christa

Christa Hughes is a Sydney based singer and entertainer who
delights in genre bending and is known for her “wild stage antics”. She first
began performing in Sydney pubs as a teenager, singing jazz and blues with her
jazz pianist father Dick Hughes. Since then, she has been the ring mistress
for Circus Oz, the nude roller-skating singer, KK Juggy, for rock band Machine
Gun Fellatio and the sex therapist for Vic Opera, amongst her many and
varied roles.  Christa’s powerful contralto voice and commanding
stage presence combined with her mischievous approach, nostalgic love of music
and cinema of the 1920s & 30s, melodramatic leanings, absurdist beliefs, a
phobia of the mediocre and punk attitude make her performances a dynamic tour
de force.

  

Christa has written, created and performed her own cabaret
shows including Beer Drinking Woman, the Sydney Opera House
commissioned Sleepless Beauty, Neurotic Ladyland, Temptation and
children’s show The World According to Farts (a two hander
where not only audience participation was a must, but the performers became the
facilitators, allowing the children in the audience to take over the space and
become the stars).

 

During lockdown Christa was a regular performer and MC for
SUSS (Sydney Underground Streaming Services). During this time, she also worked
at Miroma, a Steiner disability centre, where she helped participants create
music, dance and theatre-based performances.

Christa has performed in 3 site specific works:

 

– Hidden Sydney – The Golden Mile.  An
immersive theatre performance that started in a Kings Cross laneway
and unfolded through the many rooms of the building that was once the infamous
Nevada brothel.

 

– The Marrickville Mermaid (Hilary Bell
& Luke Styles).  Christa played Annette Kellerman, performed at The
Marrickville Aquatic Centre (2022)

 

– InSide Out Lightbox (a collaboration with
Arianna Bosi/Dashboard Animals).  A multimedia performance piece
performed in an abandoned shop in a car park in Ocean Shores.  

 

Arianna and Christa most recently collaborated last year,
invited by The Powerhouse to present the absurdist script The One With
The Great Big O In The Middle Of It written by Christa and published
in their 1001 Remarkable Objects book.

 

Christa first began performing in her teens,
singing 1920s and 30s jazz and blues songs in pubs and jazz
clubs around Sydney with her father, jazz pianist Dick Hughes.  They
were soon booked for jazz festivals and clubs nationally, as well
as appearing together on various TV shows.  During this time,
Christa was also singing with rock band the Doppelgängers and performing solo
support spots opening for other acts.  Christa also made her
theatrical debut, performing in Open City Theatre’s ‘Museum of Accidents’ at
the Performance Space where she worked with composer Sir Jonathan Mills and
took opera singing lessons with Richard Gill.

  

The bulk of the 90s Christa spent living in New
York and the UK, singing mainly in bars and clubs.  This led to some
more TV appearances, including the hilarious Channel 4 production Eurotrash (a
personal triumph) and the recording of a CD.  She was cast in
cinematographer Chris Doyle’s Hong Kong arthouse film Away With Words, which
premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.

Mongrel (an original work written by Christa and the two
other performers) won Best Comedy/Drama at the NYC Fringe Festival and got and
extended season at both this festival and the Philadelphia Fringe Festival.

 

Christa returned to Australia and joined the band Machine
Gun Fellatio, who toured the country extensively.  Her burlesque meets the
Marx Brothers inspired live performances with the band gained some notoriety
which resulted in a ban from Melbourne University (an event well covered by the
media at the time).  MGF recorded three albums for Mushroom records (one Gold,
one Platinum) and took part in several TV performances.  During this
time Christa also wrote, created and performed her own cabaret shows:

  

– Beer Drinking Woman started as a weekly
show at a small Oxford St club La Bar and has since been performed around the
country in venues which include the Sydney Opera House, Adelaide Cabaret
Festival and the Brisbane Powerhouse.

 

– Sydney Opera House commissioned Christa to write and
perform Sleepless Beauty, a dark comedy/cabaret following a
beauty contest winner’s amphetamine fuelled hallucinations in a mirror. 
The songs and music were written specifically for the show by Christa and
composer Michael Lira.  Sleepless Beauty was performed at The Adelaide
Cabaret Festival.

 

– Temptation, initially inspired by 1930s American
film Reefer Madness, contained many references from films often performed in a
highly stylised melodramatic, film noir style and featured songs which ranged
from 1920s reefer songs to the Velvet Underground, Beasts of Bourbon, Marilyn
Manson and Grace Jones (performed with midi accordionist Svetlana Bunic).
Temptation was performed in festivals, theatres and bars nationally as well as
Shanghai’s Glamour Bar and Hong Kong’s Fringe Club.

 

Christa was booked to perform her own solo pieces and
MC Go-Go Burlesco, a Sydney production which played the Assembly
Rooms during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

 

Christa was the singer and ring mistress for Circus
Oz and toured nationally and internationally with them for two years.

 

Christa has performed her own cabaret shows nationally and
internationally in a variety of venues including bars, clubs, cafes, theatres,
living rooms, warehouses, a disused railway station in London, the pineapple
section of a supermarket in Hawaii, the streets of Montmarte, cellars of
Scotland and subways of Manhattan.

 

Christa was cast as brothel madam Myrtle in Sir Jonathan
Mills’ Eternity Man, a chamber opera conducted by Richard
Gill.  This was first performed at the Sydney Opera House for the Sydney
Festival.

She also starred in the film adaptation directed by Julien
Temple, which screened at the Locarno Film Festival and won the prestigious
Rose d’Or award.

 

Christa was later cast at sex therapist Bianca in Vic
Opera’s adaptation of Kathy Lette’s book How to Kill Your Husband (and
other handy household hints).

  

21st Century Blues (Dick and Christa Hughes) was
recorded for the ABC and released in 2011.  The AFI Award winning
documentary You Only Live Twice – The Incredibly True Story of the
Hughes Family was also released around this time Dick and Christa were
booked to perform at music and arts festivals across Australia.  They also
performed their Speakeasy show specifically for the Sydney
Opera House.

SHONKY (Christa Hughes and the Honky Tonk Shonks) was
also recorded by the ABC, with performances of contemporary popular songs in a low-down
New Orleans style.

 

Christa has more recently been performing regularly
with her blues psychedelic thrash trio The Loud Hailers and is
currently preparing for the reunion of Machine Gun Fellatio.