The vibrant Anray Amansure, a City Varsity graduate, plays the role of Liezel Lewis in Aunty Merle, The Musical, the musical comedy featuring comedian Marc Lottering as the big-mouthed and straightforward Aunty Merle Abrahams, a housewife from Belgravia Road, Athlone.
Drama unfolds in the Abrahams household when Tarryn Lamb as Abigail Abrahams (Aunty Merleās daughter), announces her engagement to Alan White (Stephan Jubber) and all hell breaks loose when ex-boyfriend Denver Paulse (Loukmaan Adams) intervenes. Abigail and Liezel are best friends and Liezel encourages and supports Abigail through her tough time, adhering to her motto, ā lifeās way too short for nonsense and nonsensical boysā.
Growing up with a passion for dancing, Anray envisioned herself as a dance choreographer. She spent most of her adolescent years in the church choir, ministering through song at different churches.
In her final year at Mondale High School, in Portland, she applied to study public relations at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. However, only one week into being at campus she felt she needed to make a change to her career choice. She said: āI was sitting in class and I sent my mommy āplease call meāsā. She called and I was like , I canāt do this, I need to be at the music school.ā
She moved on to study at the Cape Music Institute in Athlone. After finishing a year, she went to work at a call centre.
One day, while watching a TV series, another career choice popped up – she really wanted to do TV presenting. Doing research on where she could take up the course, she found that to be on the screen she would have to either do the presenting course part-time or in the second year of acting. She chose acting, which is a career choice which had never even crossed her mind.
āThatās when I fell in love with theatre. Now I really canāt picture myself doing anything else,ā said Anray.
She then obtained her diploma and Advanced Diploma in Professional Acting for Camera. Anray said she was urged by her agent to audition for Aunty Merle, The Musical while she was rehearsing for the Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees in March. āAfter rehearsal I came here (Baxter Theatre) and I saw all these amazing actors and I said to myself āI donāt know if Iām going to get thisāā.
But she didnāt get feedback and, feeling disappointed, she contacted her agent who surprised her with the news that she had got the part.
Anray said she enjoyed working with the cast of the musical and referred to them as family.
āThey are all lovely people, both on and off stage and easy to get along with,ā she said. When asked how her character differed from her, she said there were actually similarities.
āSheās confident, does not have time for nonsense. Sheās fun and believes thereās a time for everything – when it is time to be fun, she is and when there is a time to be serious, sheās serious,ā said Anray.
Aunty Merle, The Musical is only one of the many productions that Anray has performed in. She was in a theatre piece called The price of meat , presented by City Varsity, she also shared the stage with artists such as Sasha- Lee Davids, musician Munro du Toit, the 2010ās SAās Got Talent winner James Bhemgee, The South African Youth Choir and many more. She is part of an all womenās group called Woman2Woman, known for their funny parody, including the remake of Beyonceās, Irreplaceable.
Through it all, Anray said, her family had been very supportive of her decisions. āThey have been my backbone. A lot of parents donāt acknowledge the arts, with many parents feeling that when you study it has to be lucrative. Thankfully,they never restricted me from doing what I am doing. We are a very strong family and we never allowed circumstances to dictate where and what we need to do.ā