What's happening at YTYT

This is, nominally, an NT Connections blog, and whilst there is much to say about the experience, it has been a little hard to work out exactly what I personally can write that wouldn’t be better coming from a cast member or Sarah. I was the assistant director; whilst it feels fair to say that I have contributed to the show in some way, I was neither a direct participant nor the orchestrator. I didn’t run the sound, nor the lights, nor did I call the show. I do feel that I left a mark on the show, though, in directing some scenes, and working with the actors. I hope it was better for my involvement - it was, after all, a remarkably good performance - but for the purposes of this blog I think it would be best to restrict the scope to what it has meant to me. About 18 months ago, I was kicking around a can of early-to-mid twenties malaise. I’m sure it will be familiar to some reading this: the acute sense of “this is it for 40 years, then I retire?” This was the immediate wake of the pan...

  Despite making notes for the past five months on what to include in my blog, I wasn’t actually planning on writing one because there was nothing that particularly stood out to me, but after a message in full caps where I was full-named and called a weirdo for not doing one from someone who can’t even say yoyo, I was persuaded. So here I am, watching a Bob Ross tutorial while writing my blog… During the show days of Brexit the Musical last July, before even having the options of what our Connections play would be, the crew was decided: Sarah as director (obviously), John as assistant director (or assistant to the director in a true The Office Dwight Schrute throwback), Sam as stage manager, and Ash as sound manager. Unlike previous years, I decided to actually read each of the potential play choices this year, and only one stood out to me, like I’m sure it did for several others. Come September, we had been allocated our first choice play, The Heights by Lisa McGee; a play about...