ASABI’S ODYSSEY FROM LABORATORY TO FOOTLIGHTS
After two decades dividing her talents between the disparate worlds of chemical engineering and performing, Asabi Goodman took the plunge and became a full-time performer. Now she’s relishing her starring role in a joyous revival of Hairspray.
“It’s ultimately about an underdog who wants to get to the top and she succeeds in her own way. We love to see a winner like that,” Asabi Goodman says of Hairspray’s enduring popularity.
Set in 1962 Baltimore, Maryland, Hairspray follows teenage dancer Tracy Turnblad as she pursues stardom on a local television show and rallies against racial segregation. This year marked the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Broadway show, based on John Waters’ 1988 film of the same name. It ran for more than six years, winning eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical.
“Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, who wrote the music and lyrics, are Broadway veterans,” Asabi says. “The lyrics are extremely funny and there are a lot of really good numbers. The content of the show is just very endearing… it has that hopefulness about it.”
She is among the Australian performers, along with fellow Equity members Rhonda Burchmore, Todd McKenney and Shane Jacobson, currently brining the production to life at Sydney’s Lyric theatre.
“We’ve had amazing audiences so far. They have been loving the show, which I think, as a performer, is all you can really ask for,” Asabi says. “And it’s so fun to see everyone up out of their seats dancing and cheering. Sometimes when we do our little finale thing, I can’t even hear myself sing because the crowd is so loud, which is just so cool.”
Asabi’s character, R&B record producer Motormouth Maybelle, has been in every major version of Hairspray, portrayed by Ruth Brown (1988), Queen Latifah (2007) and Jennifer Hudson (2016).
“My personal approach as an actor is to never look at previous performances because I feel that will either consciously or unconsciously affect how I perform the character,” she says. “I was born in the US and grew up there. My family is from the US. So, for this particular role, I really draw on the experiences of my parents, aunts and uncles, because they lived through it. This was their era, when they were young adults. They went through the civil rights movement.”
Asabi gave an insight into what the show, and the role, meant to her when she posted this to Instagram on opening night: “I am also very grateful to the Hairspray creative team for welcoming me into their family with open arms. For a young, dark, heavy girl from the plains of Oklahoma, who was too shy to follow her dreams of being a performer and chose to become an engineer and then changed her mind 20 years later, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!”
For Asabi, who comes from a family of engineers, it seemed like a “logical step” to become one herself. “In Oklahoma, you just didn’t see a lot of people like me performing. And when you did, there was lots of backlash. I remember when Robert Guillaume was cast as the Phantom in the Los Angeles production of The Phantom of the Opera, and people were really upset, they roared about it. And it was like, he’s a classically trained singer and he’s capable, so who cares? I really just didn’t feel that it was the right place for me, even though I’d been performing since I was six years old. I sang in choirs and I travelled with them, and I’d always had this big voice, but there was something inside me that just said, ‘It’s not the right place for you. Don’t attempt it, stick with what you know’.”
In 1998, Asabi graduated from the University of Southern California with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering. “Oh, yeah, I’m very geeky,” she laughs.
Asabi worked as an engineer for two decades, performing on the side, then a job with an engineering firm brought her to Queensland in 2008. “I thought I would be here for two years to get some international experience and then go home to climb the corporate ladder. But I just fell in love with it. I fell in love with the ease of life and because I didn’t have to deal with the racial stereotypes that I dealt with back home, there was a weight that had been lifted off me, I just felt freer.”
Every day on her way to work in Brisbane, Asabi walked past the Australian Performing Arts Conservatory. “A friend actually pulled me into the conservatory one day. She said, ‘You look at this building every time we walk past. Let’s just go inside and see what it’s about. And if you want to sign up to take classes, then sign up to take classes’. And so I did.”
Asabi graduated with an Advanced Diploma of Stage and Screen Acting in 2012. “I spent about seven years doing both [performing and engineering] and then, in 2019, I left engineering to focus on acting full-time. I had been thinking of it for a long time but didn’t have the courage. Then I thought, If I don’t do this now, I don’t know that I ever will. So performing in Hairspray eight times a week meant living my dream. This is what I want to do. This is what I have always wanted to do. I don’t take it for granted for one minute.”
As president of MEAA Equity’s Queensland branch, Asabi now uses her corporate experience to advocate for performers’ rights. “I’m very thankful that I’ve had that stint in a corporate environment because I am able to advocate for myself and for others. I’m not afraid to have tough conversations or to be confrontational. And I can do it with a level head and without being emotional, even though, of course, there’s tons of emotion there. But I think you have to be able to negotiate with people because you are a business, first and foremost. You have to be able to put yourself out there like a business and earn for yourself and advocate for yourself.”
Collective bargaining is also vital for performers, she says. “One of the reasons I joined Equity is because I believe it’s so important for actors to be united when it comes to our pay and conditions. Right now, we are negotiating the next PCA [Performers Collective Agreement] with producers and if we want a pay rise, this is the best way to go about it. Together.”
For Asabi, union membership is an important part of being a professional performer, a career she plans to enjoy for many years to come. “I feel that we mislabel work, you know, and everybody thinks, Oh, it’s work so it has to be hard, you can’t enjoy it. But the one thing my dad always told me was, ‘Do what you love. The money will follow’.”
