THE WORK
Women speaking in their own words.
A one-woman performance built from verbatim stories, music and the lives of twenty Australian women.
THE ONE NIGHT
Sydney Festival meets Dubbo.
Rachael’s national work entered a regional collaboration that already had its own writers, artists, musician, readers and history.
THE NETWORK
Nobody did the same job.
Martine. Eleanor. Erifili. Raelene. Cam. Regional artists. One short visit held up by a surprisingly large village of women.
THE NAME ON THE PROGRAM
Rachael Beck came to Dubbo with a career most people already knew.
Belle opposite Hugh Jackman in Beauty and the Beast. Fantine in Les Misérables. Cabaret. Cats. Singin’ in the Rain. The Sound of Music. Sydney Theatre Company. Television. Concert stages. Decades of work as an actor and singer.
That establishes the scale. But it is not actually the reason she belongs in The Orana Woman.
The interesting part is what Rachael chose to do with the spotlight.
The most interesting thing about a big stage is what you decide to put on it.
THE WOMEN IN THE WORK
Her own show was already asking the same question we were.
At the 2025 Sydney Festival, Rachael premiered In Her Own Words, conceived and curated with writer James Millar: monologues, songs and anecdotes drawn from extraordinary Australian women across the arts, science, politics, sport, media and public life.
The work has since toured as In Their Own Words, celebrating twenty trailblazing Australian women — some household names and many whose stories have rarely been put on a stage.
It weaves verbatim words and personal stories with music by Australian women including Missy Higgins, Kate Miller-Heidke, Kate Ceberano and Dami Im.
See the Sydney Festival premiere.
Inspired by Her began with: whose stories are not being told? Rachael had already built an entire show around listening for the answer.
MARTINE OPENS THE DOOR
And this is how these things actually happen: one woman knows another woman.
Martine Beaumont brought Rachael into the Inspired by Her circle.
That same day Martine and Renee Webster were holding another part of the Festival through Grounded — women, identity, leadership, rest and belonging. Then the evening moved into another language entirely: literature, song, visual art and performance.
Different women. Different skills. Same week. Same network.
So much of women’s creative infrastructure begins with a sentence as ordinary as: “I know someone you should meet.”
INSPIRED BY HER
The point was never to fly a famous woman into Dubbo and put her above everybody else.
Inspired by Her had already been built from local women’s work.
Eleanor Limprecht led the research and inspiration phase, using historical fiction to help open up women’s lives that had been overlooked, silenced or incompletely recorded.
Erifili Davies held the creative brief and curated the eight regional artists who answered it through writing, photography, textile, visual art, poetry, reflection and performance.
On opening night, Rachael’s songs and reflections sat beside Eleanor’s historical writing, Erifili’s exhibition and the local works. It was not a hierarchy. It was a conversation.
RACHAEL + RAELENE
Then the national stage met the local one at the piano.
Raelene Burn worked directly with Rachael on the songs for the Dubbo performance and accompanied her on the night.
That distinction matters to me. This was not Rachael arriving with a backing track and a finished package that could have happened in any town.
The music was worked through here, with a local musician whose own life has been embedded in Dubbo’s creative community for decades.
Regional artistry and national artistry were not put on opposite sides of a line. They were put at the same piano.
I LENT HER CAM
Rachael was in Dubbo for one night. So naturally, I lent her Cam.
Camilla Ward is one of my best friends and one of those people you can hand another human being to with complete confidence.
She drove Rachael, looked after her and became the person on the ground during a very short regional visit.
And because Cam is Cam, that was not even her only job. On the Inspired by Her night she also read Eleanor’s pieces as part of the performance.
The driver was also the reader. The accompanist was also a community choir leader. The curator was also an artist. The headline performer was also a collaborator.
This is the bit that disappears when an event is reduced to a program: the tiny temporary village underneath the one night everybody sees.
ONE NIGHT, A WHOLE NETWORK OF WOMEN
Nobody was doing the same job. Everybody was making the same thing possible.
Martine made the introduction.
Eleanor brought women from history into the room through words.
Erifili worked with the artists and held the exhibition together.
Raelene worked through the songs with Rachael and sat at the piano.
Cam gave Eleanor’s pieces a voice and took care of the practical human bits around Rachael’s visit.
The regional artists put their own histories, families, places and questions on the walls and into the room.
And Rachael brought a body of work built on exactly the same instinct: women’s words deserve to be heard.
One night. Many women. Completely different skills. One shared piece of work.
OFFSTAGE
There is another reason the fit feels right.
Alongside performing, Rachael is a performing arts educator and mentor.
She developed the Lionhearted Theatre and Arts Program, using creative arts and storytelling with young people around experiences including anxiety, depression and disconnection. She is also an ambassador for the Australian Children’s Music Foundation.
Again, the thread is voice. Not only having one, but helping somebody else find theirs.
Read more about Rachael’s work.
THE WORK KEEPS TRAVELLING
Dubbo was one stop in a much longer conversation with regional audiences.
In 2026 In Their Own Words continued touring beyond Sydney, including regional performances in Wagga Wagga, Warrnambool and Wangaratta.
That matters too. Women’s stories do not become more important because they are told in a capital city, and regional audiences are not an afterthought to the life of the work.
See In Their Own Words on tour.
IN THEIR OWN WORDS
Maybe that is the simplest connection between Rachael and this whole archive.
The Orana Woman is becoming a place for women to be seen in the full context of their lives — famous or not, professional or personal, historic or here right now.
Rachael’s work does something similar on stage. She takes attention and turns it outward.
For one night in Dubbo, that national project met our regional one.
The headline performer was not the centre of the story. She became part of the conversation.
— Sharon