Today I feel hungover. I haven't had alcohol for weeks, and even then I didn't drink much. My head feels heavy, the sunlight hurts my eyes, and my eyelids haven't fully opened yet and it's after 3pm. Could this be the comedown from last night's performance?
A few weeks ago I decided to go along to a couple of singing workshops, as a company called Encounter were putting together a show about love at Stockton Arc and they wanted the local community to be involved. Strictly speaking I'm not very local, having been brought up in Redcar and now living just a couple of miles away in Middlesbrough, but no one stopped me so along I went!
I didn't have the faintest idea what to expect. I've been a member of Stockton Town Choir for over a year, but that didn't prepare me one tiny bit for what was to come.
The workshops threw me as far out of my comfort zone as I'd ever felt. I'm used to singing in groups, that's not a problem, but I felt awkward and uncomfortable when being asked for my opinions. When I did dare to open my mouth to offer them, I felt disregarded, but I'm certain that had more to do with my insecurities and the difficulties of including everyone equally, especially when there were very strong personalities in the group! The people running the workshops really were nice. Jen Malarkey and Sam Sommerfield clearly tried to make everyone feel at ease, but they did also have a job to do. My own insecurities really can't be blamed on other people, and recognising this at the time (because I'm an adult, after all!) I decided as I left the first workshop feeling a little disheartened, that I would give myself a few days and see how I felt.
In the meantime I booked onto the writing workshop for the following week.
My decision was ultimately the right one. I returned to Arc the following Saturday for the second of the two singing workshops, and the energy was poles apart from the previous week. Maybe the sun was shining and it cheered me up, or perhaps I'd just given myself a talking to about not behaving like a petulant child! We all do it. Yes, even you! Maybe it was simply that a brighter room with more people lifted the energy, it's hard to say, but having sung two new songs that had been collectively written (though granted, most of the credit goes to Sam and Jen!), plus a couple of other tunes, I left that lunchtime feeling much lighter and brighter than I had the previous week, and I was looking forward to writing that same afternoon.
Much like the singing workshops I didn't know what I was walking into, but it seemed I wasn't alone. We were introduced to the lovely Shireen Mula, and we introduced ourselves to each other, then went full force into exploring what love meant to us personally. Good or bad, exhilarating or painful, every opinion and thought was valid, accepted and often understood. How, after all, can there be a wrong answer to something that is ultimately undefinable down to just one or two words? Love is individual, unique, and yet we all understand it without needing explanation.
We used our memories and imaginations. We talked and we wrote. We were amused and upset. We listened and we supported. Then finally we each wrote a letter.
Each letter, I'm sure, was very different. One was written to a parent who was long gone, another to themselves, mine to my dad. Even while I was writing my letter I was unsure whether a memory I recalled and described in some detail was something conjured from my imagination, or perhaps a chimera made up of many different memories rolled into one. Today I discovered it was real when dad found and brought round the very photograph that captured the memory, and I was so pleased I hadn't imagined the whole thing!
I didn't share a great deal during the workshop; I'm not used to sharing my writing beyond my blogs and I don't volunteer it perhaps for fear of being ridiculed, although I often think it's because I know it's not good enough for anyone else's eyes. So when the lovely, thought provoking workshop was over I gathered up all my pieces of paper and took them home, never again expecting them to see the light of day.
I booked into the rehearsal week knowing I could only go for the last two days, and I waited. The anticipation of what would happen, how the show would come together, even the type of show it would be, was almost too much. I found myself sitting in my comfy chair with pangs of jealousy rising when the daily rehearsal updates came through, just because I knew I couldn't be there and I so badly wanted to be part of the process.
Thursday finally arrived, and once again I strode into Arc with feelings of anticipation and apprehension. If I'd been out of my comfort zone before, now I couldn't even see where the comfort zone had been at all! So I found my way to the room that was booked, not very early, maybe only five minutes, but I was still the first to arrive. I was greeted by an enthusiastic Jen and Shireen, and within just a few minutes I was told I could open the show with the "Love is" part, and if I brought along the letter I wrote in the workshop I could perhaps read that out, too.
I don't know quite what my face said, but inside I was starting to panic. Start the show? Read my letter? Were they nuts? I'd never done anything like this before and although I was keen to be part of it, I was already starting to worry that I'd let people down and make a fool of myself! But instead of backing away and running out of the door, I took a deep breath and before I knew it I was saying, "In for a penny..."!
And so my fate was sealed, and by my own doing! Oh dear.
What followed over the next two days was what I can only call a baptism of fire. Dances to learn (with special thanks to the gorgeous and talented Patricia Suarez), a script to follow, new people to get to know and trust, sequences to remember, but no singing. Yes, I know. Me not singing! It was a blessing in the end, since there was only eight of us on stage I fear my distinctly average voice would have sounded a little wrong coming from a stage in Arc! In any case, I had enough to try and remember...
Walk to this mic...
Don't forget to remove your party hat...
Project into the audience...
Keep the energy up when you're listening to someone else speak...
Don't forget to remove your party hat...
Swap seats after the Pavanne...
Pick up your script after Wild World...
Hug them like you mean it...
For the love of god, don't forget to remove your party hat!!!
Rehearsals were two long days of going home so exhausted that despite knowing I should be hungry, I just didn't want to eat. My feet ached, my back was screaming at me and there were muscles pulling in my legs that I forgot existed. And none of it mattered because despite all that, and despite feeling inadequate and awkward and as though I shouldn't be anywhere near the stage, I had fun and I didn't want it to end.
Then came Saturday, the day of the performance.
I was already aware that community shows tend not to pull in audiences. Memories of dodgy am drams from the eighties come to mind even now. I knew that we wouldn't have a large audience, and that most people would be there only because they knew someone in the show, but it didn't matter. It didn't make the experience any less rewarding and it certainly didn't calm the nerves on the day!
When I arrived and discovered that we'd be working on the show up to the last moment I was a little uneasy. Why weren't we being left to relax for half an hour beforehand? Well, apart from the obvious, "Because you need more practice, you numpty!", it was actually a blessing. I don't know how anyone else felt, but I knew the moment that the audience started to take their seats that it was also time well spent to take our minds off the nerves. Whether that was intended at all I don't know, but that was certainly the result and I welcomed it with open arms!
I was lucky. As the audience made their way into the theatre we were already on stage, chatting at a table. My luck became apparent when I realised that being placed at one end of the table and not facing out to the audience, I couldn't see my dad come in and sit down. I stopped myself from turning to look because I knew that the moment I did the nerves would rise up and strangle me, and being the first to speak this really wasn't advisable!
And so we began. We watched Patricia's wonderful movements on stage for a short while, I took a deep breath, stood, walked to the mic, and at the moment I opened my mouth to speak an unexpected calmness filled me. I spoke my piece and realised I enjoyed it, and for the rest of my time on stage I had fun. I relaxed. I had no idea how, but I did.
But what of the letter to dad? Well, okay I admit that I had to pause briefly a couple of times to breathe and recompose myself so I didn't turn into a blubbing mess. It was emotional, of course it was. It was a show about love and I was reading out a personal letter to my dad. And he was in the audience. I was later assured by more than one person that yes, it was clear I felt every word that I was speaking very deeply, but that it didn't come across as uncomfortable or silly, it was simply real.
Phew!
Something unexpected did hit me even while we were on stage. Nothing I said was scripted by anyone else, all the words were my own, and dotted amongst the heartfelt sentiments were little snippets of humour purposely put there to make people smile as well as cry (and people did cry... for the right reasons!). What was unexpected? At the moments when I expected silent smiles, there were laughs. Not huge belly laughs, but clear as day, genuine laughs nonetheless, and suddenly I realised why people become addicted to being on the stage. The instant, involuntary feedback you get when you've made someone sigh, laugh or cry with your own words is beautiful. Unexpected and entirely beautiful. I know I'll always be grateful for the openness and generosity of the audience who allowed us to tell them our stories, because without those very people the words wouldn't have been heard at all.
So we spoke. We danced. We helped each other. We hugged. We danced some more. We cried a little. We smiled a lot. And at the very end, having taken our bow and filing off stage, one of us could no longer contain herself and she whooped for joy. With absolute abandon she punched her fist in the air, shouted,"Yes, we did it!", and giggled. That will be one of the strongest memories I take from the whole experience, the pure joy that we, a small group of people most of whom had never done anything like this in our lives, had performed a show about love to the people we love, in a town we love.
I know that some of us won't let that be our last on-stage experience, and I also know that even if we were to go on to do dozens of different shows over the years, nothing will better the feeling of achievement and pride in our first show. Nothing.
Thank you Jen, Sam, Shireen and Patricia for a fabulous experience, for your support, encouragement, inspiration and tireless work to try and make us just get it right!
The culmination of all the hard work can be found here (
http://vimeo.com/93386150)
. It's a beautiful video montage to a stunning soundtrack!
Thanks also go to the staff at Stockton Arc. Every last person from technicians to bar/cafe staff were downright lovely.
Finally, thank you to Adam Parkin for his fabulous photos.
I really do hope Arc brings many more projects like Tell Someone Special to town. It's just another thing to add to the list of reasons to move to Stockton, this coming from a woman who already feels as though she's been adopted!
Here's to the next project!
Oh, and just in case you're wondering... yes, I remembered to remove my party hat!
