\u201cWaikato to the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
From Hamilton to the Opera House<\/p>\n
At school in Hamilton, Jacobs was academic and involved, the student who turned up to everything. <\/p>\n
Debates, councils, committees. <\/p>\n
Drama, by comparison, was never that serious to her.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just the one place I could relax,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t something I was trying to pursue. It was just fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of her earliest theatre memories sits somewhere between painful and funny.<\/p>\n
It was a Year 10 audition for Peter Pan at a small local theatre. She went in convinced she would land Wendy.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then the audition was so bad that by the end it just felt awkward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite this, she was offered a role, just not the one she had imagined.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were like, you can be an ostrich in the back if you like.\u201d<\/p>\n
It did not sting so much as it clarified things. At that point, acting was not a dream. <\/p>\n
Alisha Jacobs at Made.<\/p>\n
A tough first year out<\/p>\n
That changed later, through training and persistence, but the reality of the industry hit quickly.<\/p>\n
After graduating from drama school in Wellington in 2023, Jacobs returned home to Hamilton and walked into a sector still recovering. <\/p>\n
Funding cuts, fewer productions, uncertainty about what was next.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt felt quite hopeless. You\u2019re looking around going, \u2018If all of this is getting cut, what\u2019s left?\u2019,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Then, international productions were starting to return, which on paper sounded promising to an aspiring actor.<\/p>\n
In practice, it was more complicated.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey bring in their own people for the main roles,\u201d Jacobs said. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then the rest of us, even if we\u2019re trained, you\u2019re kind of looking at glorified extras.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t do three years of drama school for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
She received advice to take it in her stride and treat the first year out as a \u201cfourth year\u201d of training, learning how the industry actually works. <\/p>\n
While she understood that, it didn\u2019t make it easier to watch.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou see actors who have been in it for years still going for the same roles you are,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you\u2019re like, okay, something here doesn\u2019t quite add up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alisha Jacobs at Found, Hamilton.<\/p>\n
Talent or followers<\/p>\n
Layered over that was another frustration: There were not only not many roles in New Zealand, but those that were available, Jacobs found \u201cquite stereotypical\u201d.<\/p>\n
Looking at roles overseas, she feels that social media had become part of the selection criteria.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re told to focus on your craft, be a good actor, do the work,\u201d Jacobs said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut at the same time, you\u2019re also thinking about your social media, your engagement, your followers. Because that can actually affect decisions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve heard stories where it comes down to two people and they\u2019re pretty equal, and then it\u2019s like, okay, who has more followers, who has more engagement, and that person gets the job.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s wild.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt becomes a bit of a power play.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it\u2019s not always about performance.\u201d<\/p>\n
In New Zealand, she said, things were more focused on the work.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re still quite good here. You get cast because you\u2019re a good performer or because you\u2019ve done strong work before.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alisha in Hamilton.<\/p>\n
A wider world view<\/p>\n
Looking at the world with a broader lens is not new for Jacobs.<\/p>\n
Born in Hamilton, she spent much of her childhood in India.<\/p>\n
\u201cI grew up there for about 10 years. So I\u2019ve always had that kind of dual perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n
It came with an early understanding that the world of storytelling was much bigger than New Zealand.<\/p>\n
Alisha Jacobs in Balloon Dog.<\/p>\n
\u201cI grew up on a healthy dose of Bollywood,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom a really young age, I knew there was so much more out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
That sense of scale, and possibility, has stayed with her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do want to see the world,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Balloon Dog is touring Australia and New Zealand from May 16 until July 5.<\/p>\n
The play will come to Hamilton\u2019s Clarence St Theatre on May 21 and 22. <\/p>\n
Tom Eley is a multimedia journalist at the Waikato Herald. Before he joined the Hamilton-based team, he worked for the Weekend Sun and Sunlive. He previously worked as a journalist at Black Press Media in Canada and won a fellowship with the Vancouver Sun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWaikato to the world.\u201d From Hamilton to the Opera House At school in Hamilton, Jacobs was academic and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[6876,208914,95,1975,83328,9219,5136,156,6288,10053,117157,28139,13631,111,139,69,90,44525,13018,83730,1734],"class_list":["post-405792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-actress","tag-alisha","tag-and","tag-at","tag-balloon","tag-dog","tag-drama","tag-entertainment","tag-hamilton","tag-house","tag-jacobs","tag-kid","tag-never","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-opera","tag-performing","tag-supposed","tag-sydney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}