Available Musicals
- Hit The Heights - a dance-based musical for youth to young adult groups
Hit the Heights - synopsis
The Wellington Street Dance Studio, funded by the local council, is threatened with closure because the 2 youth Dance/Performance groups who use it - Tracey Parker's Sparklers and Craig Wilson's Shining Stars - contain fewer numbers than is required for the Council subsidy to continue. Unscrupulous developers, Barry Sharpe and Norman Swift, wish to appropriate the site for redevelopment, and will stop at nothing to make sure that the closure goes ahead. Lee Cooke, a teenage boy and member of the Sparklers is suffering a gender identity crisis - he wants to be allowed to dance as a girl. Tracey and the rest of the group are agreeable to this, but it raises problems for Lee both at home and in the Dance Contest towards which the groups are working. Thanks to some underhand tactics by the developers, Lee's dancing as a girl causes the Sparklers to be disqualified from the contest and results in emnity between Tracey and Craig. However, once it is realised that someone has tried to frame Craig as the whistle-blower, he and Tracey decide to work together and merge the groups to guarantee the continuance of the subsidy. They also, with the help of Lee's parents and his sister Sharyn, mount an online campaign to get the Dance Competition rules changed to allow someone in Lee's situation to dance in transgender mode. Meanwhile, the Shining Stars' principal girl dancer - Courtney Farrell - is having difficulties with her overbearing, snobbish mother Belinda Farrell. Courtney is secretly seeing Zane Ricardo, the Sparklers' principal male dancer, of whom Belinda disapproves. Having failed to get the Council to discontinue the Wellington Dance Studio subsidy because of the transgender issue and having thus far failed to keep the Sparklers and the Shining Stars at loggerheads because of the disqualification, Barry and Norman try one last desperate ploy to torpedo the group merger - they secretly film Courtney and Zane together and email the pictures to Belinda, with inevitable consequences. But, as with all good fairy-stories, it all works out well in the end - Barry and Norman admit defeat, the groups merge, the dance competition rules are changed, Belinda comes to see the futility of trying to stop Courtney and Zane from being an item and the merged group go on to win the competition. All in all, a story with lots of drama, humour, romance, topical issues and above all - enough dancing to satisfy even the most ardent hoofer!
Cast List
Lee Cooke - teenage boy dancer in the Sparklers
Sharyn Cooke - Lee's older sister and also a member of the Sparklers Tracey Parker - the Sparklers' group leader
Jenny Cooke - Lee and Sharyn's mother
Steve Cooke - Jenny's husband
Zane Ricardo - principal boy dancer with the Sparklers
Mr and Mrs Ricardo - Zane's parents
Courtney Farrell - principal girl dancer with the Shining Stars Belinda Farrell - Courtney's mother
George Farrell - Belinda's husband
Craig Wilson - the Shining Stars' group leader
Dean Barber - The Shining Stars' principal boy dancer
Norman Swift and Barry Sharpe - representatives of the company which is hoping to redevelop the Wellington Dance Studio site as a new Supermarket.
Councillor John Deakin- council member in charge of the Wellington Centre subsidy.
Council Chairperson
Councillor Davis and Councillor James- council members
Dr Joy - Lee's psychiatrist
D.J. and vocalist at the fund-raising benefit
Dance Competition Judges
Street Protesters
Other members of the Sparklers and Shining Stars - as many as resources will allow!
Booth Singers off stage.
Who's To Say (We Shouldn't Fall in Love?)
Zane and Courtney's duet
A Show for Younger Thespians
The Playground - a drama with music for 8-13 year olds with some adult parts
Overview It's a show where the children are, collectively, the centrepiece but without the slightest hint of condescension or being patronised; indeed, quite the contrary - they are continually subverting the predilection of most the adults they encounter to fob them off with the 'You're too young to understand' mantra - see how they deal with the Health and Safety inspector in the song You Wouldn't Understand and how they deal with the Surveyors in The TheodoliteSong.Oncetheyhaveestablished friendshipswiththeimmigrants,thanksto Harry's efforts, see how they react to the bigotry of the Officious man in the reprise of Refugees. The one adult in their orbit who is an exception is Molly Cartwright, the Lollipop Lady, the kids' staunch ally who acts as the Narrator throughout the piece - a dream role for a suitable lady - and no singing required! Then there's Harry - one of the older boys, who fancies Shelley, an eleven year old going on eighteen, very sassy and the kind of girl all the boys have a crush on. She enjoys the attention and like to play hard-to-get; a strategy not without its dangers! Contrast Harry's infatuation with Shelley with the very different attraction that develops between him and Sabihah, one of the Syrian refugees who are temporarily housed in the area. Both relationships are, alas, doomed to failure for different reasons. The setting is an older style children's playground. The site is scheduled for redevelopment and is stripped of equipment depriving the local children of a safe place to play. The arrival of a group of immigrant children raises some issues, but the local children and the new arrivals quickly integrate and become friends, despite some burgeoning boyfriend/girlfriend issuesandnegativeattitudesfromlocaladults. Thechildrenformnaturallyintogroups, based on their favourite activity: there is the Skipping group with their skipping chants, then we have Shelley's wannabe pop divas who love nothing better than miming along to current pop songs - Starry Eyed (not heard in its entirety until towards the end of the show), Rebound (which could well become the next chart entry for Little Mix!) and, once the Syrian children have integrated, we get to sample a bit of Arabic style pop in No More War. Next we have the martial arts group who have their own theme song, reminiscent of Kung Fu Fighting. There is, of course, a football group (not necessarily all boys; indeed the gender make-up of the groups is flexible) and a Clapping group. All these group activities give the children an opportunity to perform on stage without the pressure of a solo role.
Cast List
For flexibility, in addition to the 2 principal child characters Harry and Sabihah, the children will be referred to in groups with one named 'leader', based on the activities they are involved in during the opening scene and similarly for the immigrant children based on the groups they join up with Shelley Parker - the Pop Video group - Shelley is 11 going on 18, very attractive and aware of it. She enjoys Harry's attentions but likes to play hard-to-get.
Sally Hawkins - the Skipping group
Faye Tyson - the Clapping group
Harry Graham - slightly older than the other children at 12+ - a thoughtful, kind and intelligent boy.
Gerald Spencer ('Lofty') - the Martial Arts group
Jake Thomson - the football group
Sabihah - slightly older than the other immigrant children - of similar age to Harry.As a muslim girl, she is just at the stage of wearing a headscarf.
Amira - Pop Video
Jamilah - Skipping
Wasimah - Clapping
Asif - Martial Arts
Kahil - Football
The H&S Man
The Surveyor(s)
Officious Man
Suspicious Man
Police officer
Molly Cartwright 'Molly the Lolly' the Lollipop Lady
Jean, Molly's friend
Overture and Opening Number - the Kids' Activities
A Charming Adaptation
Spellbound - A Musical Midsummer Night's Dream
SYNOPSIS
It is midsummer's eve. The Duke and Duchess of Westumberland are to celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary the following day and the Duke has planned a party to mark the occasion. When he attempted something similar for their twentieth anniversary, it was not a conspicuous success, as the Duchess reminds him. She blames Phillip Street, the Duke's aide, who organised the event. He is in charge of arrangements on this occasion too, and knows that he will be sacked if the party does not go to the Duchess' satisfaction. Things look bad when he learns that the principal act he engaged to appear at the party has backed out, to be replaced by an unknown group who go under the unpromising name of Bottom and the Pits.
Meanwhile, Eggy, the Duke's cousin and his daughter Hermia have other preoccupations. They both live in the Duke's mansion after Eggy's mishap on the Stock Exchange. Hermia is in love with Lee Sanders, a lowly odd- job man on the Duke's estate, as he is with her. But Demetrius, the son of a wealthy local landowner, is also in love with Hermia and wishes to marry her. Eggy persuades the Duke to put pressure on Hermia to accept Demetrius' proposal. But she will not be persuaded and she and Lee plan to elope that very night. They confide their plan to Helena, childhood friend of Hermia and daughter of another of the local landed gentry. In order to ingratiate herself with Demetrius, with whom she is in love, Helena betrays their plan to him and they both set out to intercept the eloping couple.
But it is midsummer’s eve, when the influence of the supernatural is at its strongest. Bewitched by a magical herb, Demetrius and Lee both become besotted with Helena, and the resulting love-tangle appears inextricable. Nor are the supernatural spirits themselves immune from the effects of sorcery. Oberon, the King of the Sprites, bewitches Titania, Queen of the Fairies, so that she falls in love with the singer of the group, Nick Bottom, after his head has been transformed into that of an ass by Puck, Oberon's mischievous sprite.
However, before midsummer's day has dawned all these threads will have been unravelled. It only remains to be seen how the anniversary party will succeed. Will Bottom and his band manage to prevent Phillip from losing his job?