These are precarious times to be launching a new musical theatre production in Australia, with a clutch of major shows forced to cancel their national runs in recent weeks. But Marcia Hines is well acquainted with the risks. The 73-year-old is now reprising her role as The Diva in Velvet Inferno, the third iteration of the disco musical Velvet, which became an international hit after its 2015 debut.
It was a wildly successful vehicle of reinvention for the singer and TV personality, with the sequel show Velvet Rewired launching at the Adelaide Fringe Festival in 2020 before touring the country.
“I think it’s risky putting on anything,” Hines tells Stellar as we wander the backstage corridors of the Sydney Opera House, where Velvet Inferno launched earlier this week. “It’s all everyone is talking about, all of our friends who had plays that were closed. So many people [are] out of work.
“Look,” she adds, “this is a new show. But it’s tried and tested and it has a following. Fingers crossed, we’ll do well.”
Hines was practising resilience long before it became a buzzword. Since arriving in Australia from Boston at the age of 16 (and pregnant, though she didn’t realise until her third trimester) to star in the controversial ’60s musical Hair, she’s pivoted from the stage to fronting a swing band, and evolved from Australia’s Queen of Pop in the late-1970s to a long-time judge on Australian Idol.
She has an uncanny knack for being in the right place at the right time to align with the cultural Zeitgeist. Velvet Inferno lands as the disco revival continues to exert its influence on the sound of now.
Earlier this year, Harry Styles celebrated the 1970s and ’80s musical movement in the title
and songs of his fourth album, Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally. Madonna got back into the groove with her acclaimed return to her New York club roots on her new album Confessions II, and Kylie Minogue, Dua Lipa, Lady Gaga and Sabrina Carpenter have all given the disco ball a spin on recent records.
For Hines, who grew up alongside Donna Summer and her sister Linda in Boston, the genre’s resurgence is retribution for the vicious backlash, led by US rock DJs, that hastened its decline in the late 1970s. At an infamous Disco Demolition Night held at a Chicago stadium in 1979, albums including the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack (produced by Australian-British disco stars the Bee Gees) were tossed onto a bonfire.“The guys who were the most disliked at that time were the Bee Gees,” Hines recalls. “That was incredible to me. Can you imagine how hurtful that must have been to Barry Gibb? Your songs are like your children; you create them from the ground up.
“Disco came out of a very sad time, which was the Vietnam War, and it brought joy and escapism.
I found a lot of the music that came through disco was experimental,” she points out. “So it didn’t really deserve the hate it got.”
Velvet Inferno, which co-stars Brendan Maclean as club owner Country Mike and rising R’n’B star KYE as the wide-eyed ingénue Gloria, is set in a hedonistic nightclub inspired by the New York celebrity haunt Studio 54. Frequent guests at the infamous venues’ wild parties included Andy Warhol, Mick Jagger and then wife Bianca, and Grace Jones. Hines tells Stellar she went once – and that was enough.
“I didn’t like it. It was so debauched it was a bit… confronting. It was on another level,” she recalls.
“And I’m a Bostonian. I’m not a New Yorker. Bostonians, you know, that’s where the pilgrims come from. New Yorkers are crazy; we were more staid, respectful.”
But Hines did crazy things. At 15, she hitched a ride to the Woodstock festival in upstate New York, telling her mother she was tagging along to babysit a neighbour’s daughter. The neighbour and her child headed straight back to Boston when confronted by the sea of humanity, while the fearless teen singer stayed to soak up the counterculture vibe.
“I was fine and I was safe; it was during that ‘Make love, not war’ time, you know?” she says.
“No-one ever tried to abuse me, people fed us, and I ran into a girl, Lisa – we used to go to summer camp together – and we just hung out until it was over. When I got home, I was just filthy. I’d never been that dirty in my life.”
After her arrival in Australia, Hines grew up quickly. Not only did she have to learn her craft as a stage performer but also how to raise a child. Hines’ mother, Esme, eventually moved here to lend a hand so she could continue to work.
“I had a crazy, wild time growing up, but that ended because I didn’t want to have to confront my mother if I got busted doing something wrong. And most importantly, I was a parent. If I hadn’t had Deni, I wouldn’t be this person,” Hines says of her soul and R&B singer daughter, who’s now 55.
“Because when someone is relying on you for shelter, love, warmth, you have to lead by example, and I had an incredible mum, so I had to do the same. I had to step up.”
From Hair to Jesus Christ Superstar, the Australian Idol set to Velvet Inferno, Hines loves the backstage “madness” that fuels the magic of the performance.
But for one small moment every night, she has to escape the chaos of people warming up their voices and getting dressed to quell her nerves and centre herself, just as she has advised every Idol contestant for the past two decades.
“If you’re not nervous, there’s something truly wrong with you,” she says.
“I still get nervous every performance. Because I know what could go wrong and I know how I would like it to be. The trick is to try to stay in the moment. Just don’t think.”
Velvet Inferno is at the Sydney Opera House until September 13. Visit sydneyoperahouse.com