Celebrating Calendar Girls The Musical in the Community

This month marks five years since Calendar Girls The Musical first opened in the West End. Now, amateur theatre companies across the world are performing the show to the delight of their local communities. We caught up with some of them to hear about their experiences of staging the musical.

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The Grassington Players

What made you want to stage Calendar Girls The Musical in your community?
Well, of course we are the “home society” of the original Calendar Girls so we had been looking forward to performing it since many of us saw it for that first trial run in Burnsall Village Hall back in 2015. I’d seen it with John Baker’s family at the New Wimbledon Theatre in late October 2019. When I heard that it was coming to the end of its professional run, I contacted Concord Theatricals to see if we might be able to lead the way with the amateur runs, as we did with the play back in 2012.

We were reminded of how close a disease cancer is to so many of us during rehearsals, with a number of our members personally affected by it, resulting in some sad losses but some personal triumphs.

What was your favourite moment in the show?
The strength of this show is that it doesn’t hang on one blockbuster song, one key character or one scene. It’s a continuous rollercoaster of emotions with belly laughs and lump-in-the-throat, welling-of-the-eyes moments, one after the other, and often very close together, which makes the highs higher and the sadness more acute. If I had to pick some scenes I personally loved: those involving the teenagers and the husbands just before the photo shoot takes place. Having played [the character of] John, his “Flowers of Yorkshire” lines are so powerful that at times I had to resist thinking about the words too much for fear of blubbing myself mid-speech!

What did you want your audiences to take away from seeing the musical?
As always, you want them to go away feeling entertained and having had a good night out for their money. Of course, with this particular production, where many of the real-life characters and close relatives were in the audience, you also wanted them to feel that we had reached the standards that the original story and the wonderful adaptation that Tim and Gary have created deserved.

If you had one piece of advice to another amateur company looking to stage their own production, what would it be?
My one piece of advice would be to plan about 20% more rehearsals than you usually do. Timing is everything of course, but never so much as with Calendar Girls The Musical. The music, dialogue and scene changes are continuous and run together like no other musical I’ve been involved in. It takes a number of rehearsals to get it right. We planned two technical rehearsals and two dress rehearsals and we needed them!

Huddersfield Musical Theatre Company

What made you want to stage Calendar Girls The Musical in your community?
Following successful productions of the play version in our area, to stage Calendar Girls The Musical was an obvious choice, especially as the subject matter was pertinent to several members of our company and the location was geographically close. We also predicted that our local audiences would be able to identify with all aspects of the show, which turned out to be true.

What was your favourite moment in the show?
For many of the cast and company, the reprise of the song “Dare” at the end of the conference scene was a particular highlight. It showed the determination of ‘The Girls’ to overcome any fears about the calendar photos and emphasised the camaraderie that was evident in their collective resolve to help their friend Annie achieve her goal. Also, each of the photo sequences within the number “For One Night Only” brought a cheer of delight from the audience, and the appearance of ‘the cracker’ brought people to their feet at every performance.

What did you want your audiences to take away from seeing the musical?
Our audiences were enthralled with the whole show. They appreciated the bravery of the cast, enjoyed the music and connected closely with the storyline.

If you had one piece of advice to another amateur company looking to stage their own production, what would it be?
A piece of advice for any company presenting this wonderful illustration of musical theatre would be to carefully plan the scene changes, prior to any theatre venue rehearsal. It is imperative that the show should run smoothly, so whatever cloths, trucks, screens, flats and props are to be used, rehearsals by the stage crew will be just as important as running the music and dialogue. The flow of the show and scene changes should be seamless, so rehearsal and preparation is a must.

Tring Theatre Company

What made you want to stage Calendar Girls The Musical in your community?
As our first production after lockdown, we wanted a show that would be uplifting and would sell. The full range of emotions in Calendar Girls – belly laughs followed by heartfelt grief made it a very powerful piece that we were sure audiences would love.

What was your favourite moment in the show?
Can’t single out anything. Much depended on our mood at the time. Highlights were Ruth shouting about the public footpath at the end of Act 1; the raw emotion of Kilimanjaro and Chris’ rousing speech to the WI Conference were but a few. And of course, when ‘The Girls’ performed “One Night Only”; we could tell that the audiences were with them, having shared their anxieties and excitement throughout.

What did you want your audiences to take away from seeing the musical?
We wanted them:

• To feel as uplifted by the musical as we were by performing it

• To go home with the music ringing in their ears (they did)

• To feel that amateur theatre was ‘back for good’ (a Take That pun!) and in safe hands

If you had one piece of advice to another amateur company looking to stage their own production, what would it be?
From the Director’s perspective:

• Ensure you have a committed creative team; you will need to work closely together. The structure of the musical is more complex than it first appears, with dialogue, music, movement and scenes constantly interweaving.

• If you are able to create a set with the specific areas ‘indicated’ it will eliminate the need for constant scene changing, allowing the story to drive forward without interruption.

From the Musical Director’s perspective:

Be prepared to work long hours on “One Night Only”. It is by far the most complex portion of the production with so many things which can go wrong. In this particular scene the performers will have their minds on other matters apart from the music and they have to know their parts incredibly well.

• We added music during “Spring Fête”, as the director wanted some ‘fairground’ music in the background.

From a producer’s perspective:

• Be prepared to work hard – it will pay dividends.

• Start the cast working with props as early as possible in the rehearsal process – there are so many that they need to get used to.

• If your theatre allows it, having levels on the set really helps visually.

• Encourage creativity in all aspects of the show from the whole team

• Have a strong team with complimentary skill

• Have fun!

Feeling inspired to stage Calendar Girls The Musical in your own community? Learn more and request a licence.