What a wonderful way to spend an evening! On Thursday the 20th of July two members of the Ambedo Magazine (Myself and Sara) were fortunate enough to interview some of the cast of the amazing production of Pirates of Penzance by Nexus Youth Theatre, as well as watch the opening night show! I went into the show completely blind; I must admit I didn’t know much about the storyline and neither did Sara, but we found it to be both humorous and compelling.
Before the show, we were able to go backstage and interview a range of cast and crew members. This included Kade Lightfoot who played a Pirate and the Police Sergeant, Alice McKellar who played Ruth, Ryan Foxlow who played a pirate (specifically a glamourous and flashy pirate), Alex Chignell who is the Prop Master, Skye McPartlane who played a pirate and a member of the police, Milly Robertson and Youth Councillor Zoe Di Camillo were the very talented makeup artists of the show, Youth Councillor Max McKellar was the Assistant Stage Manager, Daniel Chisholm who played the Major General and lastly Thomas Purcell who played the Pirate King! Getting to talk to such a diverse bunch of people was such a great experience.
We asked them what the reason was they got into performing and backstage work. “I’m here through my sister, who has the lead role as Ruth [Alice McKellar], she’s one of the best… I got into backstage work because it is what my family has done, my dad’s done this since he was my age and mum and sister have been on stage, it’s what I’ve grown up into,” said Youth Councillor Max McKellar. It seemed like many of the cast were from musical or performing families. Kade Lightfoot told us “my first ever production was back in 2014 it was a school production… I did it again in 2016 and 2017 was my first high school production and realised I enjoy this. I joined Nexus in 2018 and it’s been the greatest thing I’ve ever done!” It was truly amazing getting to speak with these passionate young people.
We then asked what a moment in the show was that they thought audiences would enjoy. Nearly everyone that we interviewed said the same thing. The Major General. “They are going to love every single thing the Major General does,” Kade Lightfoot [Sergeant] told us. “Modern Major General… it’s remarkable that Dan can do it, it’s such a fast song,” said Alice McKellar [Ruth] “Modern Major General… it’s really funny,” Skye [ensemble] said. Milly Robertson and Zoe Di Camillo both agreed that they “Love the Major General!” Such an overwhelming majority for the Major General’s popularity.
As a bit of fun, we thought we would ask the cast and crew who was most likely to forget their lines on stage. We weren’t sure how this was going to go, was everyone sure it was going to be a certain person, or would they all say themselves to save face? Luckily, we got an answer. Out of the people we interviewed we had 5 votes for Kade Lightfoot who plays a pirate and the Police Sergeant and 3 votes for Josh Russell who plays Frederic. Luckily when we saw the show, we didn’t notice any lines being forgotten.
From both our interviews and our experience these are some words used to describe the message of the show; finding your true self, self-acceptance, respect, acceptance, uniting, loyalty, commitment, don’t assume and being truthful. I think these are some beautiful ways of looking at the show and a message that we should all listen to more often.
YO Bendigo’s volunteers were involved both on stage and off which was so great to see! We had two of our Youth Councillors Max McKellar and Zoe Di Camillo working backstage as Assistant Stage Manager and Makeup Artist respectively. We had a YO Events member Jin Turpie working backstage alongside Max as well. Kade Lightfoot has contributed to YO Bendigo in a few different ways over the years and now we had two Ambedo members interviewing and watching the show. So proud of these young people.