BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
If you’ve ever thought about performing in a musical, I guarantee you this: fun will be had.
School musicals are some of the most exciting, exhausting, and memorable experiences a young performer can have. Aussie talents Alice Chance and Will Yaxley know this better than most – they’ve actually written one. ‘Just a Second’ is a brand new production written for high school students as an alternative to expensive big hit musicals. Through crowd funding, the young musos raised over $6,000 to create their cheeky production which tells the story of Ernie, a young student who thinks he has the power to freeze time. Chasing academic and social success, Ernie doesn’t prepare for the consequences that await him.
Composer Alice Chance has worked with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra Fellowship, Sydney Children’s Choir and Sydney Youth Orchestras – and her pieces have been performed in the US and England. Will Yaxley’s work has been premiered by the Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra, and the singer has played in The Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof, Chicago, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Guys and Dolls, and Sweeney Todd.
So, what makes a great musical anyway?
Specific things we value in a musical are a visibly enthusiastic and committed cast, an engaging plot, clever lyrics and script, imaginative orchestration and lighting and sound effects operated without a hitch. However above all that, you need a production team that work well together and a calm attitude. Tantrums do not make a great musical.
Why is being involved in a musical production an important experience for young musicians?
We both found, being involved in musicals when we were young, that it was extremely beneficial for our ensemble skills, musicality and an influence for future composition. For any young person involved in a musical, whether in the production team, cast, crew, band etc., it’s almost always a really fun experience that you remember forever. The friendships you make when involved in a show are completely unique. We will always be very close to everybody involved in the show, just because of how special our shared experience has been.
At what point did you decide you wanted to write one yourselves?
Individually, we have always dreamed of a career writing musical theatre. I [Will] always knew I wanted a collaborative partner and was keen to meet the right one. I [Alice] hadn’t thought about whether I would collaborate with someone, and felt a little too entrenched in the classical world to branch into musical theatre as soon as I wanted to. When we met in January this year, we were extremely excited that our ideas meshed so well and we both liked and disliked similar things. Immediately, our composition ideas gelled and complimented each other whilst Alice’s strength of lyricism and Will’s strengths of script-writing and plot conception helped us make something we could never have done alone.
You’ve said the musical has been written with the aim of complementing the strengths of young performers – can you tell us a little about what these strengths are, and how you went about writing music that would highlight them?
High schools often perform musicals that aren’t a great fit for them. They could be quite irrelevant but have cheap rights, or they could be a good fit but cost schools a fortune to purchase. Even then, any customisation to suit students has to be considered legally. With our show, the rights are affordable and it comes with a pretty chilled out attitude towards changing keys for young singers etc.. As well as this, the content is appropriate for young people, but not in a patronising way. It’s still pretty cheeky!
Tell me about the composition side of the musical. Alice, you’ve composed for many groups, so how does the style differ technically to your other repertoire?
Both of us have experience writing for the voice and are singers ourselves, so it’s been great to be able to test out songs on each other. We’ve written for many instrumental groups as well. No matter who you’re writing for and in what genre, you always take away a few instrumentation and orchestration lessons. These are universal. No matter what genre, it’s always cruel to make a trumpet blast a high C after not playing for several bars. Although this is our first piece of musical theatre, you can hear lessons we’ve learnt from writing in different contexts.
How did you both work together to get the production going?
We’d estimate that about 75 per cent was written completely collaboratively. Other numbers were written more by one of us or the other. It’s funny to hear the individual strengths shine in these numbers. Alice has nailed the soppy love song, whilst Will has completely encapsulated panic and hysteria in another one. We’re both proud to have our names associated with numbers that the other did. In terms of the script, we had a Google doc that we could both work on separately when we couldn’t get together. It was great to log on and see a few new lines had been written, and be able to edit them easily. This was a great part of the process.
What do you hope will be the broader impact of ‘Just a Second’?
We hope that schools around Australia and New Zealand will be keen to perform this show. We hope we’ll be able to visit these schools and run workshops as part of the package when they purchase it. We’d love to visit these kids and show them what’s possible for young people with ambition. We also hope that people can watch this show and see the fresh music theatre is alive in this part of the world, not just on Broadway, and there is no need to recycle irrelevant shows any more.
‘Just a Second’ will be held at the Monkey Baa Theatre in Darling Harbour on November 21 and 22. For tickets go to https://justasecond.iwannaticket.com.au/event/just-a-second-Nzc3OQ.
Image supplied.
