“Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome!”

Nihan as Little Dead Riding Hood in Thespians Anonymous Halloween Party 2011

There are two types of people in the world: (1) The ones who love musicals, (2) the ones who mock those of the first type and the musicals they love.

Mock all you like, it does not change the fact that musicals are probably the best entertainment value you would get for your money (despite the notoriously high ticket prices, especially of the big productions originating from Broadway/West End), since they bring together several forms of stage art like theater, music, dance, occasionally acrobatics, puppetry, juggling, even roller skating. Because of this rather complex nature of it, an awful lot of effort goes into the production of a musical and this means there are a million things that need to be thought of, planned and run in a meticulously coordinated fashion until the very final curtain call.

Luckily (or unluckily, depending on the perspective) we had the chance to learn about these “million things” the hard way: In early spring 2011 Thespians Anonymous staged its first musical “Love, Lust, Loss, Life”, a musical revue written by none other than our own Thespians and including songs from a variety of musical shows. We loved doing it, our audience appeared to have shared the sentiment, so we knew we wanted more. But this time we were going to do this properly, planning ahead. Hence came to life TA’s musical production group.

In order to select a play, we the musical nerds locked ourselves in our rooms (well, figuratively), listening to many musicals about anything and everything: love, family, murder, revolutions, teenage love, spies, monsters, aliens and other magical creatures, fairy tales, star-crossed love, twisted relationships, betrayal, friendship, love triangles, and urine (yes, you read correctly). Did I mention love?

And so we made lists of musicals, discussed, voted, went back to our rooms, listened some more, shortlisted, watched a little, made feasibility calculations, called others to read/watch/listen with us, asked their opinions, and finally voted a few more times. But at last we picked a play!

Our musical production group is now working on making the practical arrangements and will keep on doing so until autumn, when we hope to finally start rehearsing. Keep your eyes in this direction, because Love, in its funniest and most inconvenient ways, is going to come on stage in Helsinki in Spring 2013. You’ll want to be there when it does.

Nihan Tanişer made the fortunate mistake of joining the backstage crew of a musical company while looking for stuff to do during her freshman year in the university in Turkey. Since then simply being around stages is energy drink for her soul. Her love for musicals also led to a great fondness for Bollywood movies during her years in India. She is very excited to sit on the director’s chair for the next musical production of Thespians Anonymous.

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