Damien Bermingham

Glaston Toft: Tell us about your character, Tony, in The Bodyguard?
Damien Bermingham: Tony is the loyal, well meaning bodyguard who has all the best intentions without necessarily all the skills required for such a big job as dealing with a crazed stalker.

Do you have a dressing room or other performance ritual?
My character doesn’t get to sing which is a new experience for me in a musical and even though at times it feels like more of a play than a musical for my character I still stick to my routine of doing a very thorough vocal warm up. Doing gentle vocal exercises in a steaming hot shower work best to get my voice warmed up.

What do you do in your downtime during the show?
I moonlight as an independent theatre producer so spend a lot of my downtime working on various theatrical endeavours.

What’s your favourite Whitney Houston song and why? Do you sing along while you’re off stage?
‘Run To You’ is my favourite Whitney song but I’ve had the Bodyguard soundtrack since 1993 so it’s fair to say I’m a fan of all of her work. I never realised until rehearsals started just how many Whitney songs I know all the words to. You can’t help but sing along.

What’s your dream role in musical theatre?
My bucket list of musical theatre roles would be Sweeney Todd or Don Quixote. If no one offers me those roles before I die I might just have to produce the shows myself to make sure it happens 😉

Glaston Toft

Damien Bermingham: Who is Glaston Toft and where did that unusual name come from?
Glaston Toft: I’m an actor currently performing in the musical The Bodyguard. I’m often told how unusual my name is. I think my parents were fans of the boardgame Scrabble. You should see what they came up with for my siblings!

Is it strange being cast in a musical and playing an acting role, not actually singing?
Certainly the rehearsal process was strange, having no time with the music department. But now that we’re up and running it’s not that different. I think in most musicals I’ve spent my time acting through song and text. I’m just doing it all in the latter category at the moment.

What’s it like hearing all those Whitney Houston songs night after night?
Paulini is a machine and a superstar… so listening to her breathe life into those great songs is a real treat. They are infectious songs, you can’t not lip syncing to them every night. The finale goes off!

How do you decorate your dressing room?
I don’t really decorate my dressing room as such. I do like to keep some mementos. Currently my door is pinned with notes from a fellow cast member reminding me that as an FBI agent I fail to do my job every night. It’s my motivation to keep looking!

What’s your dream role in musical theatre?
I find most people’s ‘dream roles’ are what they would be perfectly suited for. I’d love to play Judd Fry (Oklahoma), Bill Sykes (Oliver) or Sweeney Todd. I know the type of roles I’m suited to but I find it interesting to perform roles that are a bit against my ‘type’.

Damien Bermingham and Glaston Toft are appearing in The Bodyguard, the musical.
Dates: 21 Apr – 2 Jul, 2017
Venue: Sydney Lyric Theatre

Keane Fletcher

Ruverashe Ngwenya: Tell us about your role in We Will Rock You.
Keane Fletcher: My role in We Will Rock You is the Swing, which means I understudy all of the male ensemble members and have to be ready to go on for them at a moment’s notice. I also understudy two of the lead roles in the show, Galileo and Khashoggi.

Tell us about your favourite experience when you were touring the world with the Ten Tenors?
It’s hard to pick just one favourite experience with The Ten Tenors. I spent six years touring the world with them and in that time I got to visit so many beautiful countries and sing in some amazing venues. Performing for Oprah on Hamilton Island’s Whitehaven Beach was pretty amazing, as was singing for 60,000 people at the opening of the UEFA Cup in Warsaw, Poland. My time spent with them was an incredible experience and one I’ll never forget.

If you could invite six people, living or dead, to a dinner party at your house, who would they be?
Amy Winehouse, David Bowie, the writer Lorrie Moore, Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe (they could carpool) and, of course, Freddie Mercury. The world’s best dinner party followed by world’s worst hangover!

What’s your favourite holiday destination?
New Orleans baby! I’ve been lucky enough to go a few times, once for work but mainly for pleasure, and I still can’t get over how otherworldly and exciting it is. So many famous writers, playwrights and musicians have lived there and you can feel the impact the city must have had on them. There’s music pouring out of every corner, amazing food, so much voodoo and superstition, and you can drink on the street. What more could you want?

What is your favourite Queen song and why?
Bohemian Rhapsody, no question. It’s the first Queen song I remember listening to as a kid and so I can’t separate the nostalgia I feel for it from my general love for it musically, but I guess it doesn’t matter. Great music usually marks a moment in time for people and I think that’s why people love Queen so much, because their songs have become ingrained in all of our lives. If you hear Bohemian Rhapsody come on the radio and aren’t singing along by “thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening” then there’s something wrong with you.

Ruverashe Ngwenya

Keane Fletcher: Tell us about your role in We Will Rock You.
Ruverashe Ngwenya: My role in We Will Rock You is quite a versatile fun one! I start off the show playing the Gaga teacher/spy for Khashoggi and his “army”. I am very much a part of the law enforcement to ensure the rules and regulations are being followed by the students. I also am a part of the amazing ensemble and sing a lot of amazing music along with the cast. I also get to play the feisty diva, Bohemian Aretha, which is a lot of fun and a huge contrast from the Gaga teacher. I also understudy the role of Killer Queen.

You played the violin as a child. Do you still play in your spare time?
Yes, I did play the violin as a child! Wow thanks for the reminder haha. No I don’t still play – the violin was more like an introduction to music for me. It was how I learnt to read music, pick up the theory side of music and broaden my horizons as a musician, eventually finding my passion in singing and performance.

If you could invite three people, living or dead, to a dinner party at your house, who would they be?
They would have to be my grandmother who passed away when I was 9 along with Nelson Mandela and Michael Jackson.

What is the holiday destination you’ve always wanted to go to?
That is an impossible question to answer! There are so many places in the world I want to and WILL travel to (hahaha) mainly most of Africa. I really want to explore the continent and all its cultures and customs thoroughly. South America is high on the list! Brazil, Peru, Columbia, Argentina, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and definitely India when I’m older later in life – that’s the main list!

What is your favourite Queen song and why?
My favourite Queen song would have to be We Are The Champions – I absolutely love singing it! The song fills you with so much pride and happiness. When you sing it you just feel great! So uplifting!

Keane Fletcher and Ruverashe Ngwenya can be seen in We Will Rock You, the Queen musical.
Dates: 20 Apr – 26 Jun, 2016
Venue: Sydney Lyric Theatre

Dates: 10 Jul – 7 Aug, 2016
Venue: QPAC, Brisane

Dates: 30 Aug – 9 Oct, 2016
Venue: Regent Theatre, Melbourne