Today we’d like to introduce you to Elena Gabrielle.
Hi Elena, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I was always a performer, I don’t really think there was a time when I wasn’t I was walking and talking at 9 months, as soon as anyone was listening I was in front of them singing, dancing and performing plays I’d written for them. I was inspired a lot by Broadway musicals and theatre for most of my upbringing and grew up on a diet of old Hollywood films. I pursued a career in Musical theatre and once I finished high school I was accepted into Australia’s prestigious Acting and arts university: NIDA (The National Institute of Dramatic Art) with alumni such as Cate Blanchett and Geoffrey Rush to name a few. I studied Musical theatre there but realised as soon I graduated that Cabaret was something I loved more. Cabaret is not unlike Stand up comedy it’s just a little bit extra, it’s storytelling, nice costumes, comedy and songs all in one, so it really was me in an art form. I could runner up in a Cabaret competition in Sydney straight out of University and from then on there was nothing else I could do.
For the next 8 years, I pursued cabaret, I wrote and produced my own shows both in Australia and also I performed at the Edinburgh festival fringe for 6 years with various shows. I also fell into hosting Burlesque shows, I loved the body positivity and creativity and I even produced a Guinness world record for the longest continuous burlesque performance (24 hours!) so I’m also a World record holder. It was called Burleskathonn and involved over 50 performers from across Australia doing one big long burlesque relay.
When I turned 27, I knew I had to leave Australia to further my career, so I packed up my life and moved to Berlin in 2016, Germany, which has been my home base for the last 6 years. I’ve moved around a lot in that time, as you have to do when you’re constantly on tour but it was where I really started to fall into stand-up comedy.
When I was there I met an American Comic called Rachman Blake and we both just wanted to tour the world and perform comedy and for the next 3 years that’s all we did. In 2018 I sold all my belongings, left my apartment and embarked on a wild journey, performing 350 shows in 2018, in 65 countries. The show was called Story Party and it was all about dating stories; we would tell ours and the audience in all these countries would tell theirs, whether written down anonymously or told onstage by them. I heard all sorts and it was an incredible experience to find out about different cultures from the dating stories. We continued all of 2019 and also in 2020 (in between lockdowns) and at the end of 2020, after my videos had gone viral on Youtube, I decided to try touring solo. This past year has been one of the most amazing of my life. I wrote and toured my solo show “Dirrty” in 20 countries across Europe and also Canada and now it’s out online for people to watch and I’m about to tour my new show Addickted this fall across Europe, Canada, Australia, and Asia.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
People always look at my life and think wow it’s so cool and there was a time when I was flying business class and staying in really nice hotels but the truth is life on the road is lonely, very lonely. I miss my family back in Oz but I just can’t tour the way I can here in Europe in Australia. I’m also single which makes finding a solid relationship easy, as this lifestyle doesn’t suit everyone. I also self-produce, meaning I don’t have a tour company or agent, it’s all me, and it’s a lot of work. I’m fully independent and a boss b*tch haha I’m not sure if I can keep on doing it this way but at the moment it somehow works.
Also as a woman, I get a lot of hate online for being a “female” comic, I even hate to say the word female before it but that’s what people say when they talk about comics, it’s a comic and a female comic. Every day I get horrible comments online about how I look, that I’m not funny, that I’m a slut etc., so it’s hard sometimes but sometimes it’s just more fuel for my writing.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Stand-up comedy is the thing I’m most known for. I consider myself a storytelling comedian, I love to tell stories and weave that narrative into my stand-up set, I’m not sure true comedians would say I’m a comic, but I make people laugh and for me, that’s the definition of a stand-up. I think I also sing and have quite a world view, I mean I’ve performed in so many countries (I think around 70 now) and that always helps with perspective. I’m most proud of 2018, that crazy year, it was intense and I’m sure I have PTSD from it, but it was an incredible experience, also because then 2020 came, and we couldn’t travel at all.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I think I touched on this a bit earlier, and I grew up around a lot of sickness growing up, so I think I felt that energy as a kid and always just wanted people to be happy, so I think that’s where that performing nature came from.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.elenagabrielle.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/elenagabrielle
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MissElenaGabrielle
- Youtube: https://www.YouTube.com/elenagabrielle
- Other: https://www.TikTok.com/@realelenagabrielle
