Seann Miley Moore needs a hug. It’s day four of rehearsals for rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch when InReview calls, and the show’s star is learning to embody its fierce anti-heroine who, let’s be honest, is a lot.
“My head is absolutely spinning!” says Moore.
“It’s a lot of craft and technique, but I’m under the great guidance of [co-directors] Shane [Anthony] and Dino [Dimitriadis], who are just kind of rejigging my head to get into the headspace that is Hedwig.
“It’s quick wit, it’s humorous, it’s biting. It’s definitely a complete 180-turn from the big grandness and the showiness that was [their last big production] Miss Saigon… it’s just me and a four-piece band and rock ’n’ roll, baby.”
Billed as “a primal scream of rage, lust and existence”, the new Australian production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch will premiere at the Adelaide Festival before touring to Melbourne and Sydney. It’s the latest incarnation of the show by John Cameron Mitchell (writer and actor) and Stephen Trask (music and lyrics) which started life in 1994 in New York drag-punk nightclub SqueezeBox and ultimately went on to win multiple Tony Awards when it reached Broadway 20 years later.
“Hedwig is the story of someone trying to find their place in the world,” says Dimitriadis. “They are chasing this dream of being seen and having the stardom that they feel they deserve. At its heart it’s an incredible, beautiful story of love and loss.”
The narrative arc is a little more difficult to fit in a nutshell. Audiences meet hedonistic genderqueer rock singer Hedwig while she is on a chaotic tour of the United States with her band The Angry Inch. The band is following her ex-lover and music protégé Tommy Gnosis, who is enjoying far greater fame as a rock star than Hedwig herself. Along the way, Hedwig shares snippets of her rollercoaster life, from growing up as a “slip of a girlyboy” named Hansel in Communist East Berlin, to a romance with an American soldier (Luther) that led to her botched gender reassignment surgery (hence the “angry inch”) before she travelled to the US, where she was forced to reinvent herself yet again after being dumped by Luther.
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It is, as Moore says, “a beast of a show”.
“We are definitely going to bring you all into the wonderful world of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and hold you hostage, let me say that,” they tell InReview, adopting a German accent.
“Whether you like it or not, this is Hedwig, so this is me, you know – she’s reclaiming power, reclaiming the stage and telling you her side of the story through the trials and tribulations of a song stylist rock ’n’ roll star, so, yeah, it’s a journey.”
Moore, a graduate of the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) who made the top 10 of The X Factor in the UK in 2015, then competed on The Voice in 2021 and Eurovision: Australian Decides in 2022, was last seen in Adelaide playing The Engineer (or “EnginQueer”) in Miss Saigon, a role that earned the performer a string of excellent reviews and also saw them win a Green Room Award for Best Actor.
When Moore saw Hedwig and the Angry Inch for the first time, they felt like they were seeing themselves through the screen.
Miley Moore says the musical is a ‘beacon of queer liberation’. Photo: Ryan Cara / Supplied
“We’re all trying to find our place in this world, and I’ve always sort of felt othered or different,” they explain, going on to quote Trask’s lyrics from the song “Midnight Radio” when Hedwig sings “All the misfits, and the losers, Well you know you’re rock and rollers, Spinning to your rock and roll”.
“What I’ve always done, Seann Miley Moore, in my career, is to be strong in myself, whatever anyone says, and wear what I want, sing what I want.”
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John Cameron Mitchell, who played Hedwig in both the original musical and the 2001 film (which can be streamed on ABC iview), has clarified that the character is genderqueer rather than transgender, having been coerced into her sex-change surgery.
Moore, who is of Filipino and British descent and spent time in Thailand and Indonesia as a child, says they come from a world “where we didn’t really have any kind of labels at all”.
“I think with Hedwig, people try to sort of box her but she is who she is, like with me. This is just who I am as well.
“But you know, all the power to my community and everyone who feels the power in genderqueer… I love that umbrella. It embodies all of it, which is what I am and what Hedwig is.”
Moore says this production draws inspiration from the grungy spirit of the queer club in which the show was born.
“During that time it was post-AIDS, the scene was kind of rebuilding and needing an outlet to reclaim their power, just as she [Hedwig] is doing in this show, and there was a lot of drag talent singing with a rock band for the first time,” says Moore, adding that YouTube clips of the drag artist Mistress Formica singing “You’ve got to fight for the right to be queer” give a taste of the scene.
“It’s messy, and it’s punk and she has something to say, and that’s birthed out of an abandonment from government, the world, a broken community, but really just standing up and being like, ‘We’re here”. That’s just really visceral… and that’s exactly where Hedwig was formed.”
Moore says the story, which in many ways taps into the current zeitgeist despite being written more than 30 years ago, is “a beacon of queer liberation, trans and non-binary spirit”.
At the same time, Hedwig’s search for love and acceptance is a story for everyone.
“You know, love is a human condition. We are constantly wanting to find our other half, to feel that completion and wholeness.”
Hedwig and the Angry Inch, presented by GWB Entertainment, Andrew Henry Presents and Adelaide Festival, will play at the Queen’s Theatre in Adelaide from February 18 until March 15 before touring to Melbourne and Sydney (dates yet to be announced).