The Show Must Go On…
The countdown is on, (most) lines have been learnt, dances are being polished and more costumes are arriving on my doorstep than the postman can cope with. They don’t know we are putting on ‘Peter Pan’…they just assume that I’m a crazy person with a penchant for buying random stuff online: fairy wings, tomahawks, tutus, fabrics of all colours and over 40 pirate costumes.
The run up to any show is stressful. Aside from the obvious nerves there’s the other stuff that no-one notices: running orders, technical scripts, chaperones, licenses, endless paperwork and now we have the mandatory element of a weekly missing cast member due to that 5-7 day complication. You know what I’m talking about.
We auditioned kids for this show in November 2019 and were rehearsing in March 2020, when we shut down, so of course the July show of that year never happened. 2 years on and, despite having the longest rehearsal period in a kids show on record, I can count the number of times the full cast have been altogether on one hand.
Some people think we are mad. I think the same regularly, but there is something saying we have to do this show. Ever since we have gone to back to classes, the cast members have asked constantly ‘When are we doing the show?’ Not a show but the show. They haven’t given up and they aren’t going to let the small matter of an international pandemic stop them.
So we’ve been back at it since September. After the first half term of sporadic isolating cast members, we did something we’ve never had to do and appointed understudies. These reliable, determined children have taken on roles, learnt their lines, read in at rehearsals and followed other children dancing their part without a murmur of jealousy or complaint, despite the knowledge that they are likely never going to appear on stage in the coveted role of Peter, Hook etc.
It has shown children’s ability to understand the real cost of the last few years – the uncertainty, the need for contingency, the constant ‘what if?’ The understudies and swings of the West End, Broadway and regional theatre have been celebrated a lot recently, unsung heroes as they keep their shows open, and these kids are doing no less in their smaller world.
It would be easy to stop and say ‘let’s do it next year’, but we’ve been doing that since this whole thing began. We are going ahead, with a show half complete, large swathes cut out as some members of the cast haven’t even met yet. It will be a butchered version of what we started with but it doesn’t matter. Whatever it is on the night, the rehearsal process has been the making of some children. The getting here is what’s important. In an uncertain world: the goal.
We have seen children join us who wouldn’t utter a word – whose personal lockdown resulted in social anxiety, fear and an inability to speak in front of a class. One of these children is performing a solo – a rap no less (as a performer of over 20 years even I wouldn’t have the nerve to do that). She has gone from being the child that wouldn’t say boo less than a year ago, to the one that volunteers to read in, every time, and has worked so hard to conquer her own obstacles I want to explode with pride.
There will be tears too I’m sure on the night. My mind goes back to a tiny ballerina in our last show, visibly sobbing every time she was curled up ‘sleeping’ and yet leaping up smiling to shake her feet and hands as a Dingle Dangle Scarecrow. We don’t traumatise children, we could have removed her from the stage but she kept going, gave a hearty thumbs-up into the wing at me, faced her fear, and is raring to go this time. That determination to keep going is when it matters most is a character building experience that being on a stage can deliver like no other.
I, in my own inflated brain want this show to rival the Cameron Mackintosh creations of the London scene but the reality is, it will be what it is. A kids show – a chance for them to dress up as pirates, fairies, lost boys, whatever, sing loud, make mistakes and still be applauded because they are kids, and after waiting this long, working this hard and putting up with so much, they deserve a standing ovation.
