So, its been a while, where was I… ah yes…
What was I thinking?! No acting experience, no singing experience, barely a years dancing experience and all of a sudden I wanted to be on stage in front of hundreds of people? Crazy? Yes, I was.
I immediately got recommened to a great singing teacher who still gives me lessons to this day, who had 2 weeks to get me ready for the first audition. Now this audition was just to get into the society which runs the shows, not even the show itself. It was 1 song, 1 chance. Blow it and i’ve fallen at the first hurdle. Give up & go back to full time computer nerd.
Having never done any singing before, my voice was, lets face it, awful. My singing teacher says that back then, I could have been a bass. My voice isn’t naturally low but I was certainly not comfortable singing past a C. I had a few songs to pick from, some of which had to be transposed lower if I wanted to try them at an audition.
Anyway, with only a couple of hours tuition under my belt, I went along to the first audition, singing one of the songs from Calamity Jane, ‘Hive full of Honey’. Thats right, the song Francis Fryer sings, dressed as a women. What can I say? It was in my range ! The day came and I entered the dark quiet room and sang, maybe slightly out of tune, the first verse to Hive full of Honey. Well, it was good enough to get me into the society, but there is a distinct lack of young men in the society so I could have probably gone in there and said the words to twinkle twinkle little star and still got in. With that done and overwith, my thoughts turned to acting and that audition for the role francis fryer.
There was 3 weeks till the next audition which gave me plenty of singing practice and time to go through the lines. I think acting came pretty naturally to me, or so say the people around me, I thought I was rubbish. The western american accent was tricky at first but got easier the more I knew the lines. With as much preparation as a man can do when he has to play a women for a musical number, the second audition came.
I had rehearsed a dance routine with my girlfriend at the time and had help from my singing teacher so that I would be able to completely ‘camp up’ the song Hive full of Honey and get the judging panel all laughing. All I can say is, it worked. To say I was nervous would be a complete understatement but that didn’t matter as the scene in the musical involves a very nervous man, advantage Steve. With smiles and sniggers coming from every one of the judging panel, I knew I did a good job, but, was it enough?
Shocked? Yes. Surprised? Yes. Scared? Very. I only bloody got the role.
One of the main roles in a musical that in 5 months time would be performed in front of 220 people for 5 nights, 6 shows. I couldn’t believe it. You might think that 5 months is a long time, but when you’ve had no bloody experience theres a lot to learn, and fast! Firstly, it only then sunk in that I would have to be dragged up to the max in front of friends of family singing a camp song, but secondly there were two songs! .. and a hell of a lot of lines to learn. On paper, it was a disaster waiting to happen, in reality, it just had to work.
5 months came and went fast, emotions running very high and to top off everything I was learning, I was thrown the task of singing my first song whilst tap dancing, thats right tap dancing which I had only had a years experience doing and singing I had barely months of experience doing, they wanted me to combine the two, at the same time. So just in case you’ve forgotten, I’ve to got to dress up as a women singing a song as camp as possible whilst prancing around a stage giving all the male cast the eye, then sing another song, whilst tap dancing. I’m an idiot.
Show week came, we had one technical rehearsal and one dress rehearsal, then it was show time. I’ll admit, I thought I was ready but as soon as you step foot on that stage, it all changes. Props, mics, band, costumes, they all change everything.
Let’s just say that week, was possibly one of the best weeks in my life. I cannot explain the nerves and I cannot explain the absolute adrenaline rush when you’re bowing at the end. From that moment on, I was so proud of what I had accomplished and knew that this was the beginning of something special. Add on top of that, a fantastic review in the newspaper and I was on Cloud 9.
Thing is, what do I do now? The next show with the society was the Pirates of Penzance and although its not an immediate favourite of mine, I was still interested. Then things turned slightly sour.
I broke up with my girlfriend who had performed in Calamity Jane with me and who was also in the same society. She was a massive fan of Pirates and I knew we couldn’t both do the show under the circumstances so I told her to go for it and I would find something else to do. It wasn’t the end of the world, I still plan on going back to the society, but when its awkward and bad timing, theres nothing you can do.
This nearly brings you up to speed, I say nearly because the week of the break up, I had an audition, for another musical. “They’re Playing Our Song” – its not a really well known musical and was done in the 70s, in my eyes, it was a perfect chance to get experience and was going to be done on a fairly small scale so seemed perfect. What I didn’t realise is the show only includes 2 main parts (1 male and 1 female lead) and 6 chorus (3 males and 3 females playing the alter egos of the main characters). So, thats a 2 hour show, a 50 page script, split between two, on top of that add 13 songs and you’ve got one very nervous Steve. Guess what, I only bloody got the main role.
Its a comedy, which is turning out to be my speciality, but no dressing up this time, thank god! Its your usual romantic comedy where I play a cocky composer and the female plays a querky lyricist. Think the film “Music & Lyrics” and you’re not far off. After spending nearly 2 months rehearsing for this show, things have taken a turn for the worse, but also slightly better. It was originally going to be performed in March but, due to lack of cast, its been postponed and we are doing a cut down version in march followed by a full scale production in… well who knows when now, but its going to happen. The reason why this is good news is because the production can be put on a massive scale now, not just small time. We can do it in a bigger theatre, build publicity and more importantly, prepare more.
Well that’s about us caught up to present day. I still run my I.T business but probably spend more time on acting, singing and dancing more than I do actually working. I guess thats because I hope one day that I can do it for a living and be successful. I’ve joined a male voice choir to improve my singing and have taken to doing lots more dance classes and even starting a drama class soon to improve my acting, I guess people can’t say i’m not dedicated!!
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