It was a nice surprise to see that The Minack Theatre web designers have used a picture from our musical adaptation of Gulliver's Travels as one of their few slideshow images on their home page. It was a very colourful production at The Minack in 2008 with some fantastic costumes (designed by Jill "Wiggy" Wilson). It was a privilege to perform there, verging on spiritual - well, what else can you call it when you are saying the line "an eclipse, an eclipse" and a cloud crosses the path of the moon on cue.  Oh - and the rainbow bowing to the ocean as the opening chords echoed up the mountain. Brought back some good memories. 

Nicky has spent the weekend in Blackpool in her new role as a marketing manager for Stagescripts - returning with some very positive news that amateur societies are starting to realise that there is no such thing as a "bankable" show at the moment and that now is as good a time as any to take the plunge and do something different - which is what the Stagescripts catalogue is all about - offering new challenges to production companies (both professional and amateur) and new material to audiences. It is great to be part of a company that recognises that the gap between professional and amateur theatre is not as wide as some might think. If anything, the resources available are far greater in the amateur circuit - we "professionals" consider a cast of 10 to be enormous - Gulliver's Travels at The Minack had a cast of 40 plus a 10 piece orchestra and who knows how many crew -  it just needs a concerted effort for amateur societies to raise the bar - start choosing new material again -  and surprise us all with the scale achievable. It was great to hear about Michael Sheen's Mysteries, lasting 72 hours and involving 1000's of people. The idea that we all want to see the same stuff, same formula over and over again is nonsense - playing safe slowly and surely pushes audiences away. The audience needs new material, even if it is a reshaping of existing works and ideas.  And the writers that are yet to force their way through those narrow openings to recognition could do worse than write for the amateur market, their local community.
 
 The RSC have realised this too and their recent inspiration - The Open Stages project -  is a great way of uniting people nationally in being inventive and producing quality theatre around a Shakespearian theme. Because of this initiative, a local amateur company near us is making the brave effort to mount a production of my new musical, Olympus.  The plan - a hundred strong children's chorus, 15 named roles and an extra 20 ensemble (at the least.) Throw in a community/school aged orchestra, a yet to be confirmed space (preferably large) and you have a new piece of theatre uniting the Croydon community in a project for 2012. I hope they can pull it off -  professionally it would never happen at the moment - cast too big, not branded, no money available, unknown writer - recession. Let's see what the "amateurs" can do!

Link to The Minack Website here - looks like a fantastic program this year.