I first got into the world of theatre by attending an opening mic night at the Riverfront theatre which was just a stones throw away from my accommodation at the time. Because I got on well with the people there, it eventually lead to me becoming the host of the event for a fee of £50 per night. It was a conversation on one of the nights with the technical manager of the theatre that lead to me becoming a ‘casual theatre technician’. Through this job I managed to see lots of wonderful plays and how they are developed. It’s worth mentioning that I also made good friends with a lot of the staff at the venue too, because through those relationships I have managed to manoeuvre myself into opportunities that would arguably not have been available. Now the open mic sessions were finished long before the pandemic, and it was really nice to see them want to recreate that kind of night again. I had a couple meetings about what they wanted and I went from there. We decided to theme the events and I was given very little time to make something happen as that was just the way it was - suddenly the theatre is open so we need to put on a show of sorts, that cuts our prep time rather quickly! With the help of Sally-Anne we managed to pull something together. We had 2 nights of folk and poetry, one Jamaican Independence themed night and various others. I managed to wiggle myself into performing at the folk and poetry night - purely selfishly of course, but I thought I was the right act for that event and I wanted to. I am so glad that I did, there was a small audience of around 10-15 people and they were all there specifically for the music. I’ve had my fair share of performances when I’m in a loud pub or venue and people just talk over you and not only does that affect my confidence but it just makes me rush through and want to get out. It feels like they may as well have just put Spotify on shuffle. Anyway. So I had booked a brilliant musician called Bryony Seer to headline, but when she arrived she mentioned that she had to leave early so before I knew it I was the headline act. I was gutted (not). Bearing in mind that I hadn’t performed at ‘my kind of gig’ for years, I was really chuffed to be closing the evening. I had recently performed in a park on a sofa but that was a bit different (read about it in that blog). I had practiced a couple stories and songs in the days leading up to it and was feeling confident, my sister and her new boyfriend came to watch, as well as a cousin and my friend Krystal who was also reading her poetry that night. As mentioned I’m really friendly already with the tech crew here so I felt really at home and … just ready to go I guess. I opened with a quick short song that warms up my fingers as its an outdoor gig. It went well and my confidence just kept growing through each song and story I told. Bearing in mind that nobody outside of the MA had really heard any of my stories before, it felt good to finally be sharing them with ‘genuine members of the public’. Before I knew it my time was coming to an end, and I could feel the crowd were all in a fun mood as a lot of my stories are quite humorous. So I decided to perform an Irish story song called ‘Seven Drunken Nights’. It went down an absolute blast and it was a weird feeling because when I tell my stories I am used to them ‘being funny’ and people laughing. But when I sing, people are usually dead silent and listen, but with this Irish song they ere laughing throughout the singing too (because its a funny song, not because of my bad Irish accent). I think I will explore making funny songs too. Anyways, from this event I have learned that my stories can work quite well, also the ‘Crempog’ story is now 2 for 2 for making people cry.
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AuthorUpdates from me about uni. Archives
January 2022
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