By JOLENE OGLE
USUALLY the BCC Noosa Cinema projects stars onto the big screen, but duty manager Ashleigh Mueckenberger is a rising star all of her own.
Ashleigh recently sang at the Noosa Heads Surf Club sponsor breakfast where she blew away the crowd with her amazing voice and stole their hearts with her plea for help to achieve her dream.
Ashleigh has been accepted to attend the American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA) in New York, but with a $40,000 price tag for each year of study, Ashleigh is pulling out all the stops to make it to the big smoke.
“I hate asking for help. All my life, I have worked hard to get what I need and where I want to go,” she said.
“But I can’t get to New York without the help of the community.”
Ashleigh said so far the support of the community had been overwhelming with the Noosa Heads Surf Club pledging to help her “get to the airport, half-way across the ocean, or as far as they can”, and Ashleigh is working with local organisations, Rotary, who donated $1000, and community groups to help book future performances.
Ashleigh said she began singing in pre-school and could sing before she could talk.
“I was a bit of a loner in pre-school, so I would sit on my own and sing to myself,” she said.
“I guess I’ve just always sung. I’ve always had such a love for performing and music.”
The former Good Shepherd Lutheran College student said she was lucky to have teachers who nurtured her talents and encouraged her to dream big and never give up.
After graduation from school, Ashleigh auditioned for the National Institute for Dramatic Arts (NIDA) but was told, while she auditioned well, she needed more life and performance experience.
“I made it my goal from then on to do as much as I could to further my knowledge of life and the arts, to be able to audition again and get in,” Ashleigh said.
Since then, Ashleigh has performed in the Noosa Art Theatre’s production of West Side Story and she performed alongside councillor Frank Wilkie in David Williamson’s Managing Carmen at the Noosa Long Weekend festival.
But Ashleigh said a tour to South Africa as a back-up singer and dancer for local performer Rebecca O’Connor’s Tina Turner show, provided some serious life experience.
“We were driving to the casino to perform and it was just dirt roads, there was nothing but dirt everywhere. The people were living in homes that look like shipping containers. Then we pull up at the casino, which is just so expensive looking. It really opens your eyes,” she said.
“We couldn’t go anywhere on our own at any point. It was sometimes scary to be there.”
Ashleigh said its experiences like this which were helping to expand her skills and she could not wait to perform again.
“I just want to tell people stories and make them happy,” she said.
“The adrenaline rush you get from being on stage is amazing. I want to be an actress like Anna Hathaway who can act in Le Miserables and sing her heart out yet be a professional actress at the same time as honing all of her crafts, not just the one.”
Ashleigh, who can sing anything from jazz to opera, said auditioning for AMDA was a leap of faith, flying to Sydney for the one-day audition.
“The audition itself went really well. They said I had the perfect personality for the school and that I would thrive in the environment they had set up at AMDA. Not only that, but the audition itself was very rewarding,” she said.
Ashleigh has the drive and the passion, all that is left now is to raise enough funds to get her across the ocean, into the school and onto the stage.
