Rhonda Burchmore
Encyclopedia
Rhonda Suzanne Burchmore (born 15 May 1960) is an Australia
n entertainer.
Born in Sydney, Rhonda has been performing since the age of two, trained in singing, acting and dancing and was awarded a scholarship to the University of New England
where she majored in Theatre Arts.
She became internationally known for her role as Kate in the 1982 film, 'The Pirate Movie'.
Burchmore gave her first major Australian theatre breakthrough performance in the 1988 production of Sugar Babies
, opposite Garry McDonald
and Broadway theatre
performer Eddie Bracken
. Later that year, she reprised her role opposite Mickey Rooney
and Ann Miller
in London’s West End theatre
production. Whilst in the U.K she also starred in the revival of Stop the World – I Want to Get Off.
After a string of further stage performances, playwright David Atkins wrote a role especially for Burchmore in his tap dancing musical, Hot Shoe Shuffle. Then in 1997, she gave the Crown Casino
in Melbourne
its opening performance with her very own cabaret spectacular, Red Hot & Rhonda, playing to an audience of over 60,000. The year proved to be big for Burchmore, she also secured a role on Broadway in the Irving Berlin classic, Easter Parade
, and later appeared in another show, Stephen Sondheim
’s Into The Woods
.
After arriving back in Australia in 1998, Burchmore got straight to work on her first album, self titled Rhonda Burchmore. To date, she has released a total of 4 albums; Midnight Rendezvous, Live At The Melbourne Concert Hall, and Pure Imagination. She was also a regular guest on the long-running Australian variety show Hey Hey It's Saturday
.
In 1999, Burchmore secured the lead role in The Production Company’s first show, Mame. She would later receive the blessing of the show’s composer-lyricist Jerry Herman
, who commented that of all his shows, Mame is the most difficult character to cast. Fittingly, Herman was inspired to write the character after seeing his first Broadway show as a child, Annie Get Your Gun
, starring Ethel Merman
. This was a show that, years later, Burchmore would also perform to rave reviews in Australia.
Further roles would follow, including Adelaide in an Australian revival of Guys & Dolls, Tanya in the successful Mamma Mia
, Urinetown The Musical, Tom Foolery
, Respect: A Musical Journey of Women, and her own productions; Rhonda Burchmore Sings ‘n Swings, My Funny Valentines and Fever.
Other Australian stage credits include Song and Dance
, They're Playing Our Song
- as one of the alter egos, and Diana in Lend Me a Tenor
. With the Victorian Opera Rhonda won critical acclaim for her performances as Queen of the Fairies in Iolanthe
, Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus
with Joan Carden
, Ruddigore, and An Evening with Sondheim.
In 2008, Burchmore returned to the role she made so popular when The Production Company launched in 1999, receiving more glowing reviews and even a standing ovation for her portrayal of the title character in Mame.
Rhonda Burchmore and her husband have one daughter, Lexie. http://www.rhondaburchmore.com/index.html
, although it was later reattached.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n entertainer.
Born in Sydney, Rhonda has been performing since the age of two, trained in singing, acting and dancing and was awarded a scholarship to the University of New England
University of New England, Australia
The University of New England is an Australian public university with approximately 18,000 higher education students. Its original and main campus is located in the city of Armidale in northern New South Wales....
where she majored in Theatre Arts.
She became internationally known for her role as Kate in the 1982 film, 'The Pirate Movie'.
Burchmore gave her first major Australian theatre breakthrough performance in the 1988 production of Sugar Babies
Sugar Babies
Sugar Babies is a musical revue conceived by Ralph G. Allen and Harry Rigby, with music by Jimmy McHugh, lyrics by Dorothy Fields and Al Dubin and various others. The show is a tribute to the old burlesque era...
, opposite Garry McDonald
Garry McDonald
Garry George McDonald, AO is an Australian stage and screen actor.-Early life and career:McDonald was born in Sydney and was educated at Cranbrook School and National Institute of Dramatic Art....
and Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
performer Eddie Bracken
Eddie Bracken
Edward Vincent "Eddie" Bracken was an American actor.-Life and career:Bracken was born in Astoria, New York, the son of Catherine and Joseph L. Bracken. Bracken performed in vaudeville at the age of nine and gained fame with the Broadway musical Too Many Girls in a role he reprised for the 1940...
. Later that year, she reprised her role opposite Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award...
and Ann Miller
Ann Miller
Johnnie Lucille Collier, better known as Ann Miller was an American singer, dancer and actress.-Early life:...
in London’s West End theatre
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
production. Whilst in the U.K she also starred in the revival of Stop the World – I Want to Get Off.
After a string of further stage performances, playwright David Atkins wrote a role especially for Burchmore in his tap dancing musical, Hot Shoe Shuffle. Then in 1997, she gave the Crown Casino
Crown Casino
Crown Casino and Entertainment Complex is a large casino and entertainment precinct located on the south bank of the Yarra River, in Melbourne, Australia. Crown Casino is a unit of Crown Limited....
in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
its opening performance with her very own cabaret spectacular, Red Hot & Rhonda, playing to an audience of over 60,000. The year proved to be big for Burchmore, she also secured a role on Broadway in the Irving Berlin classic, Easter Parade
Easter Parade
Easter Parade is a 1948 American musical film starring Judy Garland and Fred Astaire, featuring music by Irving Berlin, including some of Astaire and Garland's best-known songs, such as "Steppin' Out With My Baby" and "We're a Couple of Swells."...
, and later appeared in another show, Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...
’s Into The Woods
Into the Woods
Into the Woods is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. It debuted in San Diego at the Old Globe Theatre in 1986, and premiered on Broadway in 1987. Bernadette Peters' performance as the Witch and Joanna Gleason's portrayal of the Baker's Wife brought acclaim...
.
After arriving back in Australia in 1998, Burchmore got straight to work on her first album, self titled Rhonda Burchmore. To date, she has released a total of 4 albums; Midnight Rendezvous, Live At The Melbourne Concert Hall, and Pure Imagination. She was also a regular guest on the long-running Australian variety show Hey Hey It's Saturday
Hey Hey It's Saturday
Hey Hey It's Saturday was a long-running variety television program on Australian television. It initially ran for 27 years , debuting on the Nine Network on 9 October 1971 and broadcasting its last episode on 20 November 1999. Its host throughout its entire run was Daryl Somers, who would later...
.
In 1999, Burchmore secured the lead role in The Production Company’s first show, Mame. She would later receive the blessing of the show’s composer-lyricist Jerry Herman
Jerry Herman
Jerry Herman is an American composer and lyricist, known for his work in Broadway musical theater. He composed the scores for the hit Broadway musicals Hello, Dolly!, Mame, and La Cage aux Folles. He has been nominated for the Tony Award five times, and won twice, for Hello, Dolly! and La Cage...
, who commented that of all his shows, Mame is the most difficult character to cast. Fittingly, Herman was inspired to write the character after seeing his first Broadway show as a child, Annie Get Your Gun
Annie Get Your Gun (musical)
Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music written by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley , who was a sharpshooter from Ohio, and her husband, Frank Butler.The 1946 Broadway production...
, starring Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman was an American actress and singer. Known primarily for her powerful voice and roles in musical theatre, she has been called "the undisputed First Lady of the musical comedy stage." Among the many standards introduced by Merman in Broadway musicals are "I Got Rhythm", "Everything's...
. This was a show that, years later, Burchmore would also perform to rave reviews in Australia.
Further roles would follow, including Adelaide in an Australian revival of Guys & Dolls, Tanya in the successful Mamma Mia
Mamma Mia!
Mamma Mia! is a stage musical written by British playwright Catherine Johnson, based on the songs of ABBA, composed by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, former members of the band. Although the title of the musical is taken from the group's 1975 chart-topper "Mamma Mia", the plot is fictional, not...
, Urinetown The Musical, Tom Foolery
Tom Foolery
Tom Foolery is a musical revue based on lyrics and music that Tom Lehrer first performed in the 1950s and 1960s.Devised and produced by Cameron Mackintosh, it premiered in London at the Criterion Theatre, directed by Gillian Lynne, on 5 June 1980, where it had a successful run...
, Respect: A Musical Journey of Women, and her own productions; Rhonda Burchmore Sings ‘n Swings, My Funny Valentines and Fever.
Other Australian stage credits include Song and Dance
Song and Dance
Song and Dance is a musical comprising two acts, one told entirely in "Song" and one entirely in "Dance", tied together by a love story.The first part is Tell Me On A Sunday, with lyrics by Don Black and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, about a young British woman's romantic misadventures in New York...
, They're Playing Our Song
They're Playing Our Song
They're Playing Our Song is a musical with a book by Neil Simon, lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager, and music by Marvin Hamlisch.In a story based on the real-life relationship of Hamlisch and Sager, a wisecracking composer finds a new, offbeat lyricist, but initially the match is not one made in heaven...
- as one of the alter egos, and Diana in Lend Me a Tenor
Lend Me a Tenor
Lend Me a Tenor is a comedy by Ken Ludwig. The play was produced on both the West End and Broadway . Although it received seven Tony Award nominations, it won only one, for Best Actor. A Broadway revival opened in 2010. Lend Me a Tenor has been translated into sixteen languages and produced in...
. With the Victorian Opera Rhonda won critical acclaim for her performances as Queen of the Fairies in Iolanthe
Iolanthe
Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy operas and is the seventh collaboration of the fourteen between Gilbert and Sullivan....
, Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus
Die Fledermaus
Die Fledermaus is an operetta composed by Johann Strauss II to a German libretto by Karl Haffner and Richard Genée.- Literary sources :...
with Joan Carden
Joan Carden
Joan Carden AO OBE is an Australian operatic soprano. She has been described as "a worthy successor to Dame Nellie Melba and Dame Joan Sutherland" and was sometimes known as "the other Joan" or "The People's Diva"...
, Ruddigore, and An Evening with Sondheim.
In 2008, Burchmore returned to the role she made so popular when The Production Company launched in 1999, receiving more glowing reviews and even a standing ovation for her portrayal of the title character in Mame.
Rhonda Burchmore and her husband have one daughter, Lexie. http://www.rhondaburchmore.com/index.html
Trivia
During her appearance on the Spicks And Specks Christmas special aired in Australia 16 December 2007, Rhonda revealed that in her youth she cut off one of her toes on a toilet bowl she broke while dancing to the song CocaineCocaine (song)
"Cocaine" is a song written and recorded by JJ Cale in 1976 and most widely known in a cover version recorded by Eric Clapton. Allmusic calls the latter "among [Clapton's] most enduringly popular hits" and notes that "even for an artist like Clapton with a huge body of high-quality work, 'Cocaine'...
, although it was later reattached.