Comedian Melanie Bracewell grew up in the North Shore, developing a passion for performing arts through her school years and beyond. This passion started from playing the Wicked Witch of the West as a 10 year old at Kauri Park School (which to this day, she says is probably a highlight) to taking the main role of Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors in her senior years at Birkenhead College.

"There was one thing that remained consistent through those years – I knew I wanted to perform,” explained Melanie in her AIMES Award application. "I wasn’t sure if it would be acting, or singing, or television presenting, I just remember the buzz of performing, knowing those were the happiest moments of my life. Maybe I just love attention, who knows!”
Melanie was deputy head girl of Birkenhead College, delivering weekly speeches for the school, which she would always try and inject a bit of humour into. "There’s nothing more boring than hearing about clearing up rubbish, but if I could do it and make people laugh at the same time, I knew I was doing a good job.”
In her time at Birkenhead College Melanie, a real all rounder, amassed a bunch of awards for academics, performance and sport. In her final year 2013 – Deputy Head Girl; Proxime Accessit Award (Second to Dux); Sportswoman of the Year; Rizzo in Grease; Excellence in Acting; Trophy for Best Actress. 2012 – Excellence in Acting; First in Drama; Excellence in Vocal Performance and Dance; Most Inspiring Netball Player.
Towards the end of high school she received the Significant Student Scholarship for AUT and decided she wanted to pursue a Bachelor of Communications. Melanie majored in Television and Screen production, and had multiple short films that were chosen for the FLAVOURZ annual short lm festival. She graduated with a degree achieved with very high grades.
"It was around November of 2014, my first year of university, when I tried stand up for the very first time. There was a competition at the time titled ‘7 Days Comedy Apprentice’ that, upon being egged on by my friends, I decided to enter. I had to make a video of myself being funny for a minute, which is surprisingly, really blimmin’ difficult. Thankfully, my silly joke about checkout dividers was good enough and I was selected to be one of the six finalists. We all got to do a mini 7 Days at the Classic Comedy Bar, and then it was up to the New Zealand public to decide. In the meantime, I decided to book myself for a RAW comedy gig. My reasoning was, if I didn’t win, I wanted to have something else to focus on. On the other hand, if I did miraculously win, I didn’t want to look like some chick who just wanted to be on TV for two minutes while people struggled with their comedy careers. Thankfully I won, and appeared on the show in November 2014. Unfortunately along with the prize was a corporate stand up gig for McDonalds. I had done one gig at that point and smashed it, so I thought it’d be easy. Hoo boy. No. Absolutely not. Oh man. Turns out 60 year old men in business suits trying to eat their dinner isn’t my demographic!
"Within a few months I entered the RAW Comedy Quest alongside hundreds of more experienced comedians and I won that too! It was an amazing feeling, and that’s when I knew that a career in stand-up was my dream. It’s something you don’t even consider as a girl growing up. I’ve met plenty of women in comedy that never thought of it as an option until it was basically thrust in front of them. Some of my male comedian friends, however, have told me that they knew they wanted to do comedy as young as 12. I think the biggest reason is representation. I loved watching comedy growing up, my Dad is probably my biggest influence, so I was obviously familiar with Richard Pryor and Monty Python but I never saw any women doing comedy on television growing up. It never even crossed my mind.”
Since then, Melanie has been performing regularly throughout New Zealand. In just a few short years she's amassed quite a few achievements in comedy, radio and television.
Melanie says her biggest and most recent achievement was being approached to write for a new television show which will be screening sometime in the new year. She has written an entire episode script and is eagerly awaiting its announcement.
After volunteering at Radio Hauraki for eight months she was offered a job as a producer for the Matt and Jerry show who have described Melanie as “a great New Zealander”. She now has her own show on Saturdays and Sundays.
So what is Melanie going to do with her AIMES Award grant?
"In terms of my future in comedy, I’d love to travel. Unfortunately travelling and putting on shows is expensive. I plan to perform for a full month in Melbourne for the Comedy Festival, but marketing and venue hire will most definitely add up to a net loss. My show will be one of more than 500 shows taking part in the festival, so I’ll need marketing to get audience cut through. Producing a show involves everything from organising venue hire, marketing and publicity, travel and accommodation, sourcing props and equipment, budgeting, ticketing, obtaining insurance and licences and much more. Registration alone (the fee just to apply for the festival) is $525 AUD. I also hope to perform in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which is even more ridiculous. I want to be able to comfortably do what I love, and advance my career without ending up in awful debt. An AIMES Award would be an incredible asset, and would allow me to eliminate some of these financial concerns. This is all so I can become a better performer. I’ve managed to cultivate an audience in New Zealand, but overseas performances to people who have no idea who I am will force me to be the best I can be.
The Melbourne Comedy Festival runs in March 2018 and would cost me at least $8000, depending on which venue I am able to get. Edinburgh is in August next year and will be almost double that. I am at a point where I want to be able to push myself, without returning to New Zealand in debt.”
Melanie Bracewell’s achievements include:-
WINNER: 2014 7 Days Comedy Apprentice; 2015 Raw Comedy Quest Champion; 2016 Best Twitter Comedy Guild Award; 2017 NZICF Best Newcomer Award.
NOMINEE: 2016 Best Female Comedian Comedy Guild Award; 2016 Best Breakthrough Artist Comedy Guild Award; 2016 Best Blog Comedy Guild Award; 2016 NZICF Best Newcomer Award. OTHER: 2015-2017 Radio Hauraki Producer and Announcer;
2015 Nominated for a Shorty Award; 2015 Featured in Women’s Weekly. 2016 Appeared on the 4:30 Show; 2016 Appeared on The Moe Show; 2016 Piece on The Bachelor on The Spinoff goes viral; 2016 Performed Comedy at Rhythm and Vines; 2016 Reached 250,000 followers on personal blog; 2016 Tweets appeared on Buzzfeed, The New York Times, The Independent; 2016 Chosen as the face of SKY’S ‘Tiny Trailers’ which got nominated for a Webby Award; 2017 Selected for the TV3 Comedy Gala; 2017 Regular Appearances on 7 Days; 2017 Selected as a writer and reporter for The Project; 2017 Performed at the Comedy Store in Sydney.

Melanie Bracewell reflects on receiving the 2017 AIMES Arts Award sponsored by ASB and a cash grant of $15,000.

What are your reflections on the experience of receiving the AIMES AWARD and the actual event of the award being presented?
It was pretty surreal. It definitely feels amazing to receive such a prestigious honour for something that people may not recognise as an 'art'. It was an incredible room full of multi-talented people so it was just awesome to be on stage alongside them. I hadn't planned a speech or anything, so I was quickly tapping away on my phone trying to think of something to say, and it wasn't too horrible so that was great.

Who has had the biggest influence on your achievements to date and why?
It's a very boring answer, but probably my parents. Without my dad showing me stand up while I was growing up, I don't think I would've even seen it as an option. My mum has also been extremely supportive, even letting me do a couple jokes at her expense, which is very lovely of her.

What will 2018 bring for you?
A bit of travel, and a few exciting projects. I'm continuing as a full time writer for The Project on TV3, making regular appearances on 7 Days and doing my weekend radio show. A show I wrote an episode for will be airing in the middle of the year, which is exciting. I'm doing my Billy T nominated show in the 2018 NZ Comedy Festival and even travelling to Brisbane to take part in the Brisbane Comedy Festival with my good friend Angella Dravid. So lots of stuff! Probably too much stuff, but we'll see.