Singer Acts Out His Romance
An article about Mark Seymour taking up acting.
Author: Paul Stewart.
Date: 25 August 2002.
Original URL: (from newspaper).
By PAUL STEWART
LONG-TIME Melbourne rock musician Mark Seymour has fallen in love with acting and will star in a new theatre production at Chapel Off Chapel in Prahran this week.
“I am really enjoying the whole process,” Seymour said.
The singer and chief songwriter with the now defunct – but never forgotten – Hunters and Collectors, and also the author of two successful solo albums, said he had been interested in acting for some time.
“Over the past few years I auditioned for a number of serious acting roles, and even though I did not get the parts it really made me keen,” he said.
“I know a lot of singers and musicians take this career step and think they will somehow be a natural at it, but I have taken classes because I really want to learn how to act.”
Seymour said he was completing his first year in an acting course at the Victorian College of the Arts.
“I am pretty determined it is something I want to get more into,” he said. “Theatre is very confronting, as you step on stage and float through a story with no direct communication with an audience – unlike, say, when you are frontman in a rock band.
“It is very compelling thing.”
Seymour is taking part in Spumante Romantica, which is one of eight new plays being directed by VCA students.
He said he plays an old clock-shop owner in Vienna whose time is fast coming to an end.
“The director contacted the VCA looking for an older actor and my name was given to them,” Seymour said.
“The show is about my character Jerome’s slow decline into being incapacitated. “I know it sounds very serious, but it is actually a very funny show.”
Seymour said he was still performing music and would release his third solo album next year.
Spumante Romantica is at Chapel Off Chapel, 12 Little Chapel St, Prahran, on Thursday at 7.30pm. Bookings: 8290 7000.
[Provided by Jenelle Cleary]
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