“Juliette has the lead role of Matilda,” says a proud Toni, “and Mackenzie is Amanda, the one Miss Trunchbull throws around by her pigtails.”
It’s a big commitment for the family, with both Juliette, 11, and Mackenzie, 9, already heavily involved in netball, which Toni coaches, but as soon as the girls started showing an interest in song and dance, their mother wasted no time in encouraging it.
“I was in musicals until I was about 14 and then I had to make a choice between sports or performing,” reveals the New Plymouth-born star, who turned 41 this month.
“In little old Taranaki, they didn’t have any youth theatre, so sport took over. I played netball and cricket, and did the sporty thing.”
But the drama scene in Auckland, where her family is now based, is very strong, so when Toni came across the National Youth Theatre on social media, she thought it would be fun for the children.
Toni Street's daughters both have roles in upcoming production Matilda the Musical. Photo / Emily Chalk
“I think it’s good to get them involved when they are young because it’s hard for kids to get up in front of people, so the earlier they learn it, the better,” she explains. “Juliette loved dancing and singing from a young age, so I asked her if she’d like to do it on stage.”
Juliette was keen and went to an audition for Frozen Junior at the age of 8, landing the part of young Elsa.
“It was a shock that she got that, but then that was it,” laughs Toni. “From that moment, she just loved it and has kept doing shows. Then her little sister Mackenzie wanted a piece of the action too.”
Inspired by Roald Dahl’s story and with original songs by Tim Minchin, Matilda The Musical opens on Wednesday at Auckland’s Bruce Mason Centre and runs for three weeks. But rehearsals have been going on most of the year, so the logistics of running the girls to and from their 6-10pm run-throughs, making sure they get enough sleep for school and netball, have presented Toni and her husband Matt France with quite a challenge.
“You should see the front of our fridge,” groans Toni.
Toni Street performed in musicals as a youngster, eventually choosing to pursue sports over music. Photo / Emily Chalk
“I’ve got printouts of calendars and a wall planner.”
Toni has also been a tutor for the girls, drawing on her own childhood musical experience, and also the fact she loves to sing and dance just as much as her girls.
She explains: “They got the audition material last November so, over summer, I helped them to learn the dances. Fortunately, I have time off from the radio over the holidays, so we had a great time.”
Once the girls got their parts earlier this year, Toni says it was one big puzzle to fit everything in.
“They have rehearsal four times this week, so I will drop them in, often feeding them dinner in the car, then Matt will pick them up at 10pm because I need an early night for the radio – although I’m often still awake because I’m excited to hear how it went!”
However, there have been some weeks when it all got a bit too much.
“Juliette plays grade-one netball and I coach the team. We had the final game, then she went straight from that to rehearsal and could hardly even process the fact that we lost! She’s also had to sacrifice some netball games and Mackenzie couldn’t be in her school show because of Matilda,” Toni says.
Meanwhile, Toni’s 6-year-old son Lachie is obsessed with football and is not showing any signs of joining his sisters on stage.
“He’s quite different from the girls,” she says. “He’s much more shy, but I reckon he almost knows every word of Matilda. He sits there and he’s obsessed with it. But if you’d say to him, ‘Go up on the stage,’ he would run the other way!”
Street has taken leave from her role at Coast to be there for her daughters while the musical is on. Photo / Emily Chalk
Matt is more in Lachie’s camp, but Toni says her husband has really embraced the show and also knows all the words to the songs.
Laughing, Matt agrees he’s terrified of getting up on any stage, but he does love Matilda, confessing: “Every time I watch it on Netflix, I cry. It’s an incredible musical with a great storyline.”
Matt is a former North Harbour rugby halfback who grew up in Timaru with a sports-mad family similar to Toni’s whānau in Taranaki. It’s clear this couple is a tight unit when it comes to managing their talented family.
While Toni gets ready for the Woman’s Day photoshoot, Matt picks the kids up from school, then empties their lunchboxes and recycles any leftover fruit into an afternoon snack, served with a slice of the banana bread Toni made that morning.
Juliette and Mackenzie hang around, chatting to our crew, while Lachie quietly heads off to his bedroom with the kai and his Disney Worlds of Wonder card collection.
Despite her expert planning, Toni has made the decision to take leave from her Coast breakfast show for two weeks while Matilda is on.
“By this time of year, I start to get pretty run-down from all those early shifts,” she admits. “I feel like we hit a real moment when we had the end of the netball season and I was coaching two teams in the finals. That added a lot of pressure because I was trying to run that while also looking after Juliette so she didn’t have a meltdown. She definitely had a couple of days where she got quite tearful.”
While Toni is used to operating at a fast pace, Juliette was sick and feeling tired for a couple of weeks. The star recalls, “Matt and I looked at each other, and we said, ‘We just have to get through this week,’ and we cancelled everything. We knew she couldn’t go out – she had to stay home and sleep.
“We also want the kids to enjoy this time and we knew that if they were exhausted, it would ruin it, so there have been some days off school and some days just sleeping.”
Yet somehow skilled multitasker Toni also manages some me-time amid her busy career, and being a stage and sport mum.
Smiling, she recalls: “My best friend Sophie Braggins, who was Lachie’s surrogate mum, said she wanted to come up to Auckland for my birthday, so we got a few people together and ended up having 15 friends around for a ladies’ lunch, which was just beautiful.”
As if life wasn’t manic enough, Toni is heading to New York as soon as Matilda finishes, taking some Coast competition winners to the home of musical theatre, and she still finds time to support her favourite charities.
Her latest philanthropic venture is Second Hand September’s Celebrity Designer Wardrobe Sale, which runs until the end of the month and sees some of New Zealand’s favourite stars, including Toni, Hilary Barry, The White Lotus actress Morgana O’Reilly and country singer Kaylee Bell, sell pre-loved pieces of clothing to raise money for Dress for Success.
Toni donated a Trelise Cooper dress she bought to host a Melbourne Cup event. She tells, “It’s a bright red, floral number that someone will take for an occasion over summer and I hope they get some good funds from it”.
The star says she hasn’t traditionally been someone who buys second-hand clothes, but lately she’s had some lucky finds.
“I’ve been going into some great stores we have here in Takapuna, and the clothes are awesome and in great nick. I’m thinking this might be a great idea to raise funds for the girls’ netball teams next year!”
Despite the madness, Toni is already looking ahead to 2025, although she admits it’ll be hard to beat this year.
Smiling, she confides, “I said to Matt this morning, ‘I still can’t believe that we’re so lucky this opportunity has come for them.’ Just to have these memories from Matilda and everything that goes with it is so magical.”
