How this theatre star found her true calling in real estate

Ever since she was young, she also knew she had a zest for performing — and she was not afraid to show it. 

“As a youngster, I was always a bit of a show-off — a very confident little person,” she reflected.

But despite her professed love for the spotlight, she explained that she didn’t come from a “showbiz family”. 

Nonetheless, Ms Harrison said that her parents were supportive of her following her interests and were engaging with her talents. 

She shared that when she began singing from a young age, she took voice and dance lessons with her parents’ encouragement. “I was always involved with school productions … I always loved being on the stage,” she says. “It wasn’t until my final year of high school that things started to shift.”

Her major breakthrough in the world of performing arts came in 1992, when she auditioned and was cast in the supporting role of Jenny in the Australian production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Aspects of Love. 

She recalled that even before her official graduation celebrations started, she was deeply involved in rehearsals and meetings. 

After being cast in the show, Ms Harrison shared that “she never really looked back”, stating that it was the start of “an astronomically successful stage career”. 

As a renowned Australian musical theatre performer, she reflected that her stage career took her around the globe and back.

Among her repertoire are major roles in productions such as Wicked, Les Miserables, The Boy from Oz, Guys and Dolls, Mamma Mia and the Rocky Horror Show — which saw her sitting among the likes of Australian performing arts icons such as Hugh Jackman and Lucy Durack.

“My main claim to fame is that I was the original Elphaba in the Australian production of Wicked,” she remarked. 

But Ms Harrison noted that the casting call for the next biggest role in her life came in 2002, while working in London’s West End on the musical based on the music of the band Queen, We Will Rock You. 

During this time, Ms Harrison shared that she met Scott, who was working backstage on the show. She recalled that they” hit it off” immediately which prompted the pair to visit Australia on a holiday where Scott would meet Ms Harrison’s family.

Upon returning to London from her home visit, she realised that she wanted to settle back in Australia for the foreseeable future and questioned the tenacity of her new relationship. 

Despite the idea of going back to her roots beginning to take hold in her mind, Ms Harrison shared that she did not slow down in her theatre career, gracing the stage of the late Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee Celebration, and performing songs from We Will Rock You with Queen band members Brian May and Roger Taylor.

But she did not let the idea die down. To take her one step closer to her long-term goal of going back to the Land Down Under, Ms Harrison shared that she “campaigned fiercely” for a role in the Australian production of We Will Rock You following the end of her production’s London shows. Ultimately, she succeeded in landing the role. 

But it was also around this period that Ms Harrison gave an ultimatum to her future husband by posing a life-changing question. “I just said, ‘Are you going to come with me or are we going to break up?’”

And the rest, as they say, is history. Ms Harrison shared that they have now been married for almost 20 years following their nuptials in 2003 and now reside in Melbourne’s south-east with two children. 

Despite leaving London’s West End behind, she commented that she loved her globe-trotting career in the arts industry and prides herself for reaching “the pinnacle of musical theatre in Australia”.

“I just felt really at home in the medium, being in front of people and singing and acting,” Ms Harrison stated. “I loved the environment, I loved the family nature of the business, I loved collaborating and being creative with people.”

Ms Harrison professed that reaching the summit of her career in the performing arts did not come without struggles. “There was your odd period of unemployment and waiting for the next job, but over the next 25 years, I worked pretty solidly in musical theatre.” 

But while her time as a musical theatre performer was illustrious, she revealed that it had an expiry date attached to it. 

“Over the last 10 years, my career seemed to kind of slow down,” she explained. 

“I think generally, when women get to middle age and past that ‘prime’, roles kind of get thin on the ground. I’m not booking major musicals as quickly and as [often] as I was in my twenties,” she added. 

She further explained that since she noticed her performing career moving from fast-paced, back-to-back bookings to slower and less consistent, she had been looking in a different career direction.

“I never really found anything that I could do as a side hustle or something that could complement my performing career, as [at that time] I wasn’t ready to give it up,” she remarked. 

It wasn’t until COVID-19 hit Australian shores in 2020 that she found the push in the right direction. 

She recalled that the series of Victorian lockdowns brought on pandemic did not spare the performing arts industry. 

“It wasn’t until COVID hit, when we were all forced into lockdown for months and months on end … I kind of thought, ‘what the hell can I do to move on?’

“It was a sharp push in the direction I was headed anyway. I started to think about what I could possibly do to shift myself out of this business, to give myself some stability in life,” she explained. 

It was around this time that Ms Harrison was speaking with a good friend and fellow performer who had recently changed careers to real estate from dance and musical theatre.

Things further transpired when this friend then introduced Ms Harrison to Tanja Neven-Jones of OBrien Real Estate in Chelsea. 

Ms Harrison shared that Ms Neven-Jones became her bridge to the world of real estate by helping her through real estate studies and training. 

After kicking off her real estate training in 2020, Ms Harrison was introduced to Byron Kerr at the OBrien Real Estate office in Mentone, which helped her to secure a job at OBrien Mentone the same year. 

While the world of theatre and real estate are “seemingly quite different environments”, Ms Harrison pointed out that there are similarities between real estate jobs and those in the performing arts business. 

“There’s something similar in the energy that you need — it’s almost like putting on a show when you go into someone’s living room. You have to project all this energy and life force to people to trust you and to get them on board,” she reflected. 

She also highlighted that a career in real estate still puts her name under a spotlight. “Moving forward, I can still be Amanda Harrison in a career in real estate. It’s still kind of public; it’s still drawing on my personality to be a success.”

“I think that’s what drew me to real estate in the end. I can be a superstar on the stage, but I can also be a superstar in real estate one day if I put my head down and work hard.”

Further providing insight on how she made the career switch, Ms Harrison said she describes herself as an introverted extrovert.

For her, this meant that while she’s a true “people person”, she can draw out different parts of her personality and portray someone extroverted, thanks to her performing career. 

“You’re dealing with people all the time. You’re going to different openings, you’re meeting different buyers and vendors, you’re doing the same actions but just in different scenarios and citations, so there’s quite a variety of things to sink your teeth into,” says Ms Harrison.

Aside from working in a field where she can draw from her learnings in her performing arts career, she also pointed out that working in real estate allows her to find a work/life balance. 

With her partner being away for much of the year on tour with the Australian production of Moulin Rouge, Ms Harrison shared that oftentimes she has been the sole caretaker for her kids — something she says real estate has allowed her to do. 

“I’m very strict on not working past a certain time of day and trying to keep working hours consistent because I often need to be home for the kids,” she explains.

With only a couple of years’ experience under her real estate belt, Ms Harrison stated she is looking forward to furthering her career in the future. “I’m still learning … I can’t wait for that time where I feel completely confident in my ability,” she concluded.