Playbills & Moxon Girls
February 27th, 2017 Today we were joined by Carla and Jeannine Callaghan from Uddingston, who are the daughter and granddaughter of Susan Murphy. Who was a Moxon Girl in the 50s. We met at the Glasgow Women’s Library after hearing me mention An Audience With… on the Janice Forsyth Show. Great connections and lovely to…
A (Very) Long Time Ago…
March 6th, 2017 Doreen brought in a few of her photos today, what a glamorous headshot! Good chat today going through books and photos, while gathering information and recollections of who, what, where, when and how. I got very excited about the facts, figures and descriptions being uncovered, which prompted Marie to remind me that…
A Chip Off The Ol’ Block
March 13th, 2017 “June’s wee granddaughter Millie with us today and has become a regular and a very welcome member of the troupe. Millie is a chip off the old block, and has the family genes for dancing and performing. Her Dad has put taps on her sparkly shoes, and she is off, dominating the…
Being A Dancer
March 20th, 2017 Just Katie and Marie today, dancing for almost an hour and building on the sequence that they have been working on together. Katie’s words; ‘In order to fit in all our steps with the music, we were having to add to the beginning and move stuff around within the combo, quite complex…
Photoshoot
May 1st, 2017 “Joined by photographer and media manager Niall Walker who was in to get some photos of us all. We were keen to get great dance/rehearsal shots as well as some headshots to potentially use for press for October for our Luminate Festival Show. We chatted about Marie and Doreen’s careers to give…
The Red Shoes
May 11th, 2017 “Today we went to see The Red Shoes at the Festival Theatre, and it was marvellous! Thanks, Festival Theatre for the comps, what a treat! Janice, Marie, a volunteer befriender Xiao Yi, Doreen, her daughter, Cerin from Festival Theatre and I were all there in a packed out theatre. It felt funny…
Famous Whistling Act
May 15th, 2017 A meeting day with Martin O’Connor and Mary Turner Thomson from White Water Publishing and Paul Hudson from Festival Theatre to discuss the forthcoming book. It went well, and everyone is happy with what needs to be done – which is a lot! Then we chatted with Marie, Doreen and Katie and…
A 94th Birthday
May 22nd, 2017 “Big day today. Firstly, we’re celebrating Marie’s 94th Birthday. 94!!!! She came with her daughter and partner. Also, June was discharged from the hospital today, and she came straight from the hospital to the theatre to join us. Just amazing!” “We did some great dancing with gorgeous moments where you could see…
Devising and Rehearsing
June 5th, 2017 “We were in the Festival Theatre Studio today with the whole team: Janice, Katie, Martin O’Connor, Fi Johnston, Marie, Doreen, June, Gavin, Cheryl, Millie and as Martin Clark couldn’t be here his colleague Eva was there to film – busy busy! This was the start of our rehearsals for our October Show,…
Testing The Waters
June 9th, 2017 The sharing session was well received, we had about 20 to 30 people show up and lots of colleagues and friendly faces. Unfortunately, June couldn’t be with us, we missed her, and she would be the first to say, the show must go on! The audience gathered and mingled with us, then…
Good At Subtraction
June 19th, 2017 “June’s 90th Birthday and what a day! A grand celebration organized by her family in the Empire Rooms at Festival Theatre. Honoured to celebrate with this wonderful woman and great to meet even more members of her family and the Variety Theatre community including Bob Bain from the Scottish Music Hall and…
Fancy That
June 26th, 2017 “Marie and Doreen with us today, we went over our steps and put them together in a few different ways. Great to be back in the line-up, speaking more about the live events in October. Doreen is rising to this and has a real spark after our week in the studio. Marie…
So Much Potential
July 10th, 2017 “Lots happened today, not least June’s grand-daughter Keanna,also a professional dancer joined us and at June’s suggestion they duetted some seated tap together June was absolutely in her element and coming up with beautiful material and choreography – exciting!” “Lots of chats between Marie, Doreen, Martin O’Connor and Katie about the classes…
The Elbow System
July 17th, 2017 Another full house today – Katie, the two Martins (film and voice recording), Marie, June, Doreen and I. June mentioned for the first time that her Dad was the manager of Fairlie’s Ballroom, this confused Doreen as she thought “that was where the prostitutes used to be”. Marie then said that her…
Doreen & The Last Post
July 19th, 2017 Brilliant news. Paul Hudson, our colleague at the Festival Theatre, always ahead of the game and a connecting thinker, created an opportunity for Doreen to work as the choreographer on the theatre show The Last Post. Set in the 1940’s during the war time Doreen is authentic to the era, with lived…
Rehearsals Begin
September 11th, 2017 Back after our summer break, we are using these weeks to build, create and rehearse our live event for the Luminate Festival in October. Doreen and Marie still have a few reservations – ’why would anyone want to come and watch us dancing at our age, why would anyone be interested, what…
Marie’s Hip
September 18th, 2017 “Alas, we have had word that Marie has broken her hip. She is fine, but of course, needs to mend and she won’t be able to perform in the show. What a blow – we miss her and know that she will miss us. I set to work to ensure that Marie…
Politics of the Practice
September 25th, 2017 I am feeling excited and a bit nervous, aware of how much I am asking of the women to value themselves and what they have to offer, and of how radicle and unusual it is to create a performance with women of this age (and of course remembering the other ‘d’ word).…
Costume, Tap Mats & Tap Shoes
October 2nd, 2017 We have ordered more Tap Mats for the performance so now have twelve in total, this is great as they are portable and can be used by the audience as well at the end of our show. We’re going to utilise the teaching style we have found works for complete beginners as…
Tech Week
October 16th – 20th, 2017 “The week before the show – production and technical manager Fi Johnstone, assisted by Marissa Ferguson as stage manager, myself and Katie and Daisy, along with ‘outside eye’ Luke Pell, and MJ McCarthy working on sound with us, spend the week setting up and testing out the technical aspects of…
The BBC and The Sunday Post
October 17th, 2017 We are excited that the BBC want to do a feature on us, this is thanks (I’m certain) to our wonderful publicist – the great Liz Smith. On the day of filming, we don our costumes, perform excerpts from the show, and June and Doreen are interviewed by arts journalist Pauline McLean.…
The Walls Come Alive
October 21st, 26th & 28th, 2017 We are sold out! All 3 shows! There is still a huge demand for tickets, even a personal letter to Paul HUdson to pleade for one from the Festival Theatre, to plead for one. The excitement is palpable. We opened our dress run to an invited audience and this…
Cake
October 30th, 2017 A well-deserved get-together to celebrate the success of our three shows. What a response we got, both from the audience and not to mention our five-star review from The Reviews Hub’s Lauren Humphrey. So glad we took the risk we did, it is always a risk making work for the public performance…
Sharing Practice
November 27th, 2017 “A day of presentations by two artists, Janice Parker Projects and the Saltire Society has supported (with bursaries) Abi Watson and Julia both quite different artists making different kinds of work in different parts of Scotland. A really interesting day, of sharing practice between different generations and another great day of hosting…
Dance is a Feeling
December 8th, 2017 In usual style, we had a huge end of season party with many guests; People who have supported us joined classes and workshops, come to meet us, take class or talk, share practice and find out more about the world of Variety Theatre. Plenty of prosecco (now An Audience With… tradition), thanks…
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