally, to touch and move your audience. I think this is something that is sometimes missing from Australian classical performance, which I could develop and ‘teach’, and not only to singers. So I earned my degree in Melbourne and went back to Cleveland and started auditioning for theatre companies. But I could not get hired because I was coming ‘from out of the blue’ and there were some fabulous musical actresses in my demographic who were already well established. Then fate intervened. While studying in Melbourne I had somewhat spontaneously composed a fugue, the beginning of a work for voice and acting relating to the candy, Mars Bars! Then when I was back in Cleveland, Cleveland Public Theatre put out a call for a new workshop series. So I made up a synopsis based on that fugue about a mythical land of candy bars where choice of a favorite was an allegory for sexual preference, and sent it in; I’d never done anything like this before. The Artistic Director called me up and said that he needed a little more so I got five friends together and we recorded my fugue (with a metronome ‘accompaniment’!) a capella. I sent it in and they gave me the grant. And then I had two-and-a-half months not only to write and compose, but also to produce this chamber opera in which I had written myself a role so that I could get on stage, be seen by the directors who weren’t hiring me, and get work as a performer. And that was the first of seven grants CPT gave me. They helped me become a playwright. Next I wrote a musical based on someone who had completely broken my heart and that led to my becoming a member of the Playwrights Unit of the Cleveland Play House. The group is usually for mid-career playwrights, but they felt that my work showed mid-career maturity and tendered an invitation. About half of my plays are whole-cloth creations, the other half are about historical women. I do perform occasionally, but creating and composing plays fills the majority of my time. That’s how I became a playwright, and I’ve never looked back. I normally have several works on the go at once but I was unable to create during Covid; the work simply wouldn’t come out. But suddenly here in Melbourne, the floodgates have opened and I’m not only working on the piece that I especially came here to research, but also another work – a musical about a weaver which has been seven or eight years in the making. Some works I can finish researching and within a matter of weeks I will have a first draft; others can take years. One morning a few weeks ago the weaver musical organised itself in my mind in an exciting, viable new way. When I have a draft I’m going to read through it with some friends here at Graduate House. This came about because one of my regular dinner companions is Sarah, who’s in veterinary school, and is on the student planning committee that arranges things like ping pong and movie nights. I mentioned that I might finish a draft quite soon and that a playwright works in private, but for a very social medium needs to hear their play ‘on the breath’ to know what works and what doesn’t – so to fix it. It can be better not to have professional actors the very first time because the actors may try to make something of their roles and I need to hear exactly what’s on the page, so it’s best to have sympathetic, smart, ‘regular’ people, and Sarah and others expressed interest in being my first group of readers!

I’m so pleased to hear that you’ve not only made friends in your short time here, but that you have people who are willing to help you try out a new play. What a new and exciting experience this must be for them.

Yes, what I love the best is that there are all of these people from different walks of life, ages, genders, nationalities, disciplines, interests – and I get to have one or two meals a day with these fascinating people. I’m already thinking quite seriously of booking next year here, partly because, for me, it’s perfect. The collegial nature of being here is great, we’re together for meals, and if we decide to be social, but then I can go back to my private space! It’s an extraordinary experience if you’re open to it. Some whose English is not so good are not always comfortable with new people, but the rest of us seem to circulate easily and get to know each other.

Of course, I know you have won several awards for your writing and I’m already excited at the thought that this play – that in part at least you will be writing from Graduate House – might have its premiere in Melbourne. What else can you tell me about it at this stage?

It will be a play-with-music, as opposed to a musical play. By that I mean, when a character in a musical has so much emotion that speaking isn’t enough, they sing, so the songs advance the story the way monologues and dialogue do. But a play with music is just that: music is part of the world of the play, the way it can be part of real people’s lives. I have a sense that it will come to fruition maybe this year, possibly next year. And because everyone in it is Australian in one way or another, I would very much hope to be here for its development – and, ideally, the premiere performance.

What is the play that you came out here to research?

I was last in Melbourne briefly in 2018 and was walking along a street when the story of a play just ‘dropped out of the sky’ into my head, fully formed. I went into the restaurant I was heading for and pulled out my little notebook, and for the next hour-and-a-half I wrote the character’s story and backstory. It’s set during the Victorian gold rush period though is not about the gold rush per se. Researching from the States was difficult. Aside from Sovereign Hill in Ballarat, there was not a huge amount on the Internet about the world of the gold rush. There’s a lot about Eureka, but my play occurs the year before, so it doesn’t even factor. There were many references to books on the Internet – but I was unable to readily access them from the US. I’m also trying to research authentic Australian music from the era and this has not been possible from such a distance. So coming back to Melbourne to do my research was the only choice (and one I happily made). Perhaps it’s because of my performing background, but I also need to physically be where my characters live. My main character is a woman who has been very hard done-by, who ends up going into the goldfields around Clunes and staking a claim, and living as a man.

It's a story line not confined to the gold fields. Indeed, there are so many true-life situations in different times and contexts where this did happen.

It really did.

I certainly hope this will eventuate. Finally, you’ve said how much you are enjoying staying at Graduate House: how did you come to choose it?

As soon as Australia re-opened following the Covid lockdowns I got my visa and began looking around. Graduate House came up in my searches and the more I looked at it the more I was interested. But it’s hard reading something online without any other information, and I emailed an enquiry because I couldn’t figure out how to join the Graduate Union; it said you had to be a member to live in Graduate House. This was the beginning of ongoing correspondence with Priya. She is amazing! I put her through the wringer with my enquiries and she was always warm and informative. I eventually arrived here completely exhausted because my town in New Mexico was about to be evacuated due to encroaching bush fires so I had left sooner than planned. The days leading up to my departure were insane; in addition to evacuating, my car was “totaled” with me in it! I finally arrived here with the taxi leaving me at the bottom of the street, and with the help of a stranger I managed to get my luggage into the lobby, and sank into a chair. Una furtiva lagrima was playing and there was Priya behind the desk, and she made me feel so very welcome that my whirlwind travels faded away.

We truly do have the most wonderful staff – all of them. I’m sure you agree that this is the secret behind a successful residency.

It certainly is for me!