Bernadette Robinson’s DIVAS is the latest in a series of one-woman music theatre pieces that have established her as an actor and singer of tremendous range, power and nuance.

DIVAS, co-devised and directed by Bernadette’s long-time colleague and collaborator Simon Phillips, follows multiple Australian productions of the one-woman musical plays Songs For Nobodies and Pennsylvania Avenue. Both plays were specially written for Bernadette by acclaimed Australian playwright Joanna Murray-Smith (Switzerland, The Female Of The Species) and were commissioned and directed by Simon Phillips for Melbourne Theatre Company. In 2017, Bernadette devised and presented another one-woman show, The Show Goes On, at Sydney Opera House and Arts Centre Melbourne.

Bernadette announced herself to London theatre audiences with acclaimed seasons of Songs For Nobodies in 2018 and 2019. Bernadette brings to life Murray-Smith’s wonderful portraits of five ordinary women (the eponymous “Nobodies”) and the five legendary singers who touched their lives: Judy Garland, Patsy Cline, Edith Piaf, Billie Holiday and Maria Callas. After a successful initial season at the Wiltons Music Hall, the production transferred to the Ambassadors Theatre, where Bernadette made her West End debut in 2019.

Reviewing Bernadette’s opening-night performance at the Ambassadors, The Times described her as “A jaw-dropping talent” and The Telegraph described her performance as “So sublime, it’s like a shot of morphine; for a blissful few minutes all the cares of the world are gone”.

Bernadette’s London performances earned Songs For Nobodies an Olivier Award nomination.

Premiere Australian seasons of DIVAS were presented in 2023 and 2024 in Brisbane (QPAC)), Sydney Opera House and Riverside Parramatta, Melbourne (Arts Centre Melbourne) and Auckland (Wharf Theatre) and further seasons in 2025 will be announced shortly.

In addition to her music theatre profile, Bernadette is a familiar figure on Australian concert stages. She has given sell out concerts at Melbourne Recital Centre and its neighbour, Hamer Hall, as well as at Sydney Opera House, Adelaide Festival Centre and the Queensland Performing Arts Centre.

Bernadette studied voice with the legendary Dame Joan Hammond at the Victorian College Of The Arts before embarking on her professional career in productions of The Pirates of Penzance and Cats. She subsequently performed the role of Beatrice in Nick Enright and Terry Clarke’s The Venetian Twins. Her operatic experience has included principal roles with Melbourne contemporary ensemble Chamber Made Opera in the Australian premiere of Robert Ashley’s Improvement (Don Leaves Linda) (in which she sang the role of Linda) and world premiere seasons of David Chesworth’s Lacuna and The Two Executioners and the Countess in Johann Strauss’s operetta Die Fledermaus with Wellington City Opera.