Miz Ima Starr is a drag-tastic singing cabaret phenomenon of stage and small screen and the comic creation of performer and filmmaker Charles Bracewell.
Her recent role as co-presenter of the Queer arts television series ‘Beauty and the Bear’ is the latest in a lifetime of revelatory televisual moments for this stunning drag-tastic chanteuse. The show recently completed its first season run on is screening nationally on Foxtel/Austar/Optus.
She stunned Australian TV audiences with three memorable appearances on Channel 7’s hit show ‘Australia’s Got Talent’, and has appeared as songbird and wit on over 20 New Zealand and Australian TV shows including ‘The Drum’, ‘Good Morning New Zealand’, ‘Nightline’, ‘2 Newsnight’ ‘AM Adelaide’, ‘A Bit After Ten’, and ‘Havoc’.
As an absolute career highlight, ‘60 Minutes’ in 1999 devoted a segment of the show to her journey through film, radio and live performance, describing Miz Ima Starr and her creator Charles Bracewell as a “Star on the Rise”.
Her legit film credits include ‘I’ll Make You Happy’, ‘Queen of Queens’, ‘Smart Buys’ and ‘Gorrrgeous Vonni’ – plus a ceaseless stream of underground shorts which can be found scattered across YouTube…
This workaholic drag supernova is currently wrapping production on her debut album ‘Start the Crescendo’ – the follow-up to her critically acclaimed ‘Pop Object’ EP, which was reviewed as “...pure pop genius” by DNA Magazine.
The first double-A-side single from the album is an up-to-the-minute rethink of her evergreen cabaret classic ‘American Pie’.
It also includes an all-new version of her one-and-only hit ‘Trippin’. A remake of the 90’s rock classic by New Zealand superband PUSHPUSH, the song hit number four on the alternative radio charts, was selected to be a part of the soundtrack for the hit Kiwi film ‘I'll Make You Happy’, and was released on the official soundtrack album by the legendary record labe Flying Nun.
But as fans will know, the heart of Miz Ima Starr’s artistic work is live cabaret, having toured eight shows to audiences across New Zealand and Australia.
Her first three shows ‘Sit On My Face Or Get Out Of My Life’, ‘I Lost It At The Movies’ and ‘Born Free’ all premiered at Auckland's Maidment Theatre. The latter two shows then toured successfully to the Wellington Fringe, and Born Free has since had eight more seasons across Australasia to rave reviews. In 2002 ‘Born Free’ was awarded Best Interstate Solo Show by dB Magazine.
Those with VERY long memories will recall that her first national tour of New Zealand was the outrageous girl-group send-up ‘Storm in a D-Cup’ with cult singing drag group The Drag Babies, which mixed live action and projected video to paint a vivid picture of a comeback tour gone disastrously wrong. ‘Interview with a Drag Queen’, her chat show at the Auckland Comedy Festival, also toured to the South Island of New Zealand, while her three nightclub revues toured small-towns in New Zealand for years.
After relocating to Australia from New Zealand in 2000, Starr made a huge splash at the Sydney Cabaret Convention, provoking Cabaret Hotline to declare that “...in an action-packed, ‘take no prisoners’ set, this performer sang, connected with the audience and provided the sort of spontaneous laughter that is the hallmark of a well-grounded professionalism”.
This was followed by her headline appearance in ‘Gender [Off]ender’ at the Sydney Opera House studio about which the Sydney Morning Herald wrote “An incredible voice, an incredible sense of interaction”.
At the 2003 Adelaide Cabaret Festival her bizarre tribute show ‘Bassey Your Ass Off’ was one of the first shows to sell out, and part two of her autobiographical cabaret trilogy ‘Welcome to Wherthehellawee!’ received a clean sweep of excellent reviews at the 2004 Adelaide Fringe.
her first disco cabaret extravaganza in a decade, ‘Up The Disco’, was commissioned for the 2005 Adelaide Cabaret Festival, and was a critically lauded show. 'Up The Disco’ was also the final part of her Twinkle Twinkle Ima Starr trilogy with ‘Born Free’ and ‘Welcome to Wherthehellawee!’.
She presented the first season of her interactive cabaret ‘You Asked For It’ at the 2006 Adelaide Fringe, about which DB Magazine wrote “...The girl’s got it, and it’s about time some television station executive with foresight realizes it giving Ima the broaer exposure she craves and richly deserves.”
And while she waits for THAT Lourdes-level miracle to happen, Miz Ima Starr has launched a rebooted, tenth year anniversary remount of her classic show ‘Born Free’ – renamed ‘Hello Miz American Pie’ - and was thrilled to be invited by the AROHA Festival to premiere it in New Zealand.