Alexis Fishman remembers being in her car in Sydney on the day Amy Winehouse, aged just 27, died. The performer, who had always been told she looked like the talented singer, did a deep dive into her music. Fishman told The AJN she remembers being blown away. She continues to be so blown away by Winehouse, that Fishman has dedicated an entire show to her.
“I feel like the press portrays people so poorly in so many ways. It just always saddened me that you know, here’s this incredibly talented, full person who is being reduced to a nasty headline in the press,” Fishman said ahead of her show Amy Winehouse Resurrected coming to Melbourne and Sydney. “I had this feeling that I wanted to defend her in some way, put up a more well-rounded picture of her life than most people knew.”
While Fishman acknowledged that much of the negative portrayal was true, particularly around Winehouse’s drug and alcohol abuse, she also said it’s important to remember that Winehouse was so much more than her troubles.
“There was no bullshit with her; she just said it as it is” Alexis Fishman
“She was also many, many other things,” Fishman pointed out. “I had this real desire to paint a broader picture of her.”
And so, Amy Winehouse Resurrected was born.
The innovative production is a compelling theatrical tribute show which honours Winehouse in an incredibly unique and imaginative way. The show’s central premise offers a poignant and humorous narrative twist: after news arrives that her idol Tony Bennett would give anything to record with her again, Amy Winehouse finds herself at the pearly gates, given another chance to make her mark. This creative framework allowed Fishman to explore both the musical genius and complex humanity of Winehouse in a way that’s both entertaining and deeply moving.
“I did a huge deep dive into basically everything she ever said, and really used a lot of her quotes verbatim,” Fishman explained. “So much of what is in the show is directly from her mouth. Most of the jokes are hers,” she continued, describing Winehouse as whip smart, really funny and very straightfoward.
“There was no bullshit with her; she just said it as it is.”
Fishman recalled writing the show by trawling through everything she could find that Winehouse ever did and said, and then doing in-depth research into the singer and artist.
“I kind of, you know, got into her head, so to speak,” she said. “I truly believe that she was one of a kind. You know, there’s a lot of talented people in the world. I think I’m a pretty talented person. But then there are people like Amy Winehouse that are just once in a generation; unbelievably gifted. She was a gifted lyricist, really gifted poet, incredibly gifted singer and musician, and just a great performer and a great songwriter.”
Fishman, a Helpmann Award-nominated performer who has lived in New York City since 2008, brings considerable theatrical experience to the role. She was born and raised in Sydney, graduating from Moriah College in 2000 and going on to graduate from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.
She said a lot of what she learned through the Moriah College music program inspired her will to continue performing.
“Moriah was truly an incredible place to be a student with a love of the performing arts,” she told The AJN when chatting in 2022. “To me it felt like it was a performing arts school within a modern Orthodox Jewish day school. I definitely credit a lot of who I am as an artist to the amazing arts education that I got there.”
Travelling to New York City with the band also inspired her love of the Big Apple. Her background includes extensive work in cabaret and off-Broadway theatre, making her uniquely qualified to capture both Winehouse’s raw vocal power and her vulnerable personality.
The production promises audiences “the beehive, the foul-mouth and all of Amy’s hits, including some you may never have heard before.”
Fishman offers audiences a chance to experience Winehouse’s music in an intimate cabaret setting while exploring the “what if” scenarios that might have unfolded had the troubled star lived longer. The production serves as both entertainment and memorial, ensuring that Amy Winehouse’s extraordinary voice and artistic legacy continue to resonate with new generations of music lovers.
The show has been so well received overseas already, even garnering support from Winehouse’s father, Mitch.
Fishman described the older Winehouse as a great singer.
“He really sounds like Frank Sinatra; he’s a beautiful crooner. Definitely where Amy gets it from,” she said.
Using her Jewish chutzpah, Fishman rocked up at another Amy Winehouse tribute gig where Mitch was supporting. And they got to chatting. The pair even ended up having breakfast together and Mitch came to Fishman’s show in New York, performed before her and then performed with her on a couple of duets afterwards.
“Since then, we have been to his place in London where I was literally standing in front of Amy’s Grammy Awards,” Fishman said. “It was a beautiful afternoon with him and some of his friends; he is a real mensch, a really, really good guy.”
Fishman said she was pleased that Mitch liked what she had done with Amy’s story and that ultimately, he was just happy that Amy’s music was still being performed.
“It’s obviously not an easy thing for him to watch also, because I certainly don’t shy away from many of the difficult parts of her life. I’m thrilled to know him.”
Fishman described Amy Winehouse Resurrected as a celebration of the singer’s life and an opportunity for audiences to hear from her perspective – about her marriage, her alcoholism and recovery, her music and also about her background.
“It’s an honour and a pleasure for me to be able to embody her in that way,” Fishman said.
Winehouse and Fishman are similar ages, which the latter said also plays into why she feels so connected to the show.
“I have this sort of affinity toward her, and I like being able to not only perform her music for people that are fans, but also just to share a little bit more of who she was,” Fishman explained. “I just want people to come away knowing something a little bit deeper than what they read in the headlines. The show’s really funny, it’s poignant. It’s a really good night.”
While in Australia performing Amy Winehouse Resurrected, Fishman will also be performing What I’ve Learnt (and the Songs that Taught Me), exclusive to Melbourne. There’s plenty that Fishman has learned through song, and in this show, she’s keen to share those lessons.
From love and heartbreak to bad decisions and even worse hangovers, Fishman plans to spill it all with audiences, one song at a time, through unexpected gems, golden oldies and a few surprises. And in true Fishman style, it will all be done with laughter and a touch of mischief.
Fishman will also be back on Aussie shores in September when she performs in Anne Being Frank – presented by Monstrous Theatre, Neil Gooding Productions and Shalom Collective – for an exclusive season at The Sydney Opera House.
“I just want people to come away knowing something a little bit deeper than what they read in the headlines. The show’s really funny, it’s poignant. It’s a really good night” Alexis Fishman
Written by award-winning Australian playwright Ron Elisha and starring Fishman, Anne Being Frank imagines a world where Anne survives the Holocaust and insists on telling the truth — unfiltered and uncompromised. The result is a provocative and deeply moving solo work that brings urgent new relevance to one of the most iconic Jewish stories of our time.
When Elisha spoke to The AJN ahead of the show’s commencement Off-Broadway, he said he was inspired by an essay featured in Smithsonian Magazine by Dara Horn titled Becoming Anne Frank.
“It was a brilliantly written article asking the question: Why is the diary of Anne Frank so popular? She concluded that it was because it lets you (the reader) off the hook, inasmuch as [Anne] says, ‘in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart’ which is the most frequently quoted line from the diary. So, I’ve tried to re-imagine what she would’ve written if she knew what was about to happen to her and her family,” he told The AJN.
Fishman told The AJN that the play turns everything we know about Anne Frank on its head.
“It’s truly a reimagining of what her diary might have looked like. So, we are exposed to her in the last few months of her life, which is not something that the average reader of her journal ever really thinks about. We take what we read in her brilliant diary, as the end of her story, and of course, that’s not the truth,” she said.
For Fishman, these upcoming Australian performances represent more than just a homecoming — they’re an opportunity to share deeply personal artistic explorations with the audiences that first nurtured her creative spirit. Whether channelling Amy Winehouse’s raw talent and complex humanity, reflecting on life’s lessons through song, or reimagining Anne Frank’s untold story, Fishman continues to use her platform to give voice to women whose stories deserve to be heard in their full complexity.
In Melbourne, Amy Winehouse Resurrected is on June 28 at Memo Music Hall and What I’ve Learnt (and the Songs that Taught me) is on August 9 at Royal Brighton Yacht Club. For tickets to both, visit ellasmusicclub.com
In Sydney, Amy Winehouse Resurrected is on July 12 at Paddo RSL. Book tickets.
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