The first time Anna O’Byrne was involved with a production of the musical My Fair Lady, she played violin in the school orchestra, while her older sister Katie took to the stage in the starring role of Eliza Doolittle. O’Byrne was terribly shy at the time, so she tucked herself away in the corner of the violin section, where she could “hide in the music”.

That’s where O’Byrne begins her new solo show Becoming Eliza, in which she discusses auditioning for the role in Opera Australia’s 60th anniversary production in 2016, finally landing it several months after initially being told she hadn’t been cast, and rehearsing it under the direction of Dame Julie Andrews, the original Eliza.

Anna O’Byrne in Becoming Eliza, Sydney Opera House, 2022. Photo © Prudence Upton

Produced by Sydney Opera House in association with Enda Markey Presents, it’s an intimate show, in which O’Byrne skillfully relates her experience, revealing personal doubts, fears, revelations, joys and insights. In an interview with Limelight, she explained that during the rehearsals, she scribbled notes in the margin of her script so she wouldn’t forget what happened, and that the idea...