It never ends. You never stop being a student. I think that's a life lesson for authings, but absolutely certainly as an artist, I don't think you ever stop being a student. But I want to think about really enjoying and owning the moment. I want to think about what sort of legacy I'm going to lead, what sort of relationships I have. I'm doing that now so that when I hit ninety.
I go, oh God, I wish, I wish, Yeah, I wish.
I don't want any wishes. You know, there's no middle grounds on a lot of things, but on what it is to be human. The complexity of humanity can't be black and white.
Welcome to the seas the Yay Podcast.
Busy and happy are not the same thing. We too rarely question what makes the heart seeing. We work, then we rest, but rarely we play and often don't realize there's more than one way. So this is a platform to hear and explore the stories.
Of those who found lives. They adore the good, bad and ugly, The best and worst day will bear all the facets of seizing your yay. I'm Sarah Davidson or a spoonful of Sarah, a lawyer turned funentrepreneur who swapped the suits and here to co found Matcha Maidan and Matcha Milk Bark CZA is a series of conversations on finding a life you love and exploring the self doubt, challenge, joy and fulfillment along the way. Welcome back, Lovely Ahborhood.
Oh my goodness, may it is not settling into my brain that it's twenty twenty three, let alone the end of January. We had the loveliest much needed break, But we're back in a big way and have such an
exciting year planned for you all. Our first in real life event is already booked in for the sixteenth of feb for the Melbourne Neighborhood to begin with now that we have ang back on board properly to help with all of our yeah Pood activities, So stay tuned in this episode and on socials for more details on that.
On that note, you'll be getting a dose of Yeas of our lives every fortnight from now on, and in next week's episode, we will follow up on Angre's huge revelations from her anonymous Q and a episodes our reflections on last year, our hopes and dreams for this year, how we're feeling going into twenty twenty three, all that new year you me type jazz. But for now we have our first guest episode for the year, and as you'll hear, we are so lucky to have access to
this incredible voice, as it's a very precious one. We're starting the year on a musical note with the incredible Josh Pittiman, musical theater performer and classical crossover artist who also just happens to be at this very moment, the actual Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera. During my research, I read an older article where Josh was asked his biggest dream in the industry, and it was to play
the Phantom. Nobody listening will be surprised that the way his path YAY has developed since then makes me so very happy, not least because I actually have known Josh for quite a few years now, and even more true to CZA form is the fact that he didn't even fancy himself a career in the arts until later than
you'd expect. A diversions in his career along the way, including opening a fitness studio of all things, and so much more before finding he's ultimate ya And if you've heard him sing, you'll know he is exactly where he's meant to be. I found it so fascinating to hear all about what it actually takes to sing professionally, how to protect your voice. By the way, he doesn't speak outside of performing very often to protect that voice. So I'm very grateful that he used an hour on CZDA,
how he trains for shows and everything in between. So I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did. Josh Pitterman, Welcome to Cca.
Thanks Sarah, thanks for having me mate.
I'm so excited you are our first guest back for the News.
I feel honored, privileged.
I feel honored and privilege. We have known each other. I was actually trying to work this out last night. How long have we known each other? Many many years. I don't even know how we met, but I feel like it's been many years and many chapters.
Well, I think it's Macha milkba. I was just working it out in the way here. Really, yeah, I think that's how actually it. I think it's a green burger?
Is it a green burger?
Green burger?
I mean many a friendship blossomed and a blue algae lot. I mean, this is one of my favorite kinds of episodes because when you have known someone for a while and you've been able to follow lots of different chapters of their journey, it's so exciting to be able to show people that you know people who meet you. Now you're in like the cream of the crop role. You're doing what I know has been a dream for you
for a really long time. It would be really easy to think you always knew you in an IPR, that you woke up like this, that there was no you know, there were no twist and turns along the way. But we've kind of been there for quite a few of each other, so it's really cool. Yeah I have been there then, but be be able to see how much you're flourishing now.
Thank you.
And it is funny that people do just think that you rock up one day and you can just do all that you can just oh, you rock up one day and play the Phantom and that's.
Like that's where it all starts.
Yeah, at the opera House.
Or in London or whatever. It just doesn't work like that.
Yeah, And it's always like such a joy when you've been able to see even a small part of someone's it was an overnight success, but like ten twenty years in the making. To have been there for any of that is so exciting because it's even more thrilling when you get to see you doing it now. It's like, yes, he hasn't worked so.
Hard for this, Yeah, And there are so many trials and troops and with everyone's journey and mine included, and the rollercoaster ride of it all. And then there's something that I feel that is not unique, and that is just really like just discipline, hard work for a really really long time. I think that's like old fashion now sometimes I feel like, yeah, but you know, I don't think we live in a society of like immediacy and entitlement and that and people, you know, so many opportunities for
overnight success. Yeah, whether that's staying success remains to be seen. And sometimes it works for people really, but often it doesn't. But there are so many opportunities, especially in talent, you know, the Voice, Saw X Factor Australia has got to all these sort of show all around the world that like throw people into the spotlight so quickly, give them this like sort of instant stardom. Sadly not a lot of
those things continue on for people. So I've always taken the traditional routinum, never gone on one of those things, and always wanted to just like slow burn it to a point where I'm proud of what I'm doing. I'm proud all the way, but like you know, to reach a goal like yeah, so I'm glad it's worked out.
I love that so much. And the great privilege on this show is the ability to, in a longer form, Chad, to actually go back to the very beginning and trace all those chapters of your life and remind people like
you had to start at school one day. You know, everyone was a kid once with hopes and dreams, and particularly in the arts, and as you mentioned in Talent, you know, so many people start with big dreams as kids, but most people drop those dreams of going into the arts because it is so difficult, it is so competitive, and it's not your conventional like you know, the career pathway isn't necessarily as straightforward as other jobs. So yes, it's amazing that you've been able to actually keep going
through that. So I would love to take you all the way back to the start and kind of trace through the chapters it took to get you there with a couple of diversions that I was also there for into fitness, like all kinds of things. But the very first question I always break the ice with is what the most down to earth thing is about you? And I feel like I did not expect a Western bulldog's tattoo to be the first thing that Caine spotted when you walked in and sat down, Ye tell us about it.
So it was a dare no, yeah, but it's a long term dere Like when I was like fourteen, you know, mates would say, oh, if you win, you know, just because the Bulldogs are like, notoriously not a team to win the premiership. I mean pre twenty sixteen, it was nine fifty four.
So yeah, I'm a d supporter, so I totally yeah, So.
Its a safe dear. Second to that was something far more emotional. My dad and I have always gone to footy together since probably the mid to late nineties. Okay, so I'm thirty seven now, so from the age of maybe eleven or twelve that was Dad and Josh time.
So you know, we started really for us when when the Bulldogs moved to what was then Optus Oval at Princess Park Icon Stadium Now they were there for a couple of years between Witten Oval and what what's Colonial Stadium which is now oh my god, Cologue Colonial, Yeah, yeah, which now was called Docklands Marvel. And so that was our time together. In twenty and thirteen Dad was diagnosed with cancer and I was performing in the UK at the time and Dad's a doctor professor of medicine. He's,
you know, patriarchal for our family. Those people don't get ill, you know what I mean, like in your in your mind, they just in your heart, they're always there. But he's such a beacon, he's so strong, and he's the advisor, he's the wise one. To see him have frailty was hard.
The cancer sort of expanded in twenty sixteen. We weren't sure what was going to happen next and what drug was going to be available, drug wasn't working whatever, and so in my mind that could have been the last time he went to the footy together, that Grand Final, and so yes, it was a dare to get this tattoo, but it was also for me a reminder of a potential reminder of that time with my dad. Now I
love Yeah, I love that too. My dad didn't because he's the son of Holocaust survivors who have oh my god tattoos on them. That was like he loved it and hated it at the same time. I think still does or whatever. But for me, it's it's a reminder and thankfully he got in a trial drug and the child drugs has kept him going for another you know, six or so years. He still battles through every day, but we still got him, and that's the beautiful thing
about him. So it's always a reminder of just my journey of going to the footy each week with my dad and what that means for my relationship with my dad, so which I never really get to explain. It's just like I've got a bit of bogn on me.
And I love that. We literally diminished it to a Bogan touching for a dare.
Yeah, but this beautiful. So it is really beautiful.
I don't often share it because you know that, yeah, but I think it's appropriate to ship.
You need a little postcard that I got next one. Anytime anyone asked about it, just be like, just read, just just read the background.
I think what sums it up is that day when we won the premiership. I took a sort of selfie video as the siren went and I was just in tears. Somehow we'll get that video. I'll get that to you, and it is so Yeah, it was really really emotional. It's just Dad and I and I give him sorry, I give the biggest it's just yeah, it's just a lot. So I hope yeah, people get to see that because, oh my god, sorry, but it's beautiful.
Yeah. I love my dad a lot.
Oh my god, I'm so so pleased to hear that the medication is working and that's wonderful news is oh my gosh, and so much more than Bogan tattoo.
So much more.
That's going to be the name of your book. So much more than a Bogan tattoo.
There we go. I love that.
Well, thank you so much for sharing.
Tho we went deep dives so quick.
No, I'm like a minute three and a half. Yeah, but that's actually really really interesting as a place to start, having a dad who is a doctor, and even more so as a child of Holocaust survivors and knowing than being your grandparents as well. Tell us about your childhood and what that was like and if you did have any expectations of the life you would lead and the career you would have or what you would become.
Yeah, no expectations of being in the performing arts. Grew up in Campbell till us twelve, moved to East and Kilda at the height of prostitution.
Just for you.
Yeah, so I just remember moving in day and I was like, who are those women on house?
Yeah, I learned about that real.
Quick, so just ran interruption. I was at the Australian Ballet. But before that I was at the National Theater right around the same era, and our parents when they had to come and pick us up, like they locked the doors and they had to do a little code because it was like, you know, junkie prostitute era ofs in Kilda. Yeah, it was in its intense era.
Someone was telling me a story recently about how their dance troup would do their shows at the National Theater and the girls would come out after doing the show like fully fully made up, and people would think that they had to like streak them away. Yeah yeah, yeah. So that's where I grew up and went to school at Wesley College. Was very spawty and quite academic at the start of school, and you know, we just wanted
to be a good student and be good sportsman. Really, music didn't play it much of a part, not at all. I played a bit of guitar. Mum and Dad made me have piano lessons growing up when I was like five. I wasn't really interested in it, but it helped me because it enabled me to have music as a second language, you know that I can I can read and whatever, but just wasn't really into it. Like sport was so dominant, tennis, cricket, footy, basketball,
all that. So just like really typical sort of chucky you know, Melbourne boy. But yes, grew up with parents who were the kids of Holocaust survivors and so that played a big part in my life, you know, like going to shove up dinners on Friday nights and hearing those stories and so like. There was a not like a religious Jewish upbringing, but certainly a sort of traditional like secular Jewish upbringing. But mits for and all that sort of stuff, did you Yeah, yeah, all of that.
Had the function of.
They're on leonder, like the two places and everyone has them.
But I swear to God, there was a lot of twelve year olds who were drunk, like yeah, that wasn't Yeah, I think inappropriate things happened at that that bumts.
Mine.
There was a lot of gardens and like a lot of like I just remember like kids like sneak under the alcohol tables like grab stuff and then like a race into the guard and it's.
Like you're twelve third what are you doing? Like I'm down?
Anyway, that was a time, so no sort of thoughts about that, And it wasn't until like, in terms of my music journey, year ten got really into Michael Jackson, which is now like are you allowed to get too my like you can't, don't care?
Very difficult, isn't it. It's a very difficult time.
Can we?
Can we not be that binary? Like can we and.
Like like separate the artist from the Yeah, yeah, still bangers galore, still tear up on the dance floor, But.
I feel like you don't hear as much Michael Jackson as I used to. Here absolutely airways don't play it like yeah anyway.
I have also read that your favorite dance move is the moonwork.
So I learn how to moonwalk, right, Basically I had to learn.
How to actually documented on the internet.
Yeah, many times did the moonwalk in the school cam got tapped on the shoulder by a guy called Dawson Hand who had been directing the school musicals. Fabulous English teacher and human but he directed the school musical is at Wesley for thirty years or whatever, and he said you could be really useful, and I was like, sure, like I'll do that.
The sporty jock.
Yeah, but I was always like definitely a yes.
Man, okay, and.
And so yeah, seize the AA and moonwalk for you know, the panel and seeing some stuff. And so I did fame the musical and just was like, this is awesome. I'm going to change my chemistry and maths and potential study of medicine or physiotherapy or something in that world and just like focus on arts. So U twelve comes around and all I can think of is like, what's the school musical. It's Jesus kind of superstar. I played Judas and it was I was terrible on reflection.
Now, that is what I would like. Some footage jobs I would love.
Is a DVD of it somewhere there is.
I have to get my hands on it because it's terrible, Like I just remember some like seeing that DVD. It like sort of when I was early at UNI watching it with some people in my year, and I spent so much of the show in like a sumo squad, Like why was that my choice of position to sing in just like this sort of sort of desperate like yearning, but sumo squad.
Maybe you were trying to like open your lungs like maximals. It was like planting in the ground.
It was a bum.
Charkra That's what it was. It was like real shark stuff. Anyway, So I just but anyway, I loved it, decided that's one hundred percent what I want to do. Audition for all the academies and stuff, got into the one that's in Ballarat, and then sort of began my artistic journey. But I wasn't a singer or an actor or a dancer like I just was really passionate about all of it and was taking all this new information about or like my God, like Lame is a raw Phantom of
the opera, all these like west Side Story, all these musicals. Wow, well, I like just like taking it all in like it was I was like a new sponge, whereas everyone else in the academy who got in. There's probably one other guy similar to me, but everyone else had like whether into musicals or not, they're into singing, dancing, actor. Yeah yeah, and they had been doing it for a long time, so I was way back.
That was one of my main questions. Do you think that you have to be I mean now hearing your voice, I don't think that you could learn that, like you can hone it, but you must have had a voice box to sing. But do you think you're born with those skills or do you think that you can come into it as a total outsider and then grow those skills because I think your turn's quite late in the performing arts.
Well really I was. I think I was like sixteen when I first like sung, So two things. I don't think it's that once ago. I don't think it's that binary. I think if you are musical in some sense and you have an understanding of pitch and like can hear things on the radio and copy it, or you've played a bit of an instrument before and you have an understanding of musicality, you can definitely teach singing. Yeah, you can definitely, Like there's a lot of science in it.
Wow.
Yeah, so you can definitely learn how to do that, but I'm lucky, Well I've learnt. Subsequently, years later, I'm lucky. I took part in a pH d research for a voice pathologist who was like, so I had to get my cords scoped and stuff, and she goes, oh, well, you chose the right career because the structure of your cords means that they're long but thick, which basically means that thickness will create more richness. Length will create height. So it means you can sing high but with a
rich sound. So it's like it lends itself to classical tenor sing. So whoa yeah, but like you need to train that living buggery out of it. Yes, it was there, so like Pavuroti doesn't rock up one day and just do I mean he's.
No here, but like yeah, yeah, yeah.
In my eyes the greatest tenor ever. It's training.
It's training.
But we see the fruits of labor. Yeah, you know we're not there listening. My neighbors are there over the Oh my god.
We get a free concert every night.
Yeah, they got free all sorts, they got free cracks and you know what we call like testy blowouts and like all of that. Scooby Doo like all of that. So you got plenty of that in the early years. But yeah, so it's been as the process of learning and education and having great teachers and trusting those teachers and trusting when it's time to move to the next teacher. And yeah, and I still see a coach and still have a teacher, and it never ends. You're never stop
being a student. I think that's a life lesson for authings, but absolutely certainly as an artist, I don't think you ever stop being a student.
This is so fascinating to me, Like my favorite thing ever on this show is the privilege of being able to tap into a niche community where to you, the terminology, the pathway, even like the differences between a tenor and a soprano and an alto on a base, like all
of that language is really familiar to you. But to people who have no musical background, see you're doing phantom, or see you at the tennis, or see you at you know, doing all the incredible things you do, probably think that you woke up singing one day and someone went, oh you can sing, and go sing there. Yeah, it's just not that yeah, I love this. It makes me so excited.
But I don't think it's the same as anything.
I just think people see the arts as some foreign thing that is only select group of people who are born that way you can do it, but like it's no different to an athlete, Like I don't think you know, I watched Nadal.
And you're like, that's the me of tennis.
Well, in some ways I'm sort of gritty and dogged and like have worked them off and always on the defense. But like he doesn't just pick up a racket and do that, you know at some age and then you like it's workmanship and work and work and work and devoting of your life to that and the sacrifices that you do it. You know, Like you know, I said to your start, what you were like, what things don't
you want to talk about? Relationships? Like my relationships have suffered so much, you know, I've had divorce and separations and all sorts of things in my life because for all sorts of reasons. But ultimately, like my career is something that is I think is really hard to be with at times. Yeah, you know, traveling around the world and very transient, you know, it's eight shows a week when you're in a music cool playing a lead role like the phantom, and you can't, like you don't just
rock up and play the phantom. You as soon as I go home, I'm steaming my voice. I don't speak until probably like midday the next day, really normally, you know, like it's a slow warm up throughout the day. I don't really socialize. I don't go out at night. I don't speak on the phone very much.
It's it's all of these I need this phone cover.
Don't call me.
Yeah, yeah, I'm sort of that guy. Yeah, there's like I have to watch what I eat, I have to hydrate in certain ways, I have to move my body in certain ways. Like this is so much, you know, preparation for each night and recovery from each night. Yeah, you've got to do it eight times a week. So like that's a lot. That's a lot to undertake, and for it to be a partner of that, it's really hard.
Yeah.
So that's the stuff you don't think about. You just think I think you're right. They think we can so easily understand sport as something you could have a natural talent in, but completely understand that elite sportsmen or sports people are training all the time and if they're not training, they're losing that skill and they're not honing it.
But it's the same. It's the same with this is like the sport of the arts.
Yeah, I don't think we think of it that way though. I think we think you're good at it. You live and breathe it, you get up, you do it, you know what I mean. I don't think people understand your Also, it's the equivalent. You're training, you're preparing. You don't just get up and do it because it appears that you do. But it's the same as sports people. I guess they turn up at the Australian Open and you.
Think, oh they are, yeah, Jokovich's going to win another one, or like you know, yeah yeah, So there's that and so you know, like sportsmen or conversations you have between your years plays a huge part in it, you know, like there's something.
Not all performers, but I think a lot of performers, and certainly I'm in that category, have gone through periods of going I'm in this because I want to be loved. I'm in this because I needalidation or I need attention. I need to be the center of attention or whatever that is. So there's an insecurity that is there, in a vulnerability that is there, and you're an industry where you get reject a lot. You know, I've got I've had lots of great lead roles, but I've auditioned for
far more than i haven't got. So like being vulnerable, being insecure, needing validation, all those things play a huge part of what we do. That's a real recipe for a mind fuck. Like yeah, right, so industry, Yeah, to work out how to get past that and to know that, you know, I'm not perfect, but I am enough. You know, I love myself unconditionally. I'm going to go out there and make mistakes. I'm going to go out there and do things that weren't the best version that I'm capable of,
and I'm still enough. That's our long process to get through. Yeah, yeah, Like that takes a lot of years, Yeah, and a lot of work.
So that's it.
Like, that's the sort of a whole other part that's secondary to the work of just the skill, the work of the mind. And then when you get through that work, I think, and you dissolve a lot of that, you
get to get into the heart and the soul. And really what makes us feel when we go to the theater or a concert, whatever, is when a performer is transcendent, when they're beyond the technicalities and the thoughts of their mind and they're just coming from someplace within them and it's what's in them that we're feeling, and that takes us to somewhere else. And that's real storytelling. And whether that's through song or dance or words, that's the beauty
of the arts. So that's such a process to get through to that, you know, to get inside yourself, to be able to be open enough to share that and get beyond what's going on in the mind.
I love that so much. I always found with ballet for so like, for the years that I did, and I didn't even know continue the career for that long, but I always found the performers I loved the most weren't always the most technically correct exactly dances. It was the ones who danced with so much heart that you didn't even much what else they were doing. You were just so captivated in their performance, and especially without the capacity to sing or to say words, like everything was
with their body. It was never the ones who were like had the best point or the best art or the best turnout. I mean, obviously they had that too, but it was, yeah, the ones who were like so lost in the storytelling. And it's interesting that you say it does take a look to get there.
Yeah, And it is the balance in those very technical crafts of things that are very classical, which require more technique in a way, you know, ballet or opera or more classical musical theater or classical dance. It's this The dance is sometimes between the heart and the soul and the story and the technicality. And you can't totally lose the technique and you know, start just doing whatever you want out there as a singer a dancer, you have
to have that. But for those things to coexist, that the heart and that technique, that's something that takes a lot of years in refinement.
And I think one thing I really want to touch on with you is even talking about relationships and the fact that like your one joy, Like I think something that we talk about a lot on the show is finding your ultimate joy and going after that and letting go of conventional ideas of success and financial metrics and all that kind of stuff, But we don't often touch on the fact that sometimes multiple joys conflict personal joy and career joy. Sometimes they're not going in the same.
Direction, and has often been the case for me.
And then when your identity is your work, which is a privilege. I think it's a privilege to enjoy your work so much.
I've had to work very long. The identity is not the work.
So that is definitely what I want to talk to you about. But before we do that, I just want to finish the timeline of going from someone who had written and I think this is so exciting. I'd read an interview that you did ages ago where someone asked what your dream role was and you said the phantom
in the Phantom of the Opera. And to see you doing that now, like you've physically answered that in an interview, and then to be there now, to have done it at the Sydney Opera House, like there is no higher pinnacle than having achieved the goal that you wrote down and to do it in like the most prestigious arena that there is in this country. Yeah, but in between there, you've had so many different things. You've recorded an album, you toured with an international group, like you've been part
of the Ten Tenors. You've done so many different music calls. You've had a pet business in between. Yea, it is not a straight line.
No no, no, no no.
How did you get there? And what does it feel like you have gotten there now?
Yeah?
So how did I get there? Like a quick sort of summary, I guess. After graduating from Ballarat with a major in musical theater patchelor pants musical theater, I auditioned for Tokyo.
Disney Did you I did? Do you a character or do you know?
They had like a sort of Broadway jazz style show called Big Band Beat, which had a full big band and some singers and dancers, and then Mickey and Minnie and Daisy I think did some stuff and Mickey played the drums and tap dance. It was really cool. So I did that like almost five times a day, five days a week, two to five times a day, so twenty something the shows a week for the best part of nine months and then so that was really good training for repeat effort, like you need the most shows
we ever did? I think it was like ten So like in nine months doing twenty shows a week, like someone do the math.
And at Disney level excitement.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a lot.
It's like six hundred shows something. It's like it's sort of crazy, so like it's nuts. And so did that and then not long after that joined the ten Tenners. Had a couple of years there but really missed acting. So I felt like a Disney and at ten Tenner's it was a lot of sort of I didn't play a character. I didn't get to transcend into a role and become that human and find the heart of that
human and the soul of that human. So I had an experience during the ten tennas where auditioned for Phantom over video and then was subsequently flown to Copenhagen where the director was at that time. It was successful addition for the two thousand and seven to nine production with Anthony Worlow, so I got the role to understudy the Phantom and understudy Raoul, who's the other character, and couldn't
get out of the contract. So it's sort of like that was my first journey really with Phantom being successful. It's actually also the first shor I auditioned for out of UNI but didn't get it.
Okay, so you've had this long history.
It's like, yeah, it is like eluded me and all this sort of stuff, which makes it all the more sweet and special. And then yeah, quit the group so I could audition for West Side Story. Really I knew that if I wanted to do musicals, I couldn't be in the group. I couldn't like sort of have this like contract running and going down and then just go
on audition something and then just say bye bye. So I quit the group, auditioned for a West Side Story on a risk, so like a financial risk there, like yeah, and got the role of Tony. That's just the main role in that. Did that twenty ten eleven, did another show here for a little Bit that bombed whenever the UK did Pray. Then that's where my dad got diagnosed with cancer came back and in that time I was married and it was really affecting my relationship, my transience
and whatever. And I was like, I'm a bit burnt out. I sort of haven't stopped since I moonwalked, you know, like it's just been this constant two to twenty thirteen, a constant just steam train like or bullet train, just going towards you know, climbing the ladder of the mountain of success or whatever that meant to me. I didn't really know. It just was more and more validation I think for me, and I just had I just burned how I just had to stop. So I was like,
I've got to be in Melbourne. I want this relationship to work. I'm going to try something else. So I started my PT course. I knew a lot of people in the theater industry by then and thought I could specialize in training people in that world. And it quickly developed. Once again, I sort of bullet trained.
It like nothing. Halfway it's just yeah, bang.
And I've learned that I have to do things in different ways now, but because that doesn't always work, so I just developed this huge clientele list that was too big for one person. Took on someone else else to help me out, and we're just working out a facility in some Kilda and then it's like, you know what, screw it it, I'm going to open up a studio. I did, and it was called pit Fit, and you know, it was like a it was sort of really one
of the first sort of functional training studios. I think like that we didn't have machines and this sort of two thousand and fourteen.
See, I think I knew you then. Oh I remember pit Fit? Did you know Nick for Ages? Did you go to Baroke? Is that you Nick?
I don't know. Maybe Nick came and trained.
I don't know, but I feel like I definitely.
Never stopped on if you did.
I mean, does he ever cott analogy?
I got it.
I definitely remember Pitfit. Yeah, so I feel like I knew since then. Okay, I don't know how, but somehow.
Somehow, so that sort of did its thing, and then we realized we could expand beyond just the music theater world and have a general public pop thing. And it was a yeah, it was a sort of more fun take on fitness. We used a lot of games and stuff for warm arts, getting pull noodles out and doing all sorts of like really fun things that took your mind out of the idea that you were training and into idea of play and fun, and which is what the theater world is. So we use theater games and
all sorts of stuff. It was really really fun. But then we got into the nitty gritty of it, and the kettlebells are out and all the other things were out that sort of are now standard practice and are now butch.
Then the like we made a camp basically exercise but make it musical theater.
There were colorful black boards around the studio. It was really fun and I had a great time doing it. But after a while I just was hungry to perform again.
I can't imagine a performer off the stage for so long.
Yeah it was.
It was maybe eighteen months, and I was just like, I can't do this anymore. So I auditioned for a production of Blood Brothers Here, which is like a beautiful British show. Did that at a theater in St. Kilda and I actually had a great time. And then my agent at the time said, hey, would you audition for Cats? And I was like yeah, And my wife at the time was like things weren't going well and the idea of going back into musicals I don't think it was
great for us. And so anyway I did audition for it and it was sort of like probably the last nail and a coffin for us. So that was really really hard, and you know, over time, you know that we would be able to like form a FRENCHI which is really nice but yeah, which is great.
So I'm sure at the time, Yeah, really did so.
Did Cats for the best part of a year or so, and then did a couple of other productions. That's when I started to bring it. Brought out an album. I've always wanted to do an album in grabbing pop songs, re orchestrating them, ripping them apart, translating some of them to other more classical speaking languages of Spanish, Italian, whatever else. Worked with good mate John Foreman, who people would know from Cows by Candle Light and various things. He's a
great Aussie producer and musical director and conductor. Went over to Prague with that and used their Philharmonic orchestra, which is incredible, just created a real European and then the rock band who were on it to make those pop songs still sound popy and rocky.
We were from here and so like I covered like Googoo.
Dolls and Farnham and Radiohead and things that you would never rear an operatic. Yeah, it was like a real combination. Yeah, it was really fun and that sort of led to other opportunities in that space. I did another musical call Beautiful, about the life of cale King and then really off the back of that album, I got this great opportunity from John Formant to sing nest on Doordoma, which is like everyone's sort of the most well known.
Area every time, yeah, every time.
Bum bum bum bum bu.
Everyone sort of notice it at the Australia Day Live concert out the front of the Sydney Opera House with all the fireworks and the tens of thousand people there at the start of twenty nineteen. And I remember when John asked me to do it. In my head, I was saying, no, too big, too big, too scary, like I can't possibly do that. It's on National TV.
It before.
Yeah, I sung it with the ten tens. I sung up many times, but I was just like fear, yeah, And I was like, Josh, don't choose fear, just don't choose fear, like and I just went yeah. And then so for the next six weeks all I sung was ness and Dormer like just got it right into muscle memory and so that no matter what, it couldn't fail
out there. And it's still you know, I look back on it and it's like imperfections in the performance, of course, but it is like one of the most heart filled performance is a ness and dormer like it is like like it is so for me, it's almost like an emancipation, like yeah, I could like my whole world changed in those three minutes. And then the producer Phantom in London saw that performance. Yep, Camera Macintosh and Angela it didn't see it, lie they saw video of it.
Yeah, we watched it last night.
I really Camera Macintosh, Angeloid whoever saw it and they're like, let's get him over from an audition for Phantom. And then six months later I was playing the Phantom in the West End, crazy and then you know, fast forward, you know, two hundred performances, COVID hit and then you know, it's all sort of came crashing down and I felt like I'd climbed another everest and fell off, you know
the edge of that. And since my divorce, I'd been meditating and sort of entered into that world of spirituality and really asking myself who I am, am, I beyond what I do and yeah, really go into the deep dive of self. But that was like, so I had enough self awareness to go, I'm falling here, I'm descending. I could do that consciously and like make this a real time of like intense self discovery. So COVID for me was I did my meditation teach training. Did you yep with one giant mind?
Oh?
I love Johnny Johnny of course legend.
I mean who else? Yeah? And incredible and.
So like use that.
I just wanted to learn more about meditation, not just as an active participant, but the deeper philosophies of it. So I did that all through twenty twenty and also did a course with a guy called Asha Pacman who runs a lot of men's circles and does some really very very deep work called The Warrior's Way, which goes into like Jungian psychology, takes on Joseph Campbell's Hero's journey, which some people may not know, but look at it if you don't. But really it's we go through the
hero's journey individually all the time. But Star Wars and Luke Skywalk's journey is that Harry Potter's journey is that you know it. Ultimately, it's about finding a Guru in your life. And we're crossing over a threshold of can I do this or not? Can I leave my safe space and go into the uncomfortable, go into the uncomfortable, have to find a guru, find that guru, learn some things.
Face one's death in a way, or the death of something, like something has to die, and in order to come out of that a new like almost repent in a way or apologize in a way for what has has been, to come back to where you were home completely new. And so we used a lot of myth and poetry. And but it's in a group of twenty something guys
all on zoom opening up and wow. So you know, mine was definitely the death of as an artist, the validation and the attention and all of that, like really acknowledging that and knowing that my best start is when I live beyond that. And so like my obsession became in a course, there was a lot about storytelling. So about what am I. I'm a storyteller and that's what I love the most is finding character, feeling character and
body and character and telling that character story. So that meant that COVID became this wonderful learning experience for me. Almost didn't want it to end. That did end with you know, starting back a phantom. But what's been wonderful is I go, I've God. After two hundred shows in London the ubsequent a couple hundred shows I get to do here, I feel so much more embodied and so much so interesting, so so much deeper into the man because of what for many people was a devastating time.
And it was, and people died, and it's been awful and they still are it's shocking. But for me it was actually a time of great learning and self discovery.
Oh my gosh, I think that's so incredibly representative of a lot of people's conflict between knowing it was like one of the worst times humanity has ever been through, but a lot of people finding this clarity, clarity in the breakdown to break through. Kind of like such a cliche. But what I think CZA was for me before the pandemic was about trying to create a COVID lack shedding of everything, like just helping people realize that they're often
chasing things they don't even know what they're chasing. They don't even know what success is or what happiness is, or whether they're following attention external stimulus, whether they're doing it because they want to, because they love to, because they're good at it, like people don't even know what their motivation is, the just doing it because of momentum. And I was sort of trying to say, like, you don't, you shouldn't need a breakdown to re evaluate those things.
How can we maybe engineer these revelations a little bit earlier for you so that because most people it only happens when your life breaks down in some way that you have this we need a crisis. Yeah, you have this rock bottom moment and then you get this clarity. And I was sort of like, how can we learn from that happening to other people to maybe make you reevaluate your metrics for measuring your life without that? And then COVID happened, and it was like, well, you all
get a clean slate. Here's a clean slate, here's a clean.
Well it's a collective crisis, you know. So it was great for that and we all re established well or just established deeper connections to things beyond the identities that we were living with. So you know, oh my god, if I go walk barefoot in nature, if I watch a sunset, I feel fantastic?
What is that?
And so we go, oh, well, that's just being Yeah, what's being Oh? I'm a human being. That must be good because what I've been doing is human doing for so long. Yeah, and being, And that's something I spent
a great day with Ben Crow once. If you know Ben Crow Mojo cro he's a very mindful man, but he's the mindset coach for lots of people in sport and in corporate world now, And so I spent a day with him, and that's something he talks about a lot that we suffer from human doing, and so when things come from a place of being, you feel fantastic. And so COVID did help that in a way, Like we got back to that with those basics, right, I think we're losing it now, we've all gone straight back
to momentum. But how do we find that balance and how do we go When I feel a lack of clarity, When I feel hazy, I feel overwhelmed, or I feel anxious, I feel all these things. What was it that brought me out of that? In COVID? It was stopping, It was being, It was connecting to nature. It was connecting in another way to people we love on a deep level. It was sharing how you really feel. It was all those things that, yeah, non suppressive things really help us to open up and just be who we are.
Yeah.
Absolutely, I still find it incredibly difficult to keep that awareness and balance because I love my work, so the doing is also joyful and is also being because I enjoy it so much, which then means that I sometimes forget even though I talk about this, whole point of the show is this concept, and I still forget that play outside of my vocation needs to also have a role.
And so because you know your day to day, you're doing shows every day, and I feel like something else about the show is that one person's joys another person's nightmare. But you just need to stick to what lights you are because who cares what anyone else thinks. Some people would think doing the same show, the same songs, the same performance every night would be like the worst thing in the entire world. But I imagine as a performer, it's like the stage is the stage. Like I never got bored.
No, not at all.
It might be the same songs, it's not the same performance.
Yeah, Like I never got bored of doing the same poreography.
Ever, No, there's always a nuance, there's always something to feel, and it's always a new day. You know, sometimes I have a different Christine, who's the other the female lead to play off. There's always newness and there's always something fresh to find, and I'm always I'll go out there and play. It is a play, it has music in it, like,
so go out there and play. And I think as adults, I think with likelity, but actually what made us discover and and learn and grow and expand as children was play. So I'm always up for the play and I bring try and bring play into lots of other things in my life. And I think that's why. You know, one of the classes the Pitfit was called play.
That's nice.
Play is a huge.
Part of my life and it keeps me, I think, more authentically me because when I think about, you know, who I am, there's something I definitely chat about with with Ben at the time, like who I am beyond the doing, Like I joy I'm joyful, I'm cheeky, I'm affectionate.
There're three things that I think you offer up in the moment you start performance, in performed, but in play, Like when I play, I'm always joyful, I'm always cheeky, affectionate may not but like it comes from a place to love, so like bringing that being into what I do. That's where I think what you're saying is really prevalent or really connected, because I am connecting those the being and they're doing you're probably doing the same.
And you look so like every time I've ever seen you saying, you look so thrilled to be there, Like, you just look so stoke. I'm just so sto because.
I also realize, especially after COVID, the impermanence of it all.
Yeah, you know, it's just not going to You have to enjoy it while it's there.
Yeah, like like some people think it's really black. I think about death all the time, really all the time, because I think about it retrospectively because now because I don't want to think about it retrospectively when I'm eighty or ninety, or.
You don't want to have regrets because you never thought about you.
I want to think about the preciousness of life. I want to think about really enjoying and owning the moment. I want to think about what sort of legacy I'm going to lead, what sort of relationships I have, what sort of memories I want to create. So I'm doing that now so that when I hit nine.
And go, oh God, I wish, I wish, I wish.
I don't want any wishes. I want to live the wish now as much as possible. So all that does is create buckloads a gratitude for them I'm doing right now. So yeah, I mean the carols the other week. It's the first time I've done carols by candlelight. That's always been like on the first time, Yeah, but I was like, right now, this is also I'm like, you know, I'm just singing. I'm singing Song of Joy with a bit
of phantom vibes behind us. I'm loving that combo and like Sea of ten thousand People or whatever, and you know it's in a million homes around Australia.
I'm just like, this is so cool.
And I'm Jewish. I love Christmas. Heap for Christmas.
You can do Christmas. A lot of people do that.
I just do for Christmas.
I didn't even have theker you know, there's no there's no drade alls, there's no hanok out, It's just Christmas.
Yeah. The throw on the being throw on all.
The l booble is like one of the people you would love to sing with. Have you ever sung with them.
I mean you'd know about it something. So what's happened in your life?
I sung with booblo just weir.
Get screw into the tattoo puts booble across.
We can turn that into a boob face.
Michael, if you're listening, I have.
So many more questions. Oh my god, but I think I said that would be half an hour, and it's already been an hour because there's just so much to talk about. Two questions to finish with. One on what we were talking about was because you have so much joy in what you do. Do you have any play or any joys outside of like do you sing pop in your spare time? Do you do things that are not musical theater related?
Yes, so all the time? Do I sing another? Like I impersonate all the time?
Okay, so singing or just talking.
Singing and talking, but mainly singing. So like we have to do a mic check before every act the show, so before act one and before act two, and so we have to go to the sound booth, and there's always a word of the day. So like let's say the word was better, I would immediately.
Be like curn f Like I have to like always.
Yeah, you can't just say better. You can't just yeah.
If the word was hitching, I'd be like the Jenna right.
Like I have to do it, like I always impersonate yep, And I think that's actually always have always impersonated. It's probably why I've got concinc classically, because I was just probably just impersonating.
Like people your whole are great.
Classical singers, or why Kroon I can croon quite well like Sinatra and all that because I'm just like impersonated a bit of Booblo and a bit of Sonati and a bit of Elvis in there and whymn millions of voices. I'm always doing voices.
Do you do anything that's not musical? Like do you just have absolutely binge Netflix? Do you like puzzles or anything not puzzles?
Binge Netflix? The shoot out of it? Like I listen to a lot of different music. I do love a lot of music.
Do you listen to classical music or do you.
Like literally everything?
Okay, Like you know, I'll listen to Tracy Chapman and then I'll listen to like, you know, n w A and it's like so fast. Sport is a huge one for me massive, like you know, like just throw on the BBL, throw on, Like I'll watch every ball of a test match, love cricket, love tennis, love Ossie rules so so much, Like like can just sit there over a weekend and watch all nine games of around Like yeah, every moment. So I'm sort of nuts on on sport. That's probably my thing. And then it's just social and
having great conversations with people. Obviously, the mindfulness world is big. Like after I leave you, I'm off to have a nice bath.
So I love, I love, I whim half on.
The show what I know, pulling let it go.
One more serious question because and I should have asked this earlier. I just forgot to ask it. I think one thing with the arts, and also I think in our generation generally, I think we have come from a place where masculinity looks very much a certain way in Australia.
Oh god, it's horrible.
I mean, it's it's pretty archaic to now. I think the conversation has been changing a lot, men's mental health,
men's circles, like men having any kind of vulnerability whatsoever. Yeah, but I think it's slowly becoming more encouraged more accepted and the men look be come in lots of different ways, lots of different ways, and that it's not a weakness to show emotion, that it's not that they have, you know, the same mental health needs and challenges as women that if not more, because they don't ventilate them because it's
still stigmatized, like all that kind of stuff. Have you ever found in musical theater that your concept of your masculinity you'ring makeup every day and since a time when it wasn't as open a conversation about what masculinity means? Was that ever a challenge for you?
It was a challenge right at the start when I decided that I didn't want to like spend as much time on the footy field and I want to go and doing musicals and all of that.
It's quind of drastic chain.
Yeah, but like so that was what I call PG, Like in how we have before Christ? Oh yeah we have pre Glee?
Okay, yeah, And so yeah, Glee was a great way of normalizing straight boys or men in singing and dancing and doing with that.
But I was I was.
PG, and so it was a harder time than Yeah, I was like, yeah.
You're fucking puffed, you're fucking gay, like and just oh you're fair going to that like just constant. It was like to a point where I'm going to be really open about this. I came out as bisexual to a whole group of mates just to stop getting ship.
Because it was easier.
Because it was easier. I've never been into guys. I've kissed a guy once in an audition and once in the scene study at UNI. Never otherwise has been attracted or you know, like.
But it was just literally like just my back.
You know, because I thought that would like, Okay, well, well if that's what that's what it is, then.
Give him ship. Right.
So it was just so so ridiculous. That was two thousand and two season and three. But since then, no, like high school mates would still like, you know, give me shirt or throw stuff at me, like like throw shade, yeah, and so like like literal chairs. I think it's so much better now. I still think our representation in media, in sports media, I hate to say it as much as I love sport, needs to be to have more diverse men in those positions so that we we see
the full like spectrum of a man. Yeah, yep, and the full palette of colors that is it is to be human in a really binary world at the moment. You know, are you pro Trump, you're anti Trump, or you like you know, there's no middle grounds on a lot of things, but on what it is to be human. The complexity of humanity can't be black and white. We need to see all the colors. So we need to see our men being all different colors in the spotlight. And I'm glad that my friends who are in that
space are that. Like, you know, Rob Mills was a great made of mind.
I love ro he was like the last episode last year.
Yeahs love such a fantastic representation of that. And I love the Mills. He gets much more airtime now and host things or is a guest on the project or whatever. And we see that. We see a guy who loves his footy and he's happy to you know, have a masculin ergy. He's happy to step into his feminine ergy and all the things in between. He can be camp at times, he can you know, just you know, pull a few beers at times, like it can be all the things. Yeah, and his book is fantastic for that.
If people haven't, haven't read it. It's it's really wonderful and a great gateway into that world. So I think there's room for improvement.
Yeah, absolutely, on the path absolutely well. Very last question, Yes, what is your favorite quote?
Well, there's there's so many, but.
I think someone who likes quotes, it's such a us.
So many, but I'm going to go with two roomy quotes. I love Roomy, We love Roomy, and we love all the Sufi poets of that time we do. One is the cure for the pain is in the pain.
Yep.
And the other one is you have to keep breaking your heart until it opens. Oh.
I love that there too, They're beautiful.
Thanks.
And I feel like any theory of joy, like I'm so like find this over learning everything's happy. But I also feel like any theory of happiness and joy and good things has to take account of like the darkness and the shadows and the pain that it takes to get there. Like if everything was all happy, that would become neutral and there'd be no color, there'd be no contrast.
And you don't grow when you're happy and chilling and everything goes to plan, Like you become a better person in those times you enjoy them and you have a great time, but that's not where you find who you are and what you want and what the next chapter is. And I'd love so much about you that you're on
this perpetual journey. And I think a lot of people find what makes them really happy, like the career in now, and then they become like this static image like I found happiness, I found six I'm going to chill here for the rest of every But you have this great sense of like, no, I'm always learning, I'm always on momentum. And I really try and encourage this idea of your joy as a jigsaw puzzle that is constantly adding more pieces,
rid of pieces that don't work anymore. It's not like this painting on the wall that you leave and it stays there forever. It's like, oh, I love that. One day you might not want to sing anymore, or one day you might want to Like I'm like saying this.
The whole sky scape of whatever it is that the jigsaw puzzle is of. I'm going with the skyscape. It's just continually expanding, expanding, expanding, Oh I love it.
I mean one day you're just like, you know what those pieces, don't like them anymore over there, but I'll replace them with some new ones.
Yeah, yeah, a new building, guys. Just quickly, Hi everyone.
We want to thank you all for showing up in full the horse to see the fans from the opera. When thrilled to announce that Phantom is now the highest attended show, Emma had the art set to melt.
Yeah gosh, did that just come out there?
Yeah?
What the fun?
Yeah? And it was the quickest selling show to sell out the Sydney Opera HOS ever, So people really love Phantom.
Congratulations.
I'm really stoked with that.
And you know what I'm like, I'm really stoked with you know, obviously the production is fantastic and everyone in it it is fantastic. Everyone works on it is wonderful. But like that, people have been waiting for the arts to like re emerge and like this like to be such a huge part of renaissance arts in this country after like it being by the wayside for eighteen months with COVID. Just to know that Australia actually does love it,
it's awesome. So what stats like that's yeah, insane, So it's fantastic.
Well, thank you so much for joining. How long is the Phantom one until February the eighteenth? Okay, oh my god? And how many are you doing? Are you supposed to be doing every single I'm like.
That yeah pretty much always really yea eye a week unless some shit a week. Yep, that's what I do. That's the job.
How is your skin like that you wear so much makeup? Cocon Really?
I take my makeup off with coconut oil and I use something called skin food by Wilidada.
I'm sure it's German.
Yes, your skin is amazing, fankstars. Literally when I wear makeup every night for three nights in a row, it's just and half the makeup you wear, like yeah.
But it's not just. It's like spirit gum and gloom and all that sort of keep the prosthetics on.
Its vile, but it's but you work it. On TikTok where can we follow you?
Also at Josh on Instagram and at Josh Pittman on the Talk on the Top and one in one t and in.
Yeah, my brain's like still in like January? What does that even mean?
Oh?
One T one in and I will include the link to tickets to the Phantom so you can go and see Josh life and action.
Thanks so much, thanks having me so thank you so much.
What a fascinating human being and incredible voice. Oh my gosh, the way he just opens his mouth and sings that way, it's insane. As promised, I will put the links to Josh's pages and the Phantom tickets and highly recommend that you go and see him if you can. As usual, please shower Josh with some neighborhood love for so generously giving us his time and very precious voice, and share tagging at Josh Pittman and us so we can keep
growing the neighborhood as far and wide as possible. Meanwhile, Melbourne Family Pop February sixteenth in your calendars and stay tuned for more. I hope you're having an amazing day and a sea than you.
Yay,