The Adult Rising Stars of Rothwell

Miranda from Community First Yorkshire speaks to the Adult Rising Stars of Rothwell, a local group that contains a mixture of past am-dram society members and two groups that teach dancing and singing to young and older children. 
Miranda went to visit them late last year and they were practising for their upcoming show. This was an opportunity for all three groups to showcase what they had learnt since September.

Transcript

Adult Rising Stars of Rothwell transcript

[Group] Hi, we are the adult rising stars of Rothwell. 

As you can hear, I'm here with a lovely group of people in Rothwell who have been entertaining me this evening with their singing, dancing and acting. We have in the group…

Hi I'm Ian, hi I'm Sarah, hi I'm Becky, Hi I'm Reece, hello I'm Tracey, Hi I'm Emma, hi I'm Mark

We've got a lovely group of adults that have been treating us to ABBA this evening. I've come today Just have a little chat and to find out what this group is all about Tracy and Becky you two are the founders of this group, how long is it been running for now?

Since we started this in September yeah. Beginning of September yeah, that was the first week of our first term. And what have you been teaching these lovely people for the last 3 months
 Well, in the Beginning we didn't know who was going to come. We just thought we're here. We're available. Let's see who comes. So, because we like to tailor it to whoever comes, we like to tell their needs, we have to see first of all who was going to come what have we got and what do we want to do? What does everybody in a group want to do and then we took it from there. 

Ian, what have you been learning so far? 

Well, we started off doing some dance routines and we actually been doing some thriller Michael Jackson (Oh I'd have loved to have come and seen that!) Yep, more of my friends want to pay good money to see that happen. And yeah we've been doing some more dancing. We just concentrating on the singing and I'm ready for the Christmas Show. Excellent stuff, so as it stands at the moment you're doing a Christmas show in 3 weeks time? 

Who's involved in the show, not just you guys who else is involved in it? 

Well, We've got two classes that we run on the same night as the adult Rising stars, we start of the baby group (sorry I'll rephrase that, the beginners group) and that's Age 3 to 6. and what time does that run? they are 4pm-5pm. It's just an hour and parents stay with them because we always get "Miss can you do my shoelaces? Miss can I go to the loo?"

we've nearly 30 little ones running around we need parents to stay, so that's really cute and then we have half an hours break and then we come back at 5:30 till 7:30 with what we call our junior group that the C-Class and how many have we got in that one? 33. Wow, that's good. They're a little more advanced cause some of them have been with me from years before, but we also have a lot of new ones starting so we run that one and we're also working towards a Christmas show, but that one the parents drop them off and run! So that's for a couple of hours.  

Yep okay dokey, talking about people who have been here from year dot, we've got Reece. Reece, you are not on that stage singing and dancing for us, why are you here?  

No, but I am behind the scenes running music sound, lighting microphones stuff like that. excellent. you can't do anything without people being backstage 

Right Emma, I spoke to you very briefly before, well when we were stood outside in the cold! You’re gonna come and do the make up for this lot, who are you more excited about making up? 

I don't know. the boys? 

Gotta be the boys hasn't it? Yeah I can’t wait to see Ian. 

As well as performing, she's performing too. oh of course! 

But what I was trying to say is it’s not just about performing it’s about the other skills that people bring to the group that help with everything that make it so successful.

One thing I'm going to pull back on fairly briefly is that obviously some of us met 2 years ago.  Before covid! Yeah, will it be January 2020 So we talking nearly two years and obviously that was yourself Tracey, Becky and Ian the one thing that I've got from this out of anything is the friendship that has come together from the very start I just look across and I see that you're working together really well, but that's friendship is the thing that really hold it together and I think the fact that you're all working in such an amazing way and I can see the smiles and you know the enjoyment while you're up on that stage practicing and rehearsing and that to me is key.  next thing though; what's next come January?

oh well, we've just been chatting about that outside actually that's yet to be determined, but I think we need to we need to focus on what the next show will be and then kind of work towards that whether it be workshopping first yeah, and then putting it together and turning into show or we may decide to work on something completely random but decide 'do you know what we've got some good here.' Let’s use this for our next show’. it’s not just us that decide, it's not we decide as a team, we decide with the middle group and young group as well. we discuss their ideas and what they'd like to sing and perform and we've also got may day coming up as well. 

Well, there's the extra bank holiday coming this year, isn’t' there?  maybe there might be something happening in Rothwell for that? 

Cause we were working towards VE day weren't we? but that got scrapped.

The joys of COVID eh? Do you know what, I just want to say thank you for letting me some tonight, for letting me watch what you've been doing and yes for letting me interview you as well

Thank you for coming. Thank you. Bye bye. Love you bye! [laughter]