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Tickets to CHESS are now ON SALE! Book at https://events.ticketbooth.co.nz/event/chess The Wellington Footlights Society presents the highly-acclaimed musical drama CHESS. Witness this epic story of love and political intrigue, and experience its monumental rock score in our biggest show ever. Te Auaha, July 5-14. Groups of 10+ get a discounted price. This is the first Footlights show with allocated seating, so make your move and get your tickets early. Poster design and photography by Alex Rabina 
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We're looking for production team members for our next big show! We are thrilled to announce that we will be presenting the New Zealand premiere of If/Then by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey (creators of Next to Normal) this November. Elizabeth, a city planner, moves back to New York to restart her life in the city of infinite possibilities. When her carefully designed plans collide with the whims of fate, Elizabeth's life splits into two parallel paths. If/Then follows both stories simultaneously, as this modern woman faces the intersection of choice and chance. Roles available: - director - musical director - stage manager - production manager - costume designer - lighting designer/operator - props manager - set designer - sound designer/operator - choreographer - publicity manager Email wellingtonfootlights@gmail.com with your pitch for the role(s) you're applying for. Applications close 17 June!  Our musical director Michael Stebbings is putting together the biggest, most powerful, most epic band that Footlights has ever seen for CHESS, and we need your help to give this show the sound it deserves. If you or someone you know can play the following instruments, and are available for rehearsals and the performance dates from 5-14 July, email wellingtonfootlights@gmail.com and join us in making history! We're looking for talented: - cellists - violinists - saxophonist or saxophonist / clarinettist - brass players  by Kenneth Gaffney 2017 has begun, and we need some more Knights to help find the Holy Grail! Hello everyone, thank you in advance for reading. My name is Kenneth Kennington, and I am a Footlights Knight of the props table. Okay… That’s not actually my name – maybe I got your attention. After a fantastic collaboration with Supertonic, Footlights are back for 2017 and our next show will be Monty Python’s SPAMALOT! We are very excited to begin rehearsals, let out our inner silliness and put on this wonderfully silly show, sure to make you (the audience – if you book in time) and us (the cast, crew, and musicians) laugh enough to drown out 2016 (a lot of people remember the bad things, but some good things did happen!) I still remember Legally Blonde fondly, Bruiser barked like a wee champion, didn’t he? Before we smashed it again with Heathers. So let's kick off 2017 with a bang!
Spamalot won 3 Tony awards in 2005, so there you go – it comes certifiably ready for us to bring you a show that you’ll love! What excites me about this show is that it’s incredibly silly, like me! The show acknowledges its ridiculousness, it pokes fun at theatre, and musicals (a quick Wikipedia search will tell you all the details you need to know - just don’t read too much and spoil the show for yourself like I did with Game of Thrones…) I joined Footlights after I successfully screeched Chess’ Anthem, in my audition to join the company for Rent back in the ye’ olden year of 2015. I think I pleased the Lords of Footlights' round table because I got in! I originally wanted to join when I went to see Taking the Minnie. I was doing the good friend thing by going to see it and was crossing my fingers that I enjoyed the show. I freaking loved it - I saw people having fun, connecting with each other, and a family.  Footlights is important to me because it allows me to work my creative muscle, escape my full-time job, and sing beautiful harmonies with some pretty cool friends. I will admit that a lot of the shows we do, I have no idea what half of the songs are, but by the end I am loving it as much as the diehard musical lovers of Footlights. I believe this will be one of the best shows we’ve ever done. Why? We are growing. Every year, every season, every rehearsal, we are growing. Footlights are a young society that is going some pretty exciting places. You can be part of that, and not just as an audience member.
That brings me to my next point. We are having auditions for our 2017 intake! If you are reading this, and you are not one of the members of Footlights this is your opportunity to join our society (Family). You might think, “I’m not silly enough”, “I’m not a good singer”, “I’m not a good actor”, “I have all of the left feet”. Well, I have some advice for you. Try anyway! You might be the only one who thinks that. (I can’t dance to save myself, but they somehow let me in!) There is a lot of love within Footlights, and you could be part of something special. Wouldn’t you rather try, rather than wonder what could have been? To book an audition, email us at wellingtonfootlights@gmail.com. by Ellen Walsh, Supertonic Guest Writer Showmance, the title of our forthcoming show with Footlights, is one of my favourite things: a portmanteau. A portmanteau can basically be defined as a linguistic blend of words, and for me, the show will also be a musical blend of worlds.  A few of Ellen's favourite things: Annie, The Sound of Music and The Wizard of Oz Musical theatre and I have a long and lovely history; watching The Sound of Music and Annie religiously on the weekends, forever being amazed at the sudden technicolour world that Dorothy finds herself in in The Wizard of Oz, my mum 'washing that man right out of my hair'. And most recently, the new and similarly fantastic ‘modern musicals’ that are just as addictive, even if it means I’m quietly weeping at emotional torch songs in public, or awkwardly rapping. (No one needs to hear that. Make me stop.) I really got into seeing Footlights productions - they’re very good, you should go see all of them - scratching the itch for live musical theatre in the city where I live. Theatre classes when I was younger were never that successful. Some of us just aren’t born to dance and I was never light of foot in tap class. But the singing thing - the singing thing I could do and I loved it. I think particularly at school you really have to love something to go to choir at lunchtime, right?  Ellen all dressed up for an Opera performance I loved choir, but only as an adult am I able to fully settle into my choir nerd-ery without shame. It’s even on my profile on my work intranet. I will literally talk your ear off about Supertonic if I can segue it into a conversation. I truly never expected that random audition that I decided to do after a significant break away from choir would change my life so much. Seriously. (I was told I could write about my feelings so there are some feelings, what of it). For all that, there was always an itch for musical theatre still waiting to be scratched. I even studied a Bachelor of Performing Arts Management, worked as a stage manager, but never quite got the opportunity to stage manage a musical as I moved away from doing theatre as a job full time. Until I had a happenstance conversation with the lovely Ellie, who is in Footlights and Supertonic, about how they needed a stage manager for Heathers: The Musical and I got to do it for real! It was a full on show, fun and challenging for everyone involved, but so well done and they dealt with the difficult subject matter beautifully. It was surprisingly emotional for me to be able to stage manage a musical with them; it meant more to me to do it than I thought.  Ellen backstage at Heathers: The Musical I really loved stage managing Heathers, but I’m sure I was incredibly irritating backstage with my singing. I was that stage manager. Way too invested in the show. Why speak cue lines, when you can sing them right? So it’s really great that we’re doing Showmance and that my musical worlds can collide. I can finally sing musical theatre on a stage with my Supertonic friends and some new Footlights friends. There’s a luscious mix of some glorious chorus numbers, snappy small group performances, and solos which are all so very good if you’re coming you’re in for a treat.
The very best thing of all is that I can finally, finally perform songs from musical theatre but I don’t have to dance... well, not too much, I hope. If I do, I hope there’s no tap-dancing. Buy tickets for Showmance, a concert celebrating friendship, community and musical theatre on December 10th, by clicking this link. |
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