10 Years Young!

The New Season

It’s the start of a new WEK season! And of course this isn’t just any season, it’s WEK’s 10year anniversary! This season is set to be a very exciting, with more fantastic performances lined up for the WEKs as well as the big 10 Year Anniversary show at the Leatherhead Theatre this December! More info will be revealed on WEK’s official birthday, September 15th, but expect big medleys, alumni performances and return of some of the most memorable numbers from WEKs last 10 years….

A current WEK who has certainly seen it all is Holly-Anne Hull, who has been a WEK now for 6 years! I interviewed Holly and got the low-down of her time at WEK and what she thinks about the 10 year anniversary…

Interview with Holly-Anne Hull

Me: “It’s WEK’s 10 year anniversary and I think it’s safe to say you been through a lot of those years! Are you looking forward to re-living some of those memories this term?”

Holly: “Yeah! It’s so exciting! I didn’t realise how long I’d actually been in WEK until our first rehearsal this term when I was putting my hand up for being the only one left from the high school musical medley at west end live! But it all brings back loads of great memories, and I can’t wait to see all the old wekkies again!!”

Me: “That’s great! Over the years you must have experienced loads of different companies of WEKs! What’s it like seeing people come and go?”

Holly: “It’s really weird! You never know who’s ready to take on the crazy rehearsals! It’s sad to see people go because everyone in the company is all so close; it’s like loosing a family member! But there are always new people each term! Overall, I’ve met some really talented people and I’m just waiting to see them up on the west end stage!”

Me: “So in your opinion, how has WEK changed over the years?”

Holly: “Oh tough one! There’s a lot more variety now, if that makes any sense, we take on many more challenges both vocally and in choreography; there’s definitely no limits haha! When I joined WEK at age 11 I never thought I’d be performing a Riverdance! WEK has become so successful over the past few years! I see a massive future for West End Kids!”

Me: “How has WEK helped you grow and develop as a performer?”

Holly: “When I first joined WEK I didn’t have the vocal ability or stamina I do now at all! I’ve become so much more confident as a performer and just in general! WEK has helped me realise that this is what I want to do for a career and a lot of the achievements I’ve made have been down to the training I’ve received from Martin and Emma. Although it’s been a challenge over the years it’s all been worth it!”

Me: “That’s fab! So finally,  what’s been your favourite WEK moment(s) to date?”

Holly: “There’s sooooo many!! Obviously all the performances! But also the small things like laughing with everyone in rehearsals (when you ripped your trousers) and hearing everyone’s solos for the first time! But my favourite has got to be the rehearsal when learning ‘Choo Choo Cha Boogie’ with Charlotte Payne; it was the funniest day of my life! Hahaha”

Me: “Thanks Holly!”

Back to rehearsals!

Yes, this week the WEKs were back into the full swing of jam packed, intense rehearsals after a long summer holiday, but I think it’s safe to say that we all missed rehearsing and seeing each other! The first week back certainly woke us all up from a long rest though! We were straight into learning both the choreography and vocals for 3 huge WEK medleys that will all be revealed in the up and coming weeks! Let’s just say they are monster medleys!!!

After a successful set of WEK auditions earlier in the month, 5 people successfully gained trials to be in the West End Kids company. Many others gained places in the WEK:Training companies, including the new Training Purple company. Following these auditions, were the auditions for the new WEK:YMT company, WEK’s exciting new musical theatre company! The cast list can be found on the official WEK:YMT website; check out the WEK Facebook for more details. Congratulations to all who gained places in WEK companies this season!!

Be sure to watch this Blog space each week for more exciting news about what’s going on in this 10 Year Anniversary season!

Joe The Bass :)

Starlight & Canary Wharf shows

It has undoubtedly been a vey busy few weeks for West End Kids! With more fantastic performances, and jam-packed rehearsals, there has certainly been no time for rest at WEK!!!

Starlight Wishing Party

Last Tuesday, WEK were in central London to give a special guest performance at the Starlight Wishing Party, a special day for children who are long term or frequent ongoing patients in local hospitals and hospices. WEK were watched by hundreds of children and there families at this spectacular event.

There was so much going on at the venue! From bouncy castles, to costume characters, castles, a dance floor, animals, balloons and not to mention free Starbucks! It was truly a magical event! WEK first performed the Diva Medley featuring some of the well-known hits by Lady Gaga, Britney Spears and Beyonce. This was then followed by a solo from Holly-Anne Hull, and then finishing with WEK’s Mary Poppins Medley form this term. On the same day the winner of BBC’s ‘Over the Rainbow’, Danielle Hope also performed! The WEKs also enjoyed having photos taken with some of the children after the performance. The feedback of the performance and the day as a whole was very positive from both the audience and the WEKs themselves! :)

The Magic of Musicals - Canary Wharf

On Monday 10th July, WEK were joined by WEK: Choir, performing at the Magic of Musicals event at Canada Square in Canary Wharf along with the West End shows: Chicago, Priscilla, Rat Pack and Mamma Mia. This was an open-air concert style event, similar to West End Live. WEK performed last season’s ‘Take Me to Heaven’ from Sister Act along with WEK: Choir, and then the West End Live Medley. WEK opened the show in style to once again, another great audience. Afterwards, some of the WEKs stayed to watch the rest of the performances, so all-in-all it was a nice evening out! WEK will be returning to Canada Square to appear at the Magic of Musicals again on August 1st, so don’t miss out!!

”All the performances that coming up are just so exciting, I really can’t wait for all of them! It will just be amazing! We did West End Live a couple of weeks ago and the crowd were awesome! It was such a great experience once again, as are all the other performances! We are all so lucky to be in West End Kids, as we have so many amazing opportunities that I’m sure everyone would love to do! I can’t believe at my age I am actually doing these performances! I’m sure hardly anyone at our age gets these opportunities so we are all very happy haha! Since I joined WEK I have made so many amazing friends and met some really talented people. I am so grateful to be in WEK! I love WEK so much and everyone in it!!”

– (Annie Service)

The Final Few Rehearsals before Saturday Night Live!

With only a couple more weeks until the show, the rehearsing has never been so jam-packed! Final bits of polishing are being done on the dance numbers as well as staging for the non-dance numbers/medleys. The WEKs have now started to do full runs of all the numbers in the show in order, including solo numbers and props, which is all very exciting! Amongst all of this, WEK have also been preparing to make a special appearance in the WEK: Training review this Saturday. WEK will be performing the West End Live Medley and ‘That’s How You Jazz’, as well as a few special WEK soloist appearances with the training companies. The WEK: Choir will also be making a special appearance to perform a number there too.

With more exciting performances coming up for WEK, keep watching this space for more news on these, as well as more video blogs of backstage!

Joe :)

This week at WEK

This week was the final rehearsal before WEK takes to the stage at West End Live this year! We added a few finishing touches to our ‘West End Live Medley’ consisting of snippets from Mame, Hello Dolly, Jelly’s Last Jam, Ragtime, The Boyfriend, Rent, Mary Poppins, Addams Family, Miss Saigon, Take Flight and Children of Eden as it’s only a few days until we perform in front of thousands at Trafalgar Square on Saturday-no biggy! We did several dress runs of the medley on Sunday in preparation with the full works; that means performance wear, including hair and make-up (apart from the boys of course)! This has definitely been the most rehearsed and polished medley that I have ever performed with WEK and I’m sure the same goes for many of the other WEKs too! But I am 100% certain that all of the hard work will be worth it when WEK gives a smashing performance on Saturday. This is definitely one not to miss so be sure to come and support WEK and West End Live this Saturday at 3.25pm at London’s Trafalgar Square, and remember, it’s free!!! It’s so exciting but as you can imagine quite nerve racking for us. The fact that there are going to be so many people there is quite mind-blowing; their heads will look like dots from the stage!

As well as this, on Sunday WEK began to revise previous material from 2010 and 2009. We re-learnt parts of the We Will Rock You Medley (dance and vocals) from 2010 ready to perform as part of the Westminster Palace line-up, and also revised the vocal for WEK’s iTunes single of Ain’t No Mountain High Enough from 2009 in preparation for another exciting new performance…

WEK Workshop

On Saturday morning before WEL, all three WEK: Training Companies will join together to take part in workshops run by the West End Kids themselves. I am very much looking forward to this as the WEKs will be getting involved and leading sessions in teams to give the WEK: Training members a taster of the exciting material we are learning this season. The WEKs will be performing for the training companies and vice versa on the day. There will also be a question and answer session where the training companies will have the chance to pose and questions to the WEKs that they may have. The WEK: Training companies will have the opportunity to ask the WEK company members about how rehearsals are and the demands required to be promoted and anything else they would like to know. This will be a good experience and beneficial for both WEK and WEK: Training as this has never been done before! It is set to be fun and rewarding morning!

(MORE) NEW PERFORMANCES!!!

I honestly thought I’d only write this section of the Blog once or twice, but it seems that every week there are new, exciting performances appearing for West End Kids this season!!!

The West End Kids will be appearing at a huge concert in London on Weds July 27th celebrating “One Year To Go” before the London 2012 Olympic Games. The event will include popstars, athletes and other personalities and the world’s media will be out in force.  WEK will be performing Ain’t No Mountain as mentioned earlier, as well as the West End Live Medley. This is an INCREDIBLE new performance and we are all very excited about it!!! :D

The West End Kids will be making a guest appearance for the Starlight Children’s charity who grant seriously and terminally ill children wishes and entertain over half a million children in hospitals every year. The WEKs will be performing the Finale of their Wishing Party in London on July 5th. WEK will re-introduce our Diva medley (one of my personal favourites!) along with the Mary Poppins Medley and Holly-Anne Hull will perform a solo number as winner of Disney’s ‘My Camp Rock’ competition in 2009. WEK will also be performing at the Ford’s centenary celebration with the material from this term.

These performances are really great achievements and are very well deserved. It is all down to WEK’s hard working nature and co-operation as a very close company. The WEK family are very excited for these upcoming events and encourage you to come support us, so come along to Trafalgar Square to watch us this Saturday where we will be on stage at 3.25pm!

Remember to keep watching this space for more WEK news next week. I’ll also be bringing you the lowdown of what goes on backstage before the West End Live performance!!!

Joe Thompson-Oubari and guest blogger, Selina Jessey :)

Half-term rehearsals

When you think of half term, you may think of relaxing, going away, taking a break etc…. but not at WEK! In fact, it’s been the complete opposite for the Wekkies this week, with 4 full-length rehearsals already this week, totalling 34 hours worth of rehearsals!!! They have been a busy, jam-packed 4 days for WEK in preparation for the many exciting performances coming up soon.

DAY 1 – SUNDAY: The rehearsal began on Sunday with working on material for Saturday Night Live with WEK coming up in July. This was mainly danced based, polishing little details in some of the numbers this season including ‘That’s How You Jazz’, ‘Won’t You Charleston with Me’ and ‘Our Favourite Son’. During our lunch break, soloist auditions for the rest of this season’s material began. Everyone gave it their all and with a lot of challenging solos up for grabs this season, we will all be eagerly awaiting the results of the auditions this week! The second half of Sunday’s rehearsal was taken up by vocal rehearsing and polishing then dance for West End Live Medley.

DAY 2 – MONDAY: Like Sunday, the rehearsal on Monday began with more dance polishing. Including the numbers: ‘Boogie Nights’, ‘Won’t You Charleston with Me’, ‘Mary Poppins Medley’ and ‘Jerry Herman Medley’. With all of that covered, during lunch practise was made with all the soloists in the West End Live medley. And after lunch… take a guess? Yep, even more rehearsal on the West End Live medley!!! Emma gave us all individual, detailed dance notes for us after watching a video recording of us performing the medley at the end of Sunday’s rehearsal about 100 times!!! These were a great help to us and allowed us to correct any individual mistakes in the medley in order to get the dancing as tight and polished as it can be! :) 

DAY 3 – WEDNESDAY: The majority of Wednesday’s rehearsal was taken up by the vocals. This meant rehearsing nearly every song this season vocally, perfecting the harmony, style and getting the story across. After lunch, some more West End Live rehearsal and a little more work on ‘Our Favourite Son’ too. 

DAY 4 – SUNDAY: The final of the 4 days was finally here and I’m sure all the other WEKs will agree with me when I say it had been a proper tiring week! But luckily for us, a large chunk of the day was dedicated to vocal recordings. Time to get the wireless headphones out! Afterwards the WEKs worked hard on two dance routines, the first being the revival of last season’s ‘Take Me to Heaven’ from Sister Act ready for performances at Westminster Palace and Canary Wharf. The second dance we rehearsed was ‘Riverdance’.  With Irish Dancing not being many of the WEK’s ‘specialities’, it will take hard work to master the techniques required, but by the looks of things, this number is starting to take shape nicely and I’m sure that by July, it will be one dance not to be missed! 

Phew! So obviously, this hasn’t been an easy week for WEK, but with all the hard work put into rehearsing this week, the WEKs were kindly rewarded with Krispy Kreme donuts from Martin and Emma! We also had an after rehearsal meal at TGI Fridays! Yum :D

This Season’s Material

Find out more about the material WEK has been rehearsing this season…

‘Shakalaka Baby’ – From the musical ‘Bombay Dreams’, this song features some classic Bollywood style choreography. A new style of dance for WEK, but one that I know has been popular with the WEKs! The song also features a female soloist.

‘Mary Poppins Medley’ – This number doesn’t need much explaining! We all love a bit of Mary Poppins! The medley includes the numbers ‘Chim Chiminey’, ‘Step in Time’, ‘Reach for the Stars’ and ‘Anything Can Happen’.

‘Songs for a New World Medley’ – One of my favourite medleys this term! Songs for a New World is an abstract musical featuring a series of songs all connected by theme rather than narrative. The WEK medley features the songs ‘New World’, ‘River Don’t Flow’ and ‘Hear My Song’. This is a vocal medley with some tough harmonies in there (especially for Haydn on the HIGH Tenor part) that sound very impressive!! I would definitely say check out cast recording of the show on Spotify because there are some awesome songs in there!! :D

“Well! After being at WEK for nearly 6 years, I must say this has been the most challenging season of both music and dance yet! My personal fave is ‘Boogie Nights’, consisting of all the classic old tunes like ‘Blame it on the boogie’ and ‘Love Train’ where I am certainly wiggling my knees with Vicky!

Then there’s the WEL Medley with tap and ballet which definitely aren’t my strongest points, but there is always someone there to help me with my cramp rolls!

WEK is like my huge family of crazy talented performers! We all help each other to the best of our abilities and have such fun in rehearsals! I can’t wait to get on the big stage with the WEK family!” – The Other Hull (Holly Hull) 

Performance Update!

It has now been confirmed that the numbers that WEK will be performing at the open-air concerts London’s Canary Wharf will be the West End Live Medley and the return of ‘Take Me to Heaven’ from the Musical Sister Act! It will definitely be one performance not to miss… (Especially because we are performing on TWO different dates!!) 

It has now also been confirmed that WEK will be performing a 20 minute slot at Westminster Palace! WEK will be performing ‘Our Favourite Son’, ‘Take me to Heaven’, The West End Live Medley and one other number yet to be confirmed…

10 Days to go!!!! :O

There’s only 10 days to go until WEK takes to the stage at Trafalgar Square’s West End Live and I know all the wekkies are very EXCITED!! WEK will be performing at 3.25pm on Saturday 18th June. Entry is free and the event will be attended by thousands of theatre fans from the whole of the UK. Come along down and support the WEK!

That’s all folks! Keep watching this space for more photo, news and video updates from WEK!!

Joe

Rehearsal Progress:

Well, we have just finished day 3 of the half term rehearsals, and I have to say both Emma and I are delighted with the progress to date. We are heavily immersed in the detail of numbers to be performed at West End Live, Canary Wharf and Westminster Palace in the next few weeks, and everybody is pulling out all the stops to ensure that they are WEKs best performances to date. 

It’s easy to get a little carried away when you are in the midst of rehearsals, but on a cold, hard and objective look, it’s easy to say that – as a group, this is the most talented group of young performers we have ever managed to assemble within West End Kids, both vocally and in terms of dance. 

Sometimes it’s worth pointing out that West End Kids are required to both sing and dance exceptionally well. This is in contrasted to other groups or companies who have a set of “dancers” and a set of “singers” on the mics. That’s why it’s such an impressive achievement for this Company to be able to achieve such a high standard of both song and dance. 

Also particularly pleasing for Emma and myself is the wonderful spirit within the Company at the moment. This makes for a much more pleasant rehearsal environment, leads to better results and means that everybody enjoys what they are doing that little bit more. The size of the WEK Company has decreased a little (to around 15) over the last few months as we made a conscious effort to require a higher standard of those auditioning to become WEKs. The positive effect of this is that everybody is much closer and really feels like a close-knit team. Both Emma and I are really enjoying working with this Company. 

We are all itching to get the material on stage, and it won’t be long now. Please make sure you come along to support WEK at West End Live – we’ll let you know what day/time you can see us as soon as possible!

Martin Williams
(Artistic Director)

Some of the WEKs with Martin & Emma having a nom at TGI’s after day 3 of half-term rehearsals in preparation for performances at West End Live, Canary Wharf and Westminster Palace in June & July. 

Lunchtime at rehearsals and the WEKs are about to munch on the only true WEK currency - Krispy Kremes; a treat from Martin & Emma for working so hard over the last few days.