Journal
I was finally able to collect my VISA from the Japanese Embassy yesterday - which pretty much completes the process for getting out to Tokyo. It has been very frustrating..... waiting for red-tape to be magically sorted out, but I am now looking forward to getting out there and getting on with the job.
At the moment, the wonderful world of Tokyo Disney Sea - and in particular the "Encore" show - is a bit of a mystery to me. I don't fully know what I will be doing, how often, for how long etc. But I think that helps with the excitement factor and leads to the feeling of it all being more of an Adventure!
I am looking forward to getting to know a new group of people - working with a "cast" is something I have missed in recent months and it sounds (with a cast of 50 plus!) that this is the perfect way to catch up. From what I can gather, the Japanese way of working in rehearsals and preparation for the show are quite different from the way we do things here. I am sure it will be a learning experience for all concerned!
Barring disaster, at 9:30 tomorrow morning (Thursday 24th January 2002) I will be on a flight to Narita Airport in Tokyo (via Milan!) and beginning my stint with Disney..... watch this space!
Tokyo - Wednesday, 14 February 2002
Greetings from Tokyo!
We are coming to the close of the rehearsal period now, so here is a little update on how it has all been going. We've been in rehearsal for just over 2 weeks, and have about another week left before we open. To be honest, it is quite an easy show for us singers. I have three roles to learn, two of which are "Lead Singer" roles and the other is an Ensemble/Dance track. As it happens there is less dancing in the ensemble one than the first two - but nevermind!
The rehearsals have been interesting. The Choreographers do not speak very much English, so every rehearsal is conducted through an Interpreter. It is a little difficult to grasp at first, but we are used to it now. The cast (of about 55) is made up of about half "Foreign" performers and the other half Japanese dancers. It's great to be working with the Japanese cast - they have quite a different approach to their work than maybe we do in the West - which is refreshing.
In "Encore!", each singer has a solo in the "Composers" section of the show. This is a medley of Broadway tunes including "Some Enchanted Evening", "On The Street Where You Live", "Summertime" amongst others. We are also involved in the "Oklahoma!" section and then the "Hello Dolly" number. Not too bad considering the show runs at 29 minutes! On the other hand, the dancers have a very heavy show - it looks fantastic, but they are so tired by the end of it; its really full on. The Theatre itself is very lush, and has been put together very well - the stage and backstage area are very well equipped and the Front-of-house areas for the Audience... sorry - "Guests"! ... are gorgeous; lots of real marble, embroidered wall hangings; polished brass.
Japan itself (what I have seen of it so far) is both vastly different and surprisingly the same as Britain - or anywhere else. The people have all been friendly and polite, but the language barrier is most definitely there. The popular misconception is that "everyone speaks English" - and that really isn't the case. Very little is printed in English (even around the Disney buildings!) and in shops, post offices etc. people just don't speak English. I like it really - it takes away that arrogance that English speakers can sometimes have when abroad... you really can't be understood here! :-)
I am looking forward to getting into a routine with performing the show now, and also having a chance to explore a bit more of Japan. Another update when we have opened!
Tokyo - Sunday, February 18th 2002
Rehearsals
Tomorrow is the last day of rehearsals before we re-open the show to the Guests. Rehearsals have been at turns fun, interesting, frustrating, long, humorous, stressful - sometimes all at once! As I said before, the set up of the show is very much dance orientated, . Most of the numbers are dance numbers from the various Broadway shows that are represented. They look fantastic, and the dancers we have are great. They are worn out after each run through, as it is quite a heavy show for them. We singers, on the other hand, have it pretty easy! The most exciting aspect for us may be the technical side of things - stage lifts, moving platforms, understage pits, flying tyres (!) and so on, which keeps things interesting.
The Dancers have obviously needed good long rehearsal period as they have so much to do. We perhaps didn't need quite so much, as musically it is fairly straightforward for us - especially as the consensus amongst the cast (including the Japanese dancers) is that majority of the audience won't understand a word we are singing! There is definitely a feel that this is a Theme Park show, and although it is a full-out "Musical Style" piece, the Guest's (audience) pleasure is most important - therefore we have been asked to be very precise as to where we stand, dance from/too and so on, so the picture for the audience is very precise. Also we have to make sure out costumes are "just right" as there is much more of a panic if you are wearing the wrong colour socks than if you decided to sing in Swahili!"
Tokyo - February 19th 2002
Show Opening:
We had a rather serious technical problem on the stage for the last dress rehearsal which slightly jeopardised opening the show on time. Luckily, everything was sorted to everyone's satisfaction, and we opened as planned on the 19th. (Sadly I was not scheduled to work that day so I had to wait for my "Opening Night"!!) The Stage Crew and Stage Management staff here are great - always helpful and very competent. They are the first to apologise to us if anything goes wrong, and they know that they are in a constant learni ng curve with the show and the theatre (having only been open a relatively short amount of months.) Most of the Gaijin (foreign) performers have had experience on the stage in Theatres, and are used to things happening in certain way. Of course, although we are in a full scale theatre, the set up is for a Theme park show and that is what the staff are used to running, so we are all adapting on both sides. Its about providing a product, and of course there are corporate considerations to be considered alongside any artistic ones.
Sadly we have to be into work by 10:00 in the morning, which can be a bit of a shock to the system! I am rather lucky as certain shows on the Resort have to be here for when the park opens - at 8:00 a.m!!!
Tokyo - April 9th 2002
We have reached the stage now where (catastrophe aside!) there should be no more changes to the show, or time alterations or rehearsals and so on. We have changed the show schedule to the "Summer" performance times now - meaning we do shows at 12:30, 14:00, 15:30, 17:30 and 19:00. It certainly makes for less of an 'evening', but an extra hour in bed in the morning is very welcome!
A fortnight ago we opened with the new Japanese dancers in the show. Certain members of the cast had either retired, or moved to other jobs, or switched to other shows within the Disney Resort. We had rehearsals, blocking runs, technical and Dress rehearsals for the new dancers which felt a little strange. It felt as if we were back at the first rehearsals again even though we have been performing the show for about 6 weeks. It was quite fun, and refreshing to work with people who were just learning the show, but when you add 5 hours of rehearsal onto an already full show day it makes the day quite tiring and I think we were all glad to get back to just performing the 5 shows a day.
The show is pretty well supported for most of the shows, but often the early one is a little less full. Of course, it also depends on how busy the park is. We heard last week that one day was "Sold Out". I am not exactly sure what "Sold Out" really means to a Theme park - pretty busy I'd say!
Recently, the Cherry Blossoms bloomed all over the place (the Sakura). There really is a huge hype about it here in Japan, and everyone seemed to be talking about it. Sadly, the bulk of the blossoms only bloom for a very short time, and with a few very windy and rainy days, they were quite short-lived this year. There are specific sites in Tokyo where the blossoms are particularly pretty, or the concentration of trees is very heavy- but that also means the concentration of people will be heavy too!!!
Tokyo - Saturday, May 11th 2002
Halfway Point
At about midday today I will have reached the 'halfway-mark' of my time in Japan. I knew from the outset that time would fly by, but it is a little scary just HOW fast it has gone. The show has been running fairly smoothly of late, with no major problems occurring. There are often small, technical problems which crop up every now and then but, as is often the case, the majority of the audience won't notice anything. The hitches only serve as some small amusements for us on stage normally!
The actual running of the show changes very little from day to day. There is some variety created by the number of different people performing each role. Each singing role has at least 4 performers who take "turns" doing that particular track, and the same applies to most of the dance tracks also. That means with a cast of approximately 50, there are numerous possible variations. Added to that people's 'days off' (or 'yasumi') and the "Split Shift" system - where 2 people will do the role across one day - you get to see new faces doing different roles all the time. Anything to keep it fun and fresh!
The buzz this week is that quite a few people will be going to see the Sumo Wrestling tournament on their days off, which has started in Tokyo. I think that Japanese cast members are slightly less enthused than the Westerners, but the novelty value is certainly very high. Sadly though, this week seems to have seen the beginnings of the "Rainy Season". It hasn't started in earnest yet, but when it does, we have been told we are in for some very wet, very warm and very sticky days. Roll on Summer!!"
Tokyo - Saturday, August 3rd 2002
The Final Stretch
It is hard to believe that it has been nearly 7 months since we arrived in Japan. At times it has flown by, at times it has dragged - but I guess that is the nature of a long contract.
The new cast has arrived and is in rehearsals for the show. I managed to catch them rehearsing the "42nd Street Rehearsal" scene the other day and it was strange to see a different set of faces doing the choreography that I've seen 'my' cast doing for so long.
With regard to the show, there have been the continuing small ups-and-downs regarding various issues with the show, which I think is probably more a symptom of the amount of time we've been working on the same thing now. It is quite a scary thought that, by the end of the contract, each of us will have performed "Encore!" more than 650 times. Which would equal getting on for 2 YEARS in a normal Theatre show of 8 per week. No wonder it seems a long time some days!
I have been spending as much time as possible with the Japanese cast, as I have really been enjoying getting to know them all more over recent weeks. It takes a long time - mainly, I believe, because the language barrier can cause problems. There seems to be a difference between gaijin ('foreign') performers who have very little knowledge or skill in Japanese but have no problem making a fool of themselves trying to speak the language, and the nihonjin (Japanese) performers who may have had some exposure to English for a long time, but feel uncertain about using it. Once you get over that, it makes such a difference, and you are able to build proper friendships with people - not just restricted to "Ohayo Gozaimasu" and "Otsukare samadeshita" (Good Morning and 'Well Done For Working')
I am sure I will miss a lot of things when I leave Japan. I have enjoyed the working experience, but have certainly realised that there is something different about working on a Theme Park - different mentality about things than when you're working in a Theatre. I will however really miss the country (what little I have seen), the culture and most of all the people. Although they can be quite reserved, underneath they seem to be a very warm and open 'people', and if you are willing to accept how different our cultures and ideas can be you start to find all the ways that we are exactly the same.
Anyway, I fully intend coming back to Japan very soon, so watch this space ... ... ...
Oslo - September 17th - 23rd 2002
I had a couple of weeks back at home in the UK after Japan - just enough time to unpack, wash my clothes, re-pack and head off to Norway!
I was going to Oslo to re-visit a show I was involved in, in London, back in 2000. "Tonight" is a musical written by Ole Haune, a Norwegian composer who trained at LIPA (Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts). I was playing the same character again - Max, who is one of 5 friends who the story revolves around.
The composer had been working on the show and made a number of changes and re-writes since its first outing, and this was another opportunity to give the show some exposure with the amazing National Radio Orchestra of Oslo. I think the style of working was a little bit of a shock to them to be honest; they are used to playing Orchestral, Classical music and suddenly there were these "singers" there who wanted tempo changes, volume changes and so on. But they sounded great, so you could forgive them a lot!
There wasn't too much time to rehearse (we arrived at 7.00pm on the Tuesday and then performed on Saturday) only 3 days to learn and rehearse a fully s taged 2½-hour musical - hmmmm! But anyway ....
I was quite lucky as I knew the basic premise of the show and remembered a good percentage of the material from my first exposure to it. The other principals (who were without exception FANTASTIC!) had a much harder job to learn a totally new piece in such a short time. Considering this the opening performance went very well, and was received warmly by the audience.
Of course after an 'Opening Night' party, the Matinee the next day was much harder work (!) but by the end of the day and the final performance in the evening, all cylinders were firing again.
Unfortunately there was not much time to see anything of Oslo (other than the inside of the rehearsal studios, and the inside of the Breakfast TV Studio - which we had to see at 5.30 one morning ...not pretty!) We were lucky with the weather, which were told was unseasonably warm. Lucky, I think!
One of the numbers from "Tonight" (Where Do I Stand Tonight) was performed at the Global Search for New Musicals, Cardiff International Festival last year to great response.
I am sure we will hear more from "Tonight" and also from Ole Haune as well. Although next time I have told him we need more than 3 days to rehearse- and you can tell him that from me if you see him!
Newcastle, NSW - September 23rd - October 21st 2002
To finish off my "Journal" of travels this year I thought I should put a note about my Australian trip.
I have been in contact with Ross Fiddes for a number of years with regards to his Musical / Opera "Abelard & Heloise" (based on the true story of Peter Abelard the French Philosopher) and luckily the timing of this production fitted with my schedule allowing me the opportunity to go to Newcastle to play the title role.
Although I flew out to Sydney the same day that I flew back from Oslo (phew!) There was a bit more rehearsal time for A&H, which lead to a more measured process. The piece is a cross-style between a standard piece of Musical Theatre, but with various sections leaning more into the Operatic side of things. This made it an interesting venture for me, as this is an area that I have not really worked in before.
We performed the show in the Cathedral in Newcastle, which was a beautiful venue - with its own set of problems for performers. The Orchestra sounded beautiful, but the voices were slightly swamped in the massive sound created, and bounced around by the acoustics of the Cathedral. We soon fixed this with the help of a little sound technology and all was well. The show was received well by the Audiences and I believe that Ross intends a long future for the show. Check out my links page and you can find out more about the production at the website.
Much of my trip to Australia felt like a "home away from home" - we seem to have very similar cultures, a lot of shared history (of course!) and things just feel nicely 'normal' over there. The people I encountered were all very friendly and welcoming, and I am sure I will make further trips to the other side off the world at some point to visit the friends I made over there.
No more travel for a while for me though. I have enjoyed it all, in various ways, but it will be good to be settled back in the UK for a few months and get back into the swing of things there.