Behind stage doors - A feature article by Ciaran Sneddon

Behind stage doors.

Nerves are running high through the dressing rooms and backstage corridors, as the cast prepare for the curtain call. The stage crew are making sure everything is in place; lights, microphones and set. It’s opening night and everything has to be perfect. The wardrobe team rush from door-to-door ensuring everything is correct, whilst last-minute make up is being applied and checked in the light-bulb surrounded mirrors. A speaker system relays the rustle of sweet wrappers and murmurs of the audience from the auditorium. The more experienced in the cast know that from the volume of the chatting that echoes its way through the speaker, it is either a full house, or very close to it. It’s 7.20pm. 10 minutes until the show begins.

The dressing rooms are a mess of final rehearsals for the song and dance numbers, and a steely concentration can be found in the eyes of those who pore laboriously over their scripts.
You wouldn't be able to tell by looking at the focus amongst the cast that this is an amateur performance. Or further still, a youth amateur one.
But where profession is lacking, passion shines through. The cast is made up of around 30 young people aged between 12 and 21, who have rehearsed for two long, challenging weeks. They are here because they want to be; some plan to go on to do this as a career, but most simply enjoy the thrill of a live show and love to sing, act and dance. For them this is fun. Fun, but serious. And so it should be. After a fortnight of choreography, line-learning and note bashing, nobody wants to let the team down. For it is just that, a team, pulling together to make this the best that they can.
Around 100 hours of rehearsal boil down to the next two of performance. They're doing West Side Story and whilst for some this is their first show with the group, for others this is the last show they will do here. They want to go out with a bang.

They are at the Adam Smith theatre in Kirkcaldy, and are performing as part of Youth Music Theatre Scotland, a nation-wide organisation that runs workshops and performances at the theatre three time a year - in the spring, summer and autumn holidays.
"This is the five minute call for cast and crew. Five minutes."
This message over the speaker temporarily dims the voices in the dressing rooms, but they quickly return, more excited and frantic than before. A fresh wave of butterflies tumbles through the stomachs of the more nervous cast members.
A group of the 'Puerto Rican' girls, caked in fake tan and dressed in long, flamboyant skirts for their "America" number, make their way along the corridor, telling everyone to break a leg. For one of the newer boys this causes a moment of concern, before a kindly Officer Krupke informs him that this is just a way of wishing well on stage. Some of the Jets are running through one of their numbers, while Bernardo rushes from wing-to-wing, searching desperately for the retractable knife he needs at the end of act one. Tony and Maria are practising 'One hand, one heart' in their dressing room.
There's a sense of anticipation and excitement building with every passing minute and it spreads like electricity through the corridors.
The girls, having completed their "Break a leg" tour, have returned to their room and are checking each other’s make-up.

Suddenly: "Beginners of act one to stage. Beginners to stage."
No sooner has this message been announced, the Jets make their way up the stairs and into the wings. They excitedly whisper "Break a leg" one more time and then head on stage. They are hidden from the audience by a gauze curtain, lit in such a way that whilst the people on stage can see out into the watching crowd, no audience member can see them.
It's a full house. The ushers close the doors to the auditorium, and drag a curtain across them, blocking the light from the theatre corridor. The house lights begin to dim, and simultaneously so to do the voices and rustles from the audience.
Backstage, the rest of the cast gather around the speakers with baited breath, waiting to hear the orchestra play. And there it is, a long string note begins and the overture is underway.
The lights change on stage and for the first time the audience can see the Jets, who are gathered around a rusty stairway, clicking their fingers menacingly in time to the music. The show has started.
The audience is already caught up in it all, as the jets begin their first attack on their rival gang, the Sharks.
The nerves are gone, and excitement reigns supreme. This is the night, and everything is going to be alright.