The triple threat who grew up hating musicals is now starring in one
Growing up, Georgia Laga’aia was adamant about one thing. “I was like, I am never going to do musicals,” she says. “I hate musical theatre.”
It was just something she had decided, she says, as we settle into a chat at the Arts Centre, where she is appearing in Dear Evan Hansen. At 19, Laga’aia plays Zoe Murphy, one of the leads in the show – which is, without question, a musical. It marks her main stage debut and, contrary to what her younger self expected, she is revelling in the experience.
Singer and actor Georgia Laga’aia.Credit: Paul Jeffers
Nominated for nine Tony awards after its Broadway launch in 2016, Dear Evan Hansen won six, including best musical, best book and best score. A coming of age story, it centres on Evan Hansen – played in the local production by Beau Woodbridge – an anxious teen who finds himself part of a grieving family embroiled in a complex charade.
Despite this being her first major professional show, Laga’aia was not “super nervous”.
“Dean [Bryant], our director, gave us so much freedom with how we built our characters, and so I feel like there’s a lot of myself in Zoe, which means that when I’m performing, there is a lot of truth to it … Some days it just feels like I’m just standing on the stage with an American accent, doing what I would normally do.”
Hours before we meet, The Age published a four-star review of the Melbourne production, not that Laga’aia has seen it. “My dad tells me not to read the reviews,” she says. “Interesting, good or bad, he is like, ‘Just don’t pay attention to it. You just do your work and you’ll be right.’”
Jay Laga’aia with daughters Georgia, Katie and Bella in 2015.
It’s good advice, coming from any father, but her dad has particular insights: he is New Zealand-Australian actor/singer Jay Laga’aia, known for roles in the Star Wars films, Play School, local series Water Rats, and long-running soap Home and Away. Her mother, Sandra, is a deputy principal at the Balmain campus of Sydney Secondary College.
As Georgia takes on her first major touring role, her older brother Tana is performing as Peter in the acclaimed Jesus Christ Superstar, brother Iosefa is in rehearsals for Hadestown, and her 17-year-old sister, Catherine, has been cast as Moana in the live action Disney movie of the same name.
