After winning the hearts of Wollongong audiences with her MERRIGONGX debut in 2022, Kay Proudlove’s endearing comedy about the agony of growing up, Dear Diary, returns to Wollongong as a part of a national tour from the 8th to 11th of May.
Dear Diary takes audiences on a journey into Kay’s teenage diaries through a collection of intimate and vulnerable stories and songs. From first kisses and Spice Girls, to lost gigs, found memories and frayed friendships, Dear Diary is a hilarious, sometimes painful, revisiting of teenage years, delving into the pressures and expectations of growing up.
I was honoured to chat with talented singer-songwriter, Kay Proudlove, about everything Dear Diary – from the creation of the production to the importance of hearing out the voices and lived experiences of teenage girls.
Tickets for Dear Diary can be found through the Merrigong website here: https://merrigong.com.au/shows/dear-diary-2024/
__________________________________________________________
CAMERON: Could you please give a synopsis of your show, Dear Diary, coming to the IPAC?
KAY: Yeah, so, Dear Diary is a story of what it’s like being a teenage girl in the 2000s and how it affects me as a creative woman today and, you know, all the cringiness, all the learning, all the joy and the growth that goes along with that. It’s got some songs in there that are made up from my teenage journal entries and a lot of stories that will really take you on an emotional rollercoaster.
CAMERON: Wollongong is your first stop in this national tour for Dear Diary, how does it feel to commemorate such a big feat in the town that you grew up in?
KAY: I mean, it’s great. I grew up going to shows in the IPAC, you know, through school and I never really imagined that my show would be here. But, you know, none of us are fortune tellers and it feels like a real milestone to be presenting this in my hometown, for sure – especially where I went to high school and where I started going out for the first time as a young adult. There’s a lot of content in the show that is Wollongong specific but I feel like it’s also universal so I’m excited to tour it.
CAMERON: Yeah, I understand. This isn’t your first show you’ve written anything for. Last year you wrote and composed for Christine Firkins’, See You Later Mum, which ended up performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
KAY: That was in 2022 that we took it to Edinburgh Fringe.
CAMERON: Is Dear Diary the first show that you’ve independently written?
KAY: Yeah, it’s my first solo show. I’ve been in the music industry for a while now as a recording and performing artist but it’s definitely the first time I’ve done a theatrical show solo.
CAMERON: How long have you been performing?
KAY: Probably since I was mid-teens I would say, like performing my own songs. But, you know, I grew up singing in choirs and things like that. I started writing probably around the time I was fourteen, I’d say.
“I was looking back on who I thought I was and reflecting on who I am now and, you know, we have a tendency to separate those two things but really, it’s all one person.”
CAMERON: How has the conceptual process of creating and writing this show been? What drew you to this concept and how did you find your voice?
KAY: Well, I kind of went through my diaries without any expectations – I just felt this desire to look back on them and I think it’s because we were going through lockdown and COVID and I couldn’t do my job that I had worked hard for. I couldn’t play live music so, I turned to a bit of reflection in going through these diaries and when I started writing songs from the entries it wasn’t something that I was planning to make into a theatre show. I won’t say that it happened by accident because I did work very hard to write the show that I have created and so have a lot of other people – there’s been a creative team behind this show but I didn’t expect it to eventuate into a theatre show. I guess, it was definitely an emotional roller coaster going through the diaries because there’s a lot of funny things in there and silly things but there’s also the real pain of what it is to be a teenager and to grow into an adult. How I found my voice, I was looking back on who I thought I was and reflecting on who I am now. We have a tendency to separate those two things but really, it’s all one person. Even though the voice changes, it’s still me.
CAMERON: Even though this show is so personable and in-tune to you and your past, it’s obviously your diaries, your stories and your lived experiences. Dear Diary delves into themes of growing up and change and themes of unfulfilled expectations of adulthood, the feelings of not achieving what you expected in the perspective of a kid. I’d assume Dear Diary is pretty universal for all audiences then?
KAY: Yeah, I mean just because it’s my personal stories – you’re right, it’s something that we all go through – our goals and our ambitions change over time. We all look back at some point and see whether we’re still aligned with that and whether we want different things now and how we feel about maybe not achieving the things that we thought we would. Dealing with things like that is something we all do, so I guess it does have a universality about it – which I hope audiences can dig into and take away.
CAMERON: I would assume a lot of audiences would get a sense of nostalgia for their own childhoods?
KAY: What I really love about doing these shows is having conversations with people after, finding out who their teenage crushes were and the things that they were obsessed with as kids and what they wanted to be and how that’s changed for them.
“I think it’s important for anyone who has teenage girls in their life. Because I think all of us grow with support and when we don’t have that around us it really affects the way we navigate the world.”
CAMERON: Often in the media, the thoughts, feelings, interests, and hobbies of teenage girls are kind of minimised and mocked by general audiences and critics in general. How crucial is it for audiences to not only hear your teenage stories but to also empathise with the voices and lived experiences of teenage girls growing up?
KAY: I think it’s important for anyone who has teenage girls in their life because I think all of us grow with support and when we don’t have that around us it really affects the way we navigate the world. This show – I knew it’d resonate with women my age, maybe teenage girls that are going through school now. I knew it would resonate with people in those groups but after we first premiered the show, it was very apparent that it resonated with people of all genders and ages. Men who have partners who struggle with body image were being vocal about the fact that they understood better what their partners had been – or what their daughters had been through. So, I feel like diving into this psyche of a teenage girl and what she goes through and what she still goes through as a woman is something that’s important for everyone to be aware of.
“Women have courage and passion and bravery and they can be difficult and they can be feisty and all of those are womanly traits.”
CAMERON: We as a society should be open to hearing these stories.
KAY: Yeah, you know. And it’s not to say that this is the most important story but it is something that is important to me and I feel like is important to other people as well. It’s been nice to shine a light on it.
CAMERON: It’s definitely a topic that affects a lot of people – even media that’s specifically made for girls in general are so readily mocked for having feeling audiences or telling stories about female characters and that does a disservice of what media telling female stories should be doing.
KAY: Yeah. Women have courage and passion and bravery and they can be difficult and they can be feisty and all of those are womanly traits. I saw this video the other day that said if you look up what womanly is, it’s like ‘soft, curvaceous, maybe beautiful’ and like there’s so much more to being a woman than those things.
CAMERON: No woman is any less of a woman and yet people try to convince you somehow.
KAY: Yeah. There’s a big theme on body image in the show and especially growing up in the 2000s, the media and women had such a destructive relationship. You would splash on covers of the magazine ‘so and so has put on so much weight’ or ‘will she lose the baby weight?’ Things like that. There’s so much more to talk about when it comes to women and their accomplishments and who they are but in that time, when I grew up, there was such importance placed on how you looked and that was the main thing. I’ve come a long way in my body image journey and I value myself as a woman for a lot of different reasons but it’s interesting to see how growing up during that time has affected women of my age now and how it continues to affect teenage girls these days in different ways.
CAMERON: What should audiences expect, both coming in and leaving the theatre having seen Dear Diary? Should audiences bring tissues? Should they prepare to laugh?
KAY: I think, prepare for any sort of emotion. There’s a lot of humour in this show and I do make fun of myself a lot because it is funny – we’re teenagers and we’re awkward and we’re cringey and we do these weird things and everything’s so heightened but definitely do bring some tissues because I do dive into self-reflection and disappointments we feel. A bit of an emotional rollercoaster I would say.
Interview Date: 28/04/2024