Currently on tour, and having recently performed at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Moonbeam Theatre features former Music Society Secretary and clarinettist in Orchestra and Concert Band, Madeleine Rigby (pictured below). Maddie studied Drama and Theatre Studies at Kent, graduating in 2021 having been Music Society Secretary (as well as Social Secretary in her second year). Moonbeam Theatre is part of the Graduate Artist programme in the School of Arts’ Drama department; here, Maddie reflects on the purpose of the theatre company, being part of the Edinburgh Fringe festival, and their recently launched DIVE playlist on Spotify.
Moonbeam Theatre are a non-profit company who create multi-sensory theatre for children with profound and multiple learning disabilities and special educational needs. We’ve been a graduate theatre company at the University of Kent since 2020 and have been facilitating workshops and shows ever since. We’ve had a busy year this year, taking our show DIVE on tour. DIVE is a multi-sensory under-the-sea adventure which encourages our participants to get involved in exploring the ocean setting of the performance. We’ve visited over 50 SEN schools, charities and community groups and this summer made our Edinburgh Fringe Festival debut.
Being a part of EdFringe was a real bucket list achievement, and having sold out shows was amazing! The reviews we’ve received from all our audiences have been incredible and we are already planning our next show, which is all about The Garden, to tour for 2024. As a University of Kent music department alumna, I am very pleased to say I even play my clarinet in the show! [Well done, Maddie: keep playing!]
But even more exciting is that we have just released the DIVE soundtrack on Spotify; as a company we wanted to make sure our audiences had access to the music so they could continue to experience DIVE in their own spaces or simply keep listening to the relaxing sounds of our ocean setting. To create the music we worked with our music producer, Adam Pattrick, who helped us put all our ideas together. The tracks were created to be ambient and calming, but watch out for the The Chatty Clam’s Hideout as that’s the exception!
You can find the album on Spotify here. ‘Ocean Waves’ is gently hypnotic, very relaxing, and perfect for listeners young and maybe not-so-young too…! There’s the lulling, echoing ‘The Seaweed Forest,’ or the joyous ‘Coral Cove,’ sure to get young toes wriggling. Moonbeam Theatre’s website is here, or see what they’re currently up to on Facebook here.
Last Wednesday I had a fun day, full of music, which I was able to be a part of thanks to being part of the University String Sinfonia. The Glyndebourne touring orchestra visited Canterbury and put on a lunchtime concert in the Colyer-Fergusson hall which was incredible to watch. After the concert I was then part of the workshop where some musicians from the orchestra coached the String Sinfonia as part of their Pit Perfect scheme. I play the cello and so was lucky enough to sit next to one of the pro cellists who was so lovely and friendly! The professionals from Glyndebourne gave us great advice which we all took on board and will definitely use in our playing in the future.
“Having played tennis since I was three years old and coached for the past couple of years,” reflects Sophie, “I was given the opportunity to attend a line umpire course in Loughborough at the beginning of May. Upon passing the course I became a qualified LTA official. Just a couple of days after the course I was told I’d been selected to line umpire at the Nottingham Trophy, Wimbledon qualifying and the Wimbledon main draw! This past month has been slightly surreal, working on court with some of the best players in the world! And getting to put on the Ralph Lauren line umpire uniform and walk onto court at Wimbledon for the first time was slightly nerve-wracking but an absolutely amazing experience. I even had the chance to be on Court 12 (a semi-show court) twice in the two weeks; having never had a crowd that big and seeing yourself on BBC iPlayer was pretty cool!”
Congratulations, Sophie, on what must have been a memorable experience – we hope you’re all ‘set’ to play in the trumpet-section again in September…
The creative industry, like many others, is having a rather turbulent time of late (unprecedented, you might say – but if I hear or read that word one more time, I may scream). York Theatre Royal, along with theatres and cinemas up and down the country, closed its doors and cancelled all its upcoming performances following government advice on Tuesday 17 March. I was faced with the strange prospect of being the Marketing Officer for an organisation whose usual function is to entertain large groups of people in a confined space…
A few months ago, I saw an email advertising open auditions for Andrew Lippa and Brian Crawley’s musical A Little Princess. The auditions were for the main child leads and, needless to say, I was a little bit too old to go! However, there was contact information listed, so I decided to send an email to express my interest in the show and offer my assistance in any way possible. To my great surprise, I received an email back from the executive directors of the show, who had forwarded my email to Andrew’s full-time assistant. There were a couple of emails back and forth between us and about a week later I found myself sitting in my study, on a Skype call with Mr. Andrew Lippa himself (mildly freaking out, as he is my all-time favourite composer, but managing to keep calm and composed… if you’ll pardon the pun!) He talked to me about the possibility of my being his assistant; we went through the role, his expectations of me and what I should expect on rehearsal days.
So it came to be that on Friday lunchtime (25th June), I found myself carrying a chicken salad and diet coke to the Southbank Centre, to give to Mr Lippa, in a rehearsal for his musical, ‘A Little Princess’. I made notes during the Sitzprobe and formatted them to send in the evening. I got to listen to incredible singers, and musicians (from the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra) perform incredible music, being conducted by the incredible man who wrote it. We had dinner together and we talked a bit about me and my background, and also about his work and his life. He gave me some tips on making it in the industry, how to conduct a cast and orchestra and how the process of composing a full-length musical begins. It was a little surreal, considering Lippa’s music has been some of my favourites for years!