I hardly know any of you and when not on a stage you could be up to some real dodgy stuff in other areas of your lives so I’ll stop short of mindlessly praising you all up to the high-heavens… besides ‘amazing, awesome, talented cast’ gets bandied about so often that it loses all meaning. Suffice to say my time on Footloose was mostly a pleasure and inspiring. I say ‘mostly’ because of the lack of rehearsal time – I’ll come back to that – and inspiring because it re-ignited my interest in music and singing, the latter of which I hadn’t done professionally for 12 years. 

I once did a musical where I mimed an instrument on stage, danced (a bit) and sang (a bit) all at the same time too and that was hard enough, even with 6 weeks rehearsal. In younger days I did a job swinging 6 roles that required roller-skating, huge guitar solos, and acrobatics but the demands put on me kind of pale in comparison when considering what you all have to do on Footloose after a relatively short rehearsal period and the ever-present threat of Covid. However the technical ability to get a job done that requires a more varied skill-set than a Swiss army knife should not be the ultimate bench-mark by which we are judged or judge ourselves as actors. It’s useful to have myriad abilities for sure and often gives an edge, but it is not the whole story.

With so little rehearsal time of course the technical stuff has to be perfected first – you can see and hear it so it has to be right. What gets inevitably left to the wayside apart from learning the lines (another technical requirement), is the acting part – yet for all us actors isn’t it is the most important, most enjoyable bit? 

Why does it get left?

Well for one, unlike dancing, singing and playing an instrument acting exists largely in the mental realm and let’s face it half the audience can think your acting is good and half can think it sucks. One critic might love you, another not. It will always be subjective. Ultimately though it never matters what the audience, critics, friends or your family think – they all have their agendas. However it does matter what we, the actors think of the job we are doing. We take those thoughts home with us after the show at the end of the night and they either give us peace of mind… or not. 

An actor’s job is to create a character. Simple as that… and most, if not all of us got into this profession because that is what we love to do. However that joy of thinking and behaving like someone other than we are is these days so often compromised. The preparation time to achieve a solid understanding of a character, their relationships and purposes is scant. The collaborative director-actor work, production dramaturgy and contemplation time can be precious little to non-existent. Together with learning the music, the singing and the choreography all the background research becomes part of an actor’s homework but again because it is the least immediately important it gets understandably put to the bottom of the list. It’s no one’s fault. Producers want to save money in difficult times and directors and actors want to get the most noticeable (not necessarily the most important) things right in the little time they have.

It’s not ideal but many times we arrive on a first night having to take short cuts when it comes to the understanding of a character. I certainly had to on Footloose. However we can spend the rest of the run filling in the gaps – that is the great thing about live theatre and fairly lengthy contracts, you can keep finding out, keep adding the details. By the way I’m not making any judgment call on anybody’s acting here. I barely had enough time to think about my own let alone anybody else’s. I am presuming though that some of you, like I had to, will be playing catch-up with the character/research work and rather than not revisit it I’m saying you absolutely should, as much as you can and get into the habit of doing it in order to develop your acting skill and make this job as worthwhile as possible. 

I wish you well for the rest of the run and encourage you, if you are not already doing it, to fill in the gaps. It’s worth it for you personally but also for the audience who’ll be transported that bit more if you are thinking more of the thoughts of the character in pictures and impressions within the context of the story. Oh and don’t be duped into the old ‘well it’s only Footloose or such and such – a this and that musical, it’s not worth putting the work in.’ There are enough people who denigrate musicals and musical theatre actors (or better put – actors that do musical theatre) without us denigrating ourselves. Different in style certainly but Footloose is as legitimate a piece of theatre as Three Sisters and the same goes for all the characters. Don’t let anyone, whoever they are, make you believe otherwise. You are an actor, a dancer, a singer a musician you can do it all, every genre any role. In the US you’re a triple, a quadruple threat… just don’t neglect the acting bit because other people think it’s just a musical and it doesn’t matter. Put down the phones for a while, get off social media, the video games whatever for a spell, and do some research. Read a book about the American 80’s watch some relevant films, create the house your character lives in, the kindergarten and high-school you went to and go to. The town of Bomont with its church, its council hall, diners, gas stations, seven-elevens, police stations and residential neighbourhoods. Equip your character with as much knowledge of their lives as you have of your own. And the best bit, while you are doing it you’ll be using the greatest gift we all have, that we all loved using so completely as kids, that ultimately drove us into this profession – your imagination.  

I recommended this book to Darren ‘Open Secrets’ by Richard Lischer. It details the life of a Pastor in Rural America in the 80’s and is a fascinating read. The town, if you can all it that is probably a bit smaller than Bomont but you get the idea of the kind of people that live in these places and the small-town mentality. Another potentially good place for American life research is Studs Terkel – he’s written lots of stuff about everyday working people.

I apologise if at the end of this you think I’m a w&*%#r or a patronising moron etc. Truth is I’m oldish and I’ve made mistakes. In our beleaguered society there are too many older people like me who don’t share the knowledge gained on the back of mistakes even when they have the opportunity. I had that opportunity and (maybe a few years late) went for it – no regrets.

Finally I’ll leave you with this snippet from ‘Art’ by sculptor Auguste Rodin… it gave rise to a quote from my former acting tutor which when I’m struggling to get motivated or put in the work that nobody ever appreciates, remains one of my favourites…

‘Art is made of kisses and caresses’. 

All the best,

Philip 

One late afternoon, when I was with Rodin in his atelier, darkness set in while we talked.

“Have you ever looked at an antique statue by lamplight?” my host suddenly demanded.

“No, never,” I answered, with some surprise.

“I astonish you. You seem to consider the idea of studying sculpture excepting by daylight as an odd whim. Of course you can get the effect as a whole better by daylight. But, wait a moment. I want to show you a kind of experiment which will doubtless prove instructive.”

He lighted a lamp as he spoke, took it in his hand, and led me towards a marble statue which stood upon a pedestal in a corner of the atelier. It was a delightful little antique copy of the Venus di Medici. Rodin kept it there to stimulate his own inspiration while he worked.

“Come nearer,” he said.

Holding the lamp at the side of the statue and as close as possible, he threw the full light upon the body.

“What do you notice?” he asked.

At the first glance I was extraordinarily struck by what was suddenly revealed to me. The light so directed, indeed, disclosed numbers of slight projections and depressions upon the surface of the marble which I should never have suspected. I said so to Rodin.

“Good!” he cried approvingly; then, “Watch closely.”

At the same time he slowly turned the moving stand which supported the Venus. As he turned, I still noticed in the general form of the body a multitude of almost imperceptible roughnesses. What had at first seemed simple was really of astonishing complexity. Rodin threw up his head smiling.

“Is it not marvellous?” he cried. “Confess that you did not expect to discover so much detail. Just look at these numberless undulations of the hollow which unites the body to the thigh. Notice all the voluptuous curvings of the hip. And now, here, the adorable dimples along the loins.”

He spoke in a low voice, with the ardor of a devotee, bending above the marble as if he loved it.

“It is truly flesh!” he said.

And beaming, he added: “You would think it moulded by kisses and caresses!” Then, suddenly, laying his hand on the statue, “You almost expect, when you touch this body, to find it warm.”

I’m writing to you after I noticed my voice had been overdubbed in your film in which I played the character ******

Coming soon….

Before the memories of Birmingham fade, the dismal events of the cancelled show and in stark contrast, the latter triumphs of the cast particularly the swings, understudies and standbys, I wanted to make the effort to present a different perspective of that Saturday show cancellation. I’ve been busy as we all have at this special time of year and I almost gave up on doing this but that would be to shirk a responsibility I feel I have and to forgo peace of mind.

In a career spanning 30 years the cancelled show in Birmingham was a low point for me. I don’t blame anyone for it but I do think it was a mistake.

As I grew up in this industry I was taught that the audience should be treated with a huge degree of regard, after all, without them we are nothing. A show cancellation is something I’ve rarely, if ever encountered but of course I know they happen due to catastrophic technical failure, life and death safety issues, accidents and other grave situations. Theatre is a live medium anything can happen.

I don’t think the situation on the day of our cancellation was sufficiently grave to warrant the action taken. There was indeed a problem, a problem that needed to be addressed and although the response from the Producers, the Theatre, Stage Management etc may never live up to individual expectations, I think there was enough evidence that a fair and consistent effort was being made to resolve matters and to offer work-arounds for the performers. I don’t dance in this show but I have in past productions so I understand and I completely agree that preservation of fitness and minimisation of the chance of injury are paramount. It’s not something I take lightly for myself or others.

Throughout our careers there will always be opportunities (sometimes absolute necessity) to be at odds with Producers and other departments, always. I’ve experienced it a few times myself and though anger is an understandable state of mind in many of these situations, prolonged anger is destructive both for those harbouring it and those it is aimed at. Anger kills any kind of considered, reasoned discussion and it usually leads to further discontent. It seems to have become a prevalent emotion in much of the Western World over the last few months that has somehow spilled-over into everyday life from the unrealistic realm of social media where vitriol is freely flung about but very rarely is any kind of open-minded, responsible and caring debate entered into.

Have your say, stand up for you rights, get your point across but make every effort to do it with understanding and good grace. I studied boxing for a role once. I learned that there is an art to fighting. A good combatant is relaxed in the fray. They study their opponent and seek to understand them so as to know the best and most economic way to prevail. They pick their method and moment accordingly. Conversely a bad one lashes out in anger, without control. They may chance to vanquish their adversary but there’s a strong possibility of collateral damage.

The cancellation of the show was neither the method nor the moment and the audience ended up being the collateral damage. We went on strike but with no notice and 1100 people paid the price with much of their expenditure unrecoverable; travel, hotels, babysitters, and perhaps more importantly the time invested in organising who knows how many special occasions… As privileged professionals we sometimes forget but for the public, seldom is going to the theatre not a special occasion.

OK, people are tremendously resilient, they bounce back and life goes on but still, I believe the cancellation was unecessary and unfair on them.

Finally, with the audience having been kept waiting in their seats for half an hour, the cast were offered a vote on whether to proceed with the show or not and while I do not think this was the ideal solution at all, the reason it was quashed – something about not wanting to have to hate those who don’t vote the same – though certainly given in haste, should nevertheless be questioned.

There will always be people who think very differently, who vote differently. Do we have to hate them? It won’t enrich life. It won’t bring anyone round to change their way of thinking. It achieves the opposite. But… understanding another person’s view, why they think the way they do, approaching issues we have with them in a calm and controlled manner, may on the other hand have a very positive result whether they are won over in the end or not. There’s never any need to throw all the toys out of the proverbial pram – life is wonderful and there are a lot of toys for us all to share.

This turned out much longer than expected. You have indulged me to the end so I hope that this might perhaps inspire reflection, consideration and the chance of a different outcome should you ever find yourself in a similar situation to the one we found ourselves in that Saturday night.

I very much enjoy being part of this show which is a beautiful whole of its parts. There are some excellent performances and exemplary professionalism in all departments. Mistakes happen, it’s life. To learn from them is, I believe, the best reason to make them.

Yours,

Philip