One of the reasons why I started creating my solo show is so that I have a place to put all of the accents that I do.
I played piano for cabaret stars and stuff and then eventually moved from my hometown of Perth in Western Australia to Melbourne, and somewhere in there, I decided to book myself a room and do a cabaret show of my own material.
With stand-up, I can have an idea, go down the street to a comedy club and work on it, flesh it out, book a venue, people will come, then film it. I do all that myself; I never have to answer to anybody.
When I did the solo acoustic tour in 2010, I fell in love with that kind of performance.
I never imagined that I would have a successful solo career, let alone one in musical theater.
When you're doing a one-man play, you maybe rehearse for a month, and then you're just doing it an hour or two a night.
My deal will always be one solo performance-nominated or not. Not some thrown together rock tribute.
One of the things that gives me a lot of pleasure about both the solo show and the book is that it tells people about my dad. He really was an important man. He was a kind of pioneer of regional theater. He was the first American producer to ever produce all of Shakespeare plays.
When I write, I'm sort of old-fashioned in the sense that I like to write something that I feel I could just perform alone, obviously, because I do that a lot in concert.
I've always wanted to pull off 'No One is to Blame' by Howard Jones. I've done that a couple times in solo shows, but I can't figure out how to do that with a full band and make it work.
I've always been excited at the idea of performing a solo show.
