Stagecoach

The Circuit Newspaper came to Lucie Russell`s award Presentation and then printed this article about the event.

I told Sally Messham that I  needed a new smily photo of her to announce the news with but I can`t wait!!!!

Sally learned today that she has been offfered a place at RADA - one of the foremost Drama schools in  the world. Yipeee!!!!

Sally has had special gifts ever since she came to us in January 2003 but she has not sat on her laurels but worked like a beaver to win a place at Drama school. Not only did Sally get offered a place at RADA but was also one of only 5 girls out of 5,000 entrants to be offered a place at `The Drama Centre` (another prestigious drama school in London that trained Colin Firth). What a dilemma to be in??

Sally has had tremendous feedback from those in the know. The last time that she sat a LAMDA exam, the examiner said that it was the best portrayal of that character that he had ever seen in his life - and he had just been to see the play in the West End.

When Sally did her last audition at the Drama Centre - they said that it couldn`t be bettered. To me that is unheard of. Someone can always usually find something they want to tweak.

And finally when she got to the final round of auditions at RADA, she was the youngest and the only Northerner. They rang to offer her a definite place ahead of seeing all the other final round candidates - again highly unusual. In itself it is highly unusual for an applicant to be accepted into RADA at eighteen. They usually like their students to have some life experience. It is also highly unusual to get in on the first year of applying. Very many successful students have applied across multiple years.

Needless to say, I am so incredibly proud of Sally, and excited for her -  as, I`m sure are her friends in Further Stages and her staff across the years. I hope people will leave messages of congratulations for Sally under this posting. She deserves every one. A special mention must be given to the help that Jodie Taibi has given to Sally in all the rounds of her application. Jodie met Sally when she was a Drama teacher for Further Stages a couple of years ago. She saw how talented Sally was and encouraged her in her drama school applications, and tutored her on her pieces in London when she got chance. Jodie had applied to RADA herself across several years, so knew the ropes and what to expect. Thanks to her for selflessly pushing Sally forward towards a goal that had once been hers.

Photo will follow when Sal sends me one and I`ll add it at the end here. I think Cheshire Cat grin won`t be in it!!

To `steal` a copy of any of these photos, right click over one and pick the option that saves to your computer. If there is any distortion in the dimensions of the photo on the website, these will not transfer to your saved copy. 

I chaperoned both groups on Thursday`s performances and took photos of the children in their costumes. Although I wasn`t chaperoning on the Friday Performances I thought that it wasn`t fair for some of our children to have photo souvenirs of the show and not others so I went back in to take photos at the interval in the two performances on Friday.  I was glad I did on the evening performance because little Hannah Taylor, who was having her eighth birthday that day, and who had only been at Stagecoach for a term, was the only Stagecoach student in this team and was having a crisis of confidence about going on the stage.

Hannah  had given it a miss in the first half,  so I decided to stay with her into the second half and hold her hand in the wings to see if we could make her birthday by getting her onto the stage. I`m glad to say we did succeed and, as I told Hannah, she`ll never be as afraid again.  She rewarded me by this spontaneous comment. “I`m glad I`m at Stagecoach because it`s where I belong”. Bless!!

Here are the photos from the Friday performances of `The Wizard of Oz`. Firstly Friday Afternoon. Apologies to Lucy, Isabel`s sister for not including her in the photo, even though she is not a Stagecoach student, because I didn`t realise that she was there:-

Below are the photos of Hannah. I felt sorry for her having her photo taken alone, because she was the only Stagecoach student in that team, so I muscled in on one with her.

The `Wizard of Oz` pantomime came to the Civic Theatre this Easter, with Bobby Davro, the comedian, Dani Harmer from `Tracy Beaker`, Sarah Jane Honeywell from CBBC and Aaron Sidwell from East Enders.  They were looking for children for the chorus and I posted the opportunity to the website.  The performances were this week and on Thursday I was chaperoning and we had 7 or 8 Stagecoach students in each of two different teams.  I am not chaperoning on Friday but will try to go in to get a some photos of Friday`s teams to see if any of our students are there too.

All the students and their families seemed pleased with the experience, so I think it was a good advert for keeping your eyes on the website if you don`t want to miss out!!

Here are the photos that I took on Thursday

To `steal` a copy of any of these photos, right click over one and pick the option that saves to your computer. If there is any distortion in the dimensions of the photo on the website, these will not transfer to your saved copy. 

I took these two photos of Alicia and Ruby because unfortunately their families were unable to get tickets to see them, as it was a sell-out.

HERE ARE THE EVENING PERFORMANCE TEAM

AND HERE IS THE LARGER GROUP OF TOSE CHILDREN WITH STAGECOACH CONNECTIONS - JACK COLE`S SISTER, RYAN ANSCOMB`s TWO SISTERS AND MADDISON WELLS AN EX-STUDENT WHO WAS WITH US FOR A LOT OF YEARS

Last Thursday, I was invited to go onto BBC Radio Tees to talk about Stagecoach and to choose 4 tracks to have played. It was on the John Foster show in the afternoon but John Caine was sitting in for him. I took a chance and took with me three tracks by our own ex-students - Lucy Lavelle, Zoe Birkett and Sanaz Lavasani. I think they were a bit worried about what they were going to get when I presented my cd`s but I know that they were genuinely impressed by the quality, once they had played them.

They told me that I could access the interview in a few days time from a special website that they would download it to and they would e mail me when it was done. But then I received this e mail from one of the magazines that I advertise in.

Hi Trudy

Heard you on the radio yesterday.  What a  fabulous interview, thoroughly enjoyed it.  Listened to it again today.

Regards

Angela/Bob (Now&Then)

I asked them how they had managed to listen to it and they sent me this link:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00q7t22

You can listen to the programme on this link until the end of Wednesday 11th April I believe. Once the link opens, click on listen and then drag the timer bar to about halfway through.

I received this today from Robin Mills - an original student from Saturday PM and Friday Darlington schools. He is nearing the end of his 9 month cruise ship contract. See the photos below his letter

Hey Trudy and all at Stagecoach,

Ahoy there mateys!

I thought I’d give you an update of my travels (sorry it’s been a while)!

I’m currently travelling around the world as a lead singer onboard the MV Azura Cruise Ship for P&O. I have been onboard for over eight months now and am thoroughly enjoying the experience.

I had never really entertained the idea of doing a Cruise Ship however my my opinions have been
completely changed, I’m working in the most technologically advanced theatre I’ve ever been in, let alone had the pleasure of working in. I perform in 8 shows over a two week cruise and perform each show three times a night, so the work load is gruelling but the rewards are overwhelming. The shows vary from a review of the best of British musical films to a Swing show to the best of Westend musicals.

I wake up every morning in a new, exciting and beautiful port. Today for instance I am typing this email in a beach cafe in St Lucia (hard life, but someone has to do it!). I spent five months travelling
round Europe visiting some of the most famous landmarks in the world, The Leaning Tower of Pisa, The Eastern Bridge, The Trevi Fountain, The Colosseum, The Parthenon, The Vatican (and this all happened in one week!). We then sailed over the Atlantic and have been travelling around The Caribbean for the past few months soaking up the sunshine. Sorry to rub it in!

The best part of this job is that I have got the chance to see the world and get paid for it! Sometimes I can’t quite believe they pay me a day rate for some of the fantastic things I’ve had chance to see and do! (River Tubing in Jamaica and swimming with wild turtles inBarbados are very high up on the list!)

I hope this has given you all an insight to life onboard a cruise ship! I will be sure to visit you all in April when I’m back.

Keep working hard for Trudy and all the other amazing teachers you get to work with there.

Robin Mills

I took photos of all of the students that were present at Stagecoach, in the week before the `Oscers`, with our `Oscer` cut-out.  (The Thursday school was the exception because we were short of time so I will do it with them early next term).

I sent home slips offering to e mail these photos to you, in return for a £1 coin to be donated to Shannon`s `Arms for Angels` fund. If your slip did not arrive home then all is not lost - next term, just send your e mail address clearly written on a piece of paper with your child`s name and school and put it in an envelope with a £1 coin and I will send it to you. I will start sending out e mails on orders received this week

I challenged the Darlington Saturday PM school to come up with as many imaginative things to do with the cut-out that they could think of and here are the results!

CUTE!!

SOLO STEAL

HAPPY SHARING

FIGHT!!!!!

TUG OF WAR!

WEIGHT-LIFTING

LOOK MUM! - NO HANDS!

PRAISE BE!!

MULTI-ARMED IDOL

WELL DONE STAGE 3`s - VERY IMAGINATIVE

Thomas Bland of Darlington PM School has made great progress since he has been with us. He was very shy when he first came and did not want to join in or chat with many people.  Thomas has changed wonderfully now and works hard to improve all his skills and chats to his friends and teachers. He joined the Stagecoach Agency last year and was picked out of lots of boys, by the NHS, to do a voice-over on one of their anti-smoking adverts that was seen lots of times in this region.

I was so pleased that Thomas had come this far that I nominated him for a Darlington young people`s VIBE award and Thomas went along to the Civic Theatre in Darlington in March to be presented with his certificate. Well done Thomas!! The only way is ……up!!

Macy Stasiak, was nominated for a `Best of Darlington` award for her success in performing in the West End`s `Billy Elliot`.  Unfortunately, on the night, she did not win the overall award but will have received a certificate to mark her achievement in being short-listed. I was invited to attend as I had nominated Macy but Stagecoach was running so I could not go. Darlington Early Stages teacher Jane Jackson and her daughter Hannah-Lucy (a friend of Macy) went instead to support her. Unfortunately, at the last minute, Macy`s performance schedule was changed so that she could not even attend herself, so her mum had to go alone. Here is the piece from the Echo about the awards night

Macy`s mum has given me the latest performance schedule across the next few weeks for Macy in case anyone is going to see the show and would like to catch Macy in action.

MACY SCHEDULE APRIL

Wed 4th April - MACY SHOW

Thur 5th April - MACY MATINEE SHOW

Fri 6th April - MACY SHOW

Sat 7th April - MACY EVENING SHOW

Mon 9th April - MACY SHOW

Sat 14th April - MACY MATINEE SHOW

Tues 17th April - MACY SHOW

Thur 19th April - MACY EVENING SHOW

Wed 25th April - MACY SHOW

Thur 26th April - MACY MATINEE SHOW

Fri 27th April - MACY SHOW

Sat 28th April - MACY EVENING SHOW

Mon 30th April - MACY SHOW

Sat 5th May - MACY MATINEE SHOW

Anyone who sees Sally Messham act knows what a special talent she has. And just to prove it, Sally has been riding the crest of a wave of success recently. She has been applying for places at Drama schools for September.  I can only say at the moment that she has found success by getting through into final rounds of auditions at RADA (the foremost Drama school in Europe) and at the `Drama Centre`, where Colin Firth and a raft of other gifted actors have trained. There are only 5 places for girls at The Drama Centre after 4000 have applied.

In addition, Sally applied for a place again on one of the National Youth Theatre`s projects and has recently discovered that she has won a place on the Olympics project which involves performances welcoming athletes to the Olympic Village.  She was also due to go for an audition for a film part that the Stagecoach Agency found for her but it looks unlikely that she will be able to make it because of a clashing of dates. What a year!!