In Development

Camelia

Camelia was a young Egyptian movie star who lived a short but action-packed life in Cairo and Alexandria in the late 1940s. She made many movies, was rumoured to have had an affair with King Farouk, bore a child, and died in a suspicious aeroplane crash in the desert in her early twenties. But who was Camelia really, and what were the forces, social, and political, that swirled about her in this postwar period?

Current status

After struggling to secure funding for this project, we are putting it on pause for now. Here’s the 2022 Her Canberra story on our work on Camelia.

Background

But the story of this project extends much further back.

Ian Batterham began work on Camelia in 2012, having long been interested in Egypt and the world of this story. His skills as a researcher and extensive background as an archivist provided the ideal platform on which to build this project. Ian invited Dianna Nixon to undertake creative development tasks on the work to look at his early drafts of this music theatre work. He had drafted some dialogue sequences interspersed with ideas for songs, some of which were later arranged for piano and string ensemble by various local composers.

These creative development processes revealed that what was needed was a rigorous approach to developing the dramatic impetus of the work, and creating a sound world that truly represents the time and place in which this story is set. There was also a pressing need to bring cultural awareness to the work, by bringing on creatives with the appropriate skills and background.

Camelia, the persona, has a unique story, and Lilian Cohen (her real name) is a fascinating character. A great work of music theatre is a highly integrated work of art, where music, text, drama, dance, design intersect and work together to create a unique world for the audience. This is how the great and long-lived music theatre works were created, and why they draw audiences for long seasons, and in many countries, and have a very long life. So that was our challenge.

In 2016 and 2017 creative development processes were financed by Ian Batterham, and supported by The Street Theatre. Those processes explored some dialogue sequences and song elements that Ian had created. The team of artists assembled on those creative developments provided valuable insight and suggestions for the work.

The concept, the main character, and the world of this work is fascinating and rich with possibility, that was clear. However, we needed to develop a strong ‘why’ for the work, and a dramatic impetus that would be strong enough to justify it being made into a stage musical. We needed to find a team with appropriate and specific cultural understanding, personal experience, and considerable professional experience in composition and lyric writing.

Who we met on the way

Sometimes, though a project might not get off the ground, relationships are formed on that journey, such as with the following remarkable artists.

In 2023 we hosted Hayat Selim in Australia, exploring if there might be something in this musical concept. Here’s what Helen Musa said about Hayat Selim in her 2023 City News article. And from Jessica Cordell in Canberra Weekly. During that 2023 trip, Hayat worked with Dianna Nixon, as collaborative pianist, to present a concert program at The Street in Canberra. Here’s Hayat Selim on Street Talk.

Hayat Selim – composer, singer and musician. Hayat is a media composer and singer-songwriter from Cairo. Having graduated with a masters in composition for screen from the Royal College of Music, she is now based in London. In 2019 Hayat’s song Mirage (for the short film by Lena Srinivasan) was nominated in the Best Song category of the Jerry Goldsmith Awards 2019. See the embedded video. In 2020 she was commissioned to be the singer and lyricist for Sonuscore and Steinberg’s Ethnic Vocal Phrases virtual instrument library. Hayat writes and performs music for film, games and TV in parallel with her own song releases. Her work, and her voice, can be heard in the Grand Egyptian Museum, Cairo, as well as on numerous soundtracks.

Vidya Makan – Dianna saw Vidya perform one of her own brilliant songs, Hugh Jackman, at Chapel Off Chapel in 2019 as part of the Home Grown series. Vidya then came to Canberra to participate in a music theatre creative development project at The Street Theatre. Vidya was very much in demand, until Covid shut the arts down, including bringing the Australian production of Six to a sudden halt, in which Vidya played Catherine Parr. Thankfully, Six was able to tour again after shutdown, with Vidya on board. Vidya’s skills as lyricist and songwriter, and her deep understanding of music theatre performance bring another very strong element to the team. Vidya spent much of 2024 as Australia’s Eliza in Hamilton. 2023 saw her original musical The Lucky Country premiere at The Hayes Theatre, and it tours to Brisbane and Melbourne later in 2025. Vidya was a cast member in the musical, Bloom, for both Melbourne Theatre Company and Sydney Theatre Company.

Vidya directed, produced and wrote the viral sensation I NEED YOU TO SEE ME; a call to action to the entertainment industry for visibility and inclusion, featuring 101 BIPoC and CALD performers aged 18-25. Vidya has been commissioned by the likes of NGV and Chips & Gravy; writing songs for the Screen Australia funded comedic web series She Becomes Her. Other performance credits include: Hayes Theatre’s Merrily We Roll Along, Altitude Theatre’s Once On This Island, Dot/Marie in Sunday In The Park With George (Watch This) earning her a Green Room nomination for Best Performance In A Leading Role, Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet (Australian Shakespeare Company), the Australian tour of Green Day’s American Idiot (Shake & Stir). Vidya is a proud graduate of the Queensland Conservatorium’s Bachelor of Musical Theatre and holds minority storytelling at the heart of all of her work.

Work done

We held a fundraiser via the Australian Cultural Fund website, which partly financed the artistic residency by Hayat Selim in Canberra in early February 2023. The residency included a performance and Q and A given by Hayat (accompanied by Dianna Nixon), and a screen composition masterclass at the ANU School of Music. artsACT supported Dianna’s work on this project. Find out more about this on the Mirage page.

What next?

While we are walking away from this project for now, we are keeping it on our website in case a new idea and team emerges in the future.