It’s a dark and stormy night. Four young friends meet up in an attic to help their friend Ethan find a penny whistle, belonging to his dead grandfather.
Sound like purple prose from a bad pulp magazine? No! It’s the exciting and dramatic premise for ‘FACES - The Musical,’ the newest instalment from KORE Productions.
“People told me for years that I’d never get anywhere with my company,” Director Kyle Stephens says, “and here’s me five years later with an awesome cast with 'FACES'. I’ve directed three shows so far, ‘Who Knows’ – a 'Doctor Who' play – and I did ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’, which is my biggest show yet. But it’s prepared me for 'FACES'. It’s all about having a vision… And not letting too many people have a say against your judgement.”
Kyle’s inspiration stems from his determination to succeed. “I was working with a lot of shows at a theatre,” he says, “and I saw everything that they were doing wrong. I just thought to myself ‘I could do this better.’ So I spoke to my uncle, and I spoke to a couple of friends of mine, and we got together, put on a show, and it was quite successful. We sold out for the entire week, every single performance that we did, and it was a 150-seat theatre. Small, but a big thing for me. It’s what keeps me going with everything.”
Adam Bowes says his role as Ethan is still a work in progress. “I’m still working on finding the essence of the character. A lot of it is drawn from personal experiences as well – not seeing dead people – but in terms of experiencing great loss… It’s been interesting finding out more about the character, getting into the character’s head.”
Adam BowesAdam’s previous roles in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ and his web series ‘Nothing Like The Sun’ have helped him prepare for the role. “Just having that sort of headspace and really accessing those parts of my life to bring to the character… [and] finding different ways to access that has really helped for this show.”
Joining Adam in the attic is Bethany Taylor, with her role as Mia marking her first semi-professional debut. “I had a lead role in a high school production, which is what got me into musical theatre in the first place… So I’m pretty new it all. It’s awesome to be starting so young. I don’t think I’m nervous at this point, because it’s only rehearsals and getting everything done, but it’ll be probably opening when I’ll start to get nervous. The ‘just before’ stage fright.”
Bethany started acting at the Helen O’Grady Drama Academy when she was in primary school. “I was too shy to talk to people, including my own family,” she says. “I fell in love with what it felt like to be on stage and playing somebody else, and I had a confidence in not being me. So from there, I’ve just wanted to act, and musical theatre was just a stepping stone from that.
Bethany Taylor“I definitely went through a stage where I thought, ‘I never want to do this again! I hate this! I’m terrible’ she says. “But it was kind of my last couple of years in high school where I realised it was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.”
Nicholas Gledhill plays the ghostly role of Arthur Fielding. “It’s not about being the ghost; it’s about being the person who was alive. It’s about understanding where he comes from. He’s a very experienced, [cosmopolitan] person, and he has a lot of desire to hand on that knowledge to the other generation. And that got, I suppose, cut short by the accident, but his spirit is still around to try and keep that going.
“He’s a very worldly person who knows a lot about what’s going on… I think it’s more about him being a ghost, it’s about him being here in the present while he tries to help his grandchild in any way he can, even though he can’t relate with him directly…He’s trying to help his grandson to learn.”
Nicholas GledhillApart from acting, Nicholas is also a prize-winning playwright, and says he’s still preparing for the role: “We had a session recently where we sat down and talked about the background of some of the characters. It’s quite interesting being in a production of a musical, because you have the writer there, and she brings a lot of background to what’s going on…[But] I think it’s a chance for the cast to go and make up their own minds of what they think of the script, and the writer is able to let it go and see what somebody else does with it. But ['FACES'] is an interesting case, as there’s a lot of detail that wouldn’t necessarily come out in the basic script.”
While the show is still in pre-production, the cast say they’ve overcome challenges and have used their personal experiences to prepare for their roles. Bethany says the combination of studying and acting has been key to her learning. “There are some people who were born for the role, and seem to fit into it easily,” Kyle says. “I think Nick finds it hard to be a ghost 20 years older than he is. There were some troubles, because some people had opinions of what they thought their character was meant to be, and I had a different opinion of how the character should be portrayed, but it all gets sorted when we build the character as a team.”
Bethany says 'FACES' has been an incredibly rewarding experience. “Some of us are still students, and because we’re doing it while we’re studying, it’s really good.”
There is no doubt the musical will assist KORE Productions in the future. “It’s such a big change because we get to have a somewhat high budget,” Kyle says. “I find it a weird transition being the director, because I’ve always wanted to be the person on stage... But I can’t trust anyone else with my show!”
