How It Began

My Stage Door Story: How It All Began

"It’s just that I feel so sad these wonderful nights. I sort of feel they’re never coming again, and I’m not really getting all I could out of them."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

Of course my journey to being a regular at the stage door begins with my favourite show Cats the Musical; it was my first introduction to musical theatre and the first large-scale live theatre production I had had the chance to see and the impact it had on me also has a lot to do with how I have come to have such an intense appreciation for the uniqe magic of live theatre and just how speical it is. My first encounters with the show had been in the West End where I had seen it twice, both times being lucky enough to see members of the Ultimate Edition DVD recording cast - a face which possibly contributed to the slightly embarrassing amount of disconnect I had in my head about how the people from the show were people, real people who at some point left the theatre somehow! The DVD cast were my heroes, people who more or less lived on my TV screen every weekend for a significant proportion of my childhood. When I saw the show in the West End I doubt we would have had time to go to the stage door, but these people were the people from my TV so, in my head, there was an element of them somehow maybe not being real or accessible so it wasn't something I ever asked about. My next encounter with the show was on tour; I had been so excited but the production on that particular tour was not on a par with the show as I remembered it from the West End, and though the cast were brilliant the show simply didn't have the same effect on me and I was devestated by that fact. Again I didn't ask about the stage door - but I'll be honest, my brain still hadn't really got there on connecting up that such a place existed anyway.

By 2006, Cats the Musical was turning 25 and, despite the disappointment I'd had at the last tour, I was beyond excited to find out that a national tour would be happening in honour of the milestone. It was a really big deal to me to go and see the show agian; by then it had been a long time since I had seen the show live and I knew the DVD production almost too well, I knew it well enough to understand some of the flaws in it and definitely the ways in which a recording can never quite match how a live show can make you feel. I was determined that I would not walk away from another live performance of my favourite show disppointed: I would open my mind, make more allowances and soak up the feeling of the live form of the show no matter what. Turned out I hadn't needed to give myself the pep-talk though: the 2006 tour production of Cats was incredible in every way, from cast to staging to costume to orchestra. I saw that tour for the first time during their stop in Llandudno - a phenomenal venue acoustically speaking and a venue extremely well suited to a show like Cats. I knew it was going to be a night that I remembered forever from the moment the tour's Munkustrap sang the opening line of the show in a voice so stunning that it sent shivers down my spine. I walked back to our B&B w in a daze. my cheeks aching from smiling. Although I still hadn't got a single notion in my head that I could actually somehow ever meet those people behind the make-up who had been responsible for the happy daze I was to remind in for the next few weeks, I still think of that night as the night my stage door journey began because of the extent of the impression it had made on me.

I think Cats probably became all I talked about for a the next few weeks; the cast I had seen had made me fall in love with my favourite show all over again after a long time of my drifting away from it, but more importantly, they had reminded me of that special feeling of a show. The smell of the theatre, the feeling of the lights going down before an overture, the sensation of watching a sequin glint in a spotlight during that fraction of a second between the end of the song and the audience's applause. The feeling of a the last notes of the last song still vibrating through your bones as you walk away, the strangeness of feeling the cool outside air after the warmth of your skin from excitement. It all being there and then gone - something that will never happen again the same way, which you can't just pull out again some day and show people because it's something which comes down to pure feeling that is now a part of you and can't really be put into words. That is perhaps part of why Memory, as a song, has always resonated deeply with me in connection with my theatre and stage door story - its lyrics touch on these there-and-then-gone experiences and serve as a good reminder to me when the show is ending to try and absorb every second as best I can.

As you might expect, a lot of my thoughts and feelings about all of this post-Llandudno got unloaded onto my high school best friend, somehow who had never seen Cats before and who had previously never really been all that interested in the theatre. I don't know for sure how strong her will truly was to share this with me or if she just wanted to humour me, but when I told her that the show was coming to our local theatre she expressed an interest in coming to see it with me. And I was overjoyed: no friend I'd ever had before had indulged me in my Cats obsession and now I was finally getting to share it. I was so excited - I introduced her to the DVD, the music. The day we went to pick her up for the show I was so excited for her seeing the show I almost forgot I was also going to get to see my favourite show life again with this amazing cast I remembered.

My friend and I enjoyed the show. A lot. We were beaming. I was delirious, she was converted, we were both babbling and joyous and thrilled with every moment of the show we'd seen and honestly that alone would have been enough of a good memory for me. I was more than old enough to have shaken off that old disconnect I mentioned, about the cast being real people who left the theatre after the show. But for whatever reason? I still wasn't even considering it as something that could be done. The suggestion, in the end, came from my dad...who definitely didn't know what he was starting! I don't know what made him ask my friend and me if we would like to go to the stage door after the show and meet the cast: maybe the ridiculous level of excitement I'd had in the build up to that night's show because I finally had a friend who wanted to share this with me, or maybe because my friend was with us as our guest so he felt it was part of his hosting duties to make it more of an 'event' - but what I do know is my eyes went really wide and I asked something along the lines of 'Can we even do that? It that even possible? They really just...walk out at the end of the night like normal humans who didn't just perform actual magic on that stage just now????!!! YES PLEASE!' And the rest is history...!

When the dawn comes, tonight will be a memory too,
and a new day will begin
- Memory, Cats the Musical

Our first night at a stage door was a learning curve: we muddled through trying to match people to their headshots and got a fairly decent success rate for a first try, all things considered. It all went by in such a blur because we were giddy, delirious, laughing the whole time trying to figure out who was who and what was going on and caught up in the drama of trying to figure out how best to approach them and how to tell people from their headshots and how to avoid doing anything too embarrassing. All of the cast were so lovely to us though - and we also had the benefit of them having noticed us as we had been sitting in the front row. Funnily enough, this was where we just became known by them as crazy-enthusastic cheerers of the show despite us not technically having been the loudest cheerers that particular night: we had been sat next to this group who cheered everything. They were actually getting on our nerves a little bit by the end! But the cast thought we'd been with that group I think, because we were very enthusiastic ourselves and we showed up at stage door with these massive grins and all this praise for them and, honestly, we did do a lot of our own enthusiastic cheering and clapping that night so it wasn't a completely inaccurate impression, but I do think it added to the feeling we got from the cast that they had enjoyed having us there, and that warmth was a big part of what really drew us in to the idea of meeting them again, somehow doing more to live up to that idea of us being their biggest supporters and to encourage and thank them for their performances even more, because we daw for ourselves how much it mattered when we met them that first night.

One of the things which I think really stuck with me about us going to the stage door that night was actually to do with how I was when I was there. I'm normally a really shy, quiet person unless I'm around a group of people I know well - I hold back and sometimes I've even probably missed out on certain things just because I was too shy to speak up about something. But when I got to stage door I suddenly had no fear; I said things I would never normally dared say, I was brave enough to step forward and actually ask people to sign my programme and tell them about how much I loved the show and something about the way theatre people have about them just put me so at ease so quickly and I think that was a huge part of why I was desperate to go back and also to give back something to them in the form of cards, gifts and cheers. From both my friend and I there was this sudden crazy-intense need to see the show live again and take in every different detail, but also to cheer for the show again, even more since we then knew how much it meant to the cast. To take in the excitment of all the usual things that made live theatre special, but to also take in the added wonder of letting these people know how amazing their performances were, hearing some of their crazy stories, learning new things about the show and the tour and how the whole world of the theatre was so different and fascinated from the other side too. We went back for more signitures in our programmes, more photos, but most importantly more time with these wonderful humans, getting to know them beyond just their performances and making ourselves practically a part of the tour itself.

I was more than old enough to have shaken off that old disconnect I mentioned, about the cast being real people who left the theatre after the show. But for whatever reason? I still wasn't even considering it as something that could be done. The suggestion, in the end, came from my dad...who definitely didn't know what he was starting! I don't know what made him ask my friend and me if we would like to go to the stage door after the show and meet the cast: maybe the ridiculous level of excitement I'd had in the build up to that night's show because I finally had a friend who wanted to share this with me, or maybe because my friend was with us as our guest so he felt it was part of his hosting duties to make it more of an 'event' - but what I do know is my eyes went really wide and I asked something along the lines of 'Can we even do that? It that even possible? They really just...walk out at the end of the night like normal humans who didn't just perform actual magic on that stage just now????!!! YES PLEASE!' And the rest is history...!

Of course my journey to being a regular at the stage door begins with my favourite show Cats the Musical; it was my first introduction to musical theatre and the first large-scale live theatre production I had had the chance to see and the impact it had on me also has a lot to do with how I have come to have such an intense appreciation for the uniqe magic of live theatre and just how speical it is. My first encounters with the show had been in the West End where I had seen it twice, both times being lucky enough to see members of the Ultimate Edition DVD recording cast - a face which possibly contributed to the slightly embarrassing amount of disconnect I had in my head about how the people from the show were people, real people who at some point left the theatre somehow! The DVD cast were my heroes, people who more or less lived on my TV screen every weekend for a significant proportion of my childhood. When I saw the show in the West End I doubt we would have had time to go to the stage door, but these people were the people from my TV so, in my head, there was an element of them somehow maybe not being real or accessible so it wasn't something I ever asked about. My next encounter with the show was on tour; I had been so excited but the production on that particular tour was not on a par with the show as I remembered it from the West End, and though the cast were brilliant the show simply didn't have the same effect on me and I was devestated by that fact. Again I didn't ask about the stage door - but I'll be honest, my brain still hadn't really got there on connecting up that such a place existed anyway.

One of the things which I think really stuck with me about us going to the stage door that night was actually to do with how I was when I was there. I'm normally a really shy, quiet person unless I'm around a group of people I know well - I hold back and sometimes I've even probably missed out on certain things just because I was too shy to speak up about something. But when I got to stage door I suddenly had no fear; I said things I would never normally dared say, I was brave enough to step forward and actually ask people to sign my programme and tell them about how much I loved the show and something about the way theatre people have about them just put me so at ease so quickly and I think that was a huge part of why I was desperate to go back and also to give back something to them in the form of cards, gifts and cheers. From both my friend and I there was this sudden crazy-intense need to see the show live again and take in every different detail, but also to cheer for the show again, even more since we then knew how much it meant to the cast. To take in the excitment of all the usual things that made live theatre special, but to also take in the added wonder of letting these people know how amazing their performances were, hearing some of their crazy stories, learning new things about the show and the tour and how the whole world of the theatre was so different and fascinated from the other side too. We went back for more signitures in our programmes, more photos, but most importantly more time with these wonderful humans, getting to know them beyond just their performances and making ourselves practically a part of the tour itself.

Of course, as is the way with the theatre, these things can only last so long: there was a cast change or two, the two eventually had to end, and in the background was school and real life also moving us along. But I never forgot the wonder of being at stage door, and I also never forgot how important these people and their performances were to me. And so it was I knew I had to keep seeing them, keep supporting them as best I could even when they were no longer in Cats - it was about more than just my favourite show, it was about people who work their hearts out to keep magic alive eight shows a week who I cared about and wanted to help cheer on in any way I could. So I started going to the shows they went to after Cats. With every new visit to the stage door I learnt new things, made new jokes, found more crazy stories and fell in love a little bit more with the world of the theatre; trips to the theatre started having a whole new dimension of excitment and wonder to them and making those memories felt like a good way to keep a hold of all of those little pieces of magic which normally faded away with the end of the show. It was something which I thought, at first, was perhaps unique to that group who I had first met, since they were the ones who started it all. But when Cats went on tour again in 2013, I tested the water and went to stage door, swearing up and down I would never get attached. But the new cast had just as many stories, memories and jokes for me - maybe even more now I was that little bit older and therefore less of a kid and more of an equal to them, meaning I get let in on even better stories, even more jokes and a whole other level of understanding of their world. It's something I treasure, so much, and also something I want to share. I think if more people knew about these people and their ability to create magic, their boundlessly kind hearts and their brilliant stories then maybe they would appreciate the world of live theatre that little bit more and also see what I see which is that the theatre is the closest most of us will ever come to real magic and it should be protected, appreciated and celebrated as such. And the best place to start that appreciation? It is most definitely with a kind word to a performer after a show when you wait for them at the stage door...

The Regent Theatre, Stoke-On-Trent, June 2006.

My dad made the casual suggestion of going to the stage door after the show, and even though there was only one person who we recognised from their headshot, we had an amazing night of laughs and wonder and we fell in love with the world of stage door. So we did what anyone would do: baked scones for our favourite cast members and delivered them to stage door before taking in another show or two...

I said; oh my, what a marvellous tune, it was the best night, never would forget how we moved. The whole place was dressed to the nines and we were dancing, dancing. Like we're made of starlight starlight, like we dream impossible dreams. Don't you see the starlight starlight? Don't you dream impossible things?
- Taylor Swift, Starlight

I do have some slightly less vague memories of that first stage door though, although the overriding thing I remember is not having a clue what we were doing! The trickiest part of starting your stage dooring career with a production of Cats? You don't get to see what the people in the show actually look like and - as Liz and I discovered - people don't always look like the headshot provided in the programme! This meant that when we hurried round to stage door after seeing Cats at the Regent together for the first time, we were totally and utterly lost and confused.

From what I recall, we actually spoke to a lot of the cast and got their autographs, but for the most part we hadn't a clue who it was we were talking to. I had a conversation with the lovely Lorraine Graham (Jennyanydots) about my bracelet breaking from me clapping so much, spoke to Trevor Schoonraad (Quaxo/Mistoffelees) about my love of the show, the video production and the impression he made on me in Llandudno (Mistoffelees has always been one of my favourite characters) and I had a similar conversation with the charming Gary Watson (Rum Tum Tugger.) I can't remember much of what we talked about with John McManus (Skimbleshanks) that first night, other than our obvious enthusiasm for the show, but I do know we didn't realise until after he'd left that he was Skimbleshanks aka Liz's favourite character! Much hilarity ensued after that discovery. As for my own favourite character and cast member? Kevin McGuire played Carbucketty and he started out the same way he finished up; the last person out of the door! He was so sweet to me, probably just because he was happy I knew who Carbucketty even was, and he assured me that I hadn't imagined the fact that he was smiling at me in The Ad-Dressing Of Cats - much to my glee, of course!

The very first night Liz and I ever went to stage door.

The man who looked exactly like his headshot: Dean Maynard.

Liz and I had already written fan letters to the cast - which I had delivered to stage door when I went to the box office, getting a hug from Carbucketty in the process, although he was the only one who got his letter in person and he put the others on the noticeboard for me - but we didn't stop there. Liz was good at drawing and I played about with it a bit, so we drew pictures of our two favourites and took them with us to give to them at stage door.

I cannot recommend pre-show stage dooring enough - because when they know you're there, they make a lot of extra effort for you! On the second time we went back, we only saw Kevin McGuire before the show, but he asked where we were sitting and as a result, all through the show he was smiling at us and coming our way and it was so nice to know we'd made him feel appreciated and in turn he was making us feel appreciated too.

The first of many stage door pictures with Kevin McGuire - he ignored the fifteen minute call totally and completely during this pre-show meeting of ours, something which became a running joke for Liz and I in due course!

Not wanting to take scones into the theatre with us, we once more went around to stage door before the show. And in a strange twist of good luck, our two favourites were both already there! John was leaning out of a window, already in his Skimbleshanks get-up, whilst Kevin was standing outside side door, talking with some friends, with only his make-up done (the contrast between our two favourites was another long-term joke for us!)

At seeing John leaning out of the window, Liz had gone into meltdown, muttering 'Skimbleskimbleskimble!' under her breath, not really knowing what to do. The strange thing is, everywhere else we ever went, she was the bold, brave one and I was crazy-shy, but at stage door it was a total role reversal. So, I took matters into my own hands. John spotted us and called down 'Hello girls! Back again?!' and I replied 'We've got a present for you!', holding up the package of scones we'd made for him. 'Do you want me to come down?' he asked and we nodded enthusiastically and - in super-fast time - he made it downstairs to us to come and chat. He invited Liz just inside stage door, as he didn't want to stand out in the street in his cat get-up ('I feel like and idiot [turns to random passers-by] Yes, I am half-cat!'), so I took that chance to go over to Kevin and give him his share of the scones. His friends were all 'Aw, you have a fan!' and then he asked where we were sitting that night and once more promised to look out for us. Word must have spread after that because sure enough, during the show, we get a fair bit of fuss. John - as Skimbleshanks - ruffled my hair at the opening of Act Two and several of the others patted us on the head.

Going back to stage door that night we did nothing but gush and squeal and I have no idea what the cast must have made of us! Most of them remembered us from the other night we'd been, especially Dean, who I seem to remember teased us a fair bit for being back already, a tradition which continues to this day!

A hug goodbye from Carbucketty as the tour left Stoke.

And so, little did we realise it, but an adventure had begun. We had a lot to learn about the ins and outs of stage door, and about the tour; we picked up a lot of tips along the way and we definitely had a way to go before we got stage dooring down to the fine art I like to think I practice today! But we had no idea about that, or about cast changes or future shows. In fact, we thought we would only meet that cast one more time in a pre-planned trip to Sunderland. But it turned out we couldn't have been more wrong: we would soon be spending an awful lot more time at the Cats stage door, officially bitten by the theatre bug and in love with the world of the tour!

Sadly I remember so little of the actual show we saw that started it all. We didn't write everything down in the beginning - we didn't really realise how important it was going to become to us! I remember being completely awed by how much background action was going on, and just how good that cast were at it; I do remember that Carbucketty was playing with Coricopat's tail in Bustopher Jones whilst Skimbleshanks stroked Bill Bailey's head, for example. One thing that always impressed me about the 2006 cast's take on the show was just how good they were at the comedy. Dean Maynard as Munkustrap orchestrated the comedy of The Awful Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles perfectly every show and the rest of them played the chaos breaking out around his exasperation just right. It was madness; Skimbleshanks taking out the Pekes in a different way every show (threatening to hang them, shoot them, shoot them with arrows...and many more!), Admetus and Asparagus nearly knocking Munkustrap over as they came in late for their cue, Tugger getting bolder and bolder in his mocking of Munkustrap, Demeter trying to march with the Pollicles then making a grope for Munkustrap (Not kidding, that actually happened!) and then Peter Tyler's eccentrically incompetent Alonzo/Rumpus Cat playing off Dean's frustrated Munkustrap was pure comedy gold every time.

Stoke-on-Trent's lovely Regent Theatre.

The person we talked to the most on our first night at stage door was Dean Maynard. Yes, you will notice his name crops up a lot! Dean made an impression on us from night one - he was just so friendly and easy to talk to. And the best part? We knew he was Munkustrap because, unlike almost all of his fellow castmates, he was kind enough to have a headshot that actually looked like him. We talked to him for a long time and employed him to help us recognise other Jellicles in the crowd and get more autographs for our programmes. He was a firm favourite immediately, both on and off the stage. We couldn't stop talking about Dean, or about any of the people we'd met, as we walked away. The whole way back to my house and most of that night we went over and over everything and did a lot of cringing at some of the stupid things we did and said to them.

In the days that followed we talked about it more and more, wishing we had tickets to more shows and an excuse to go back to stage door. Liz got more and more into Cats itself and the two of us wrote stories and drew pictures of the show and generally drove everyone in our lives mad for the next few days until I finally persuaded my father - with the help of one of my uncles when he got slightly tipsy at a family BBQ - to take Liz and me back to two more shows. My dad and me go to the box office together - in the foyer of The Regent - when there's a show just started, and as the tickets are being booked, Bill Bailey rushes past with his light-up-eyes on, ready for the Overture. I took this as a good sign and then invited Liz to come round to my house to prepare for what was ahead. And this time when we went to stage door, we went before the show as well, and we came with gifts!

My drawing for Kevin McGuire of him as Carbucketty pretending to be a Pollicle dog.

We returned on the following night - the last night that the tour was in Stoke. Yet again, we came bearing gifts as we decided to put our Home Ec. lessons to use and had baked scones for Kevin and John McManus. It sounds ridiculous looking back, but we just had so much gratitude and admiration for these people and we wanted to show it in whatever way we could.

Our first ever stage door picture with Dean Maynard - the human embodiment of Munkustrap.

Trevor Schoonraad (Quaxo/Mistoffelees). I believe I accidentally drew on his bag with a pen. Liz found my mortification hilarious!

Peter Tyler was one of the only people we didn't see the first night, but we wanted a picture with him as he was such a fierce and fabulous Alonzo.

Because it was their last night in Stoke, a lot of them had reasons to be rushing off - wanting to get home, catch trains and buses and so on. But we still got the chance to talk to Dean, who I gave a picture to and he complimented me on the fact I'd drawn the shoulder-fluff on his costume. We also told him how Liz had screamed 'Woo, Skimble!' at the end of Skimbleshanks that night and he laughed and went 'Well, did he hear you?' Such a very Dean Maynard response that was!

Someone else who wasn't in a rush? You guessed it, Kevin McGuire. Always last out, never in a hurry. I gave him a little good luck bear and he hugged me and thanked me, signed a copy of the picture I'd drawn for him and then gave me one more hug goodbye before heading off into the night.