Hello mummy,
I've to apologize my just made one single update this week. But due to the rain and Ulli and Andrea (the storms) we weren't able to do anything.
Nevertheless, we've been at Starlight Express today. Okay, just at the stage door but even this was amazing. Do you know what Starlight Express is? If not, my host also writes the story of it now:
Starlight Express (short StEx) is a musical by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber in which a boy dreams of the world championship of the trains. There’s a young steam train, called Rusty, whose girlfriend Pearl, the observationcar is. But there’s also a Dieselengine, whose girlfriend Dinah the dinning car is. The Diesel engine is called Greaseball. He is said to be the favourite as he is the “fastest thing you’ve ever seen.” Suddenly there’s a new engine – Electra, an electrician engine and right before the first race Pearl decides to leave Rusty for Electra. So Rusty doesn’t want to race anymore. The first race starts (together with Greaseball, Electra and two international engines) and Greaseball and Electra win. Greaseball uncouples Dinah. In the meantime Poppa, an old steam train, finds Rusty and sees that he is not that confident anymore and that he does not want to race without Pearl. So Poppa takes his place and wins the second race. But due to the fact that he is old, he doesn’t have the power to take part in the final race: So he begs Rusty to take his place and after a small argue he does. So he asks for the Starlight Express, a God-like train. Back to Dinah: After Greaseball uncoupled her, she talks to her friends (Ashley the smoking car and Buffy the buffetcar) and in the end she decides herself to race with Electra because Pearl is racing with Greaseball now. The third race takes place and Rusty is cheated. So he lost his tracks and the race has to be repeated. The audiences sees and know that it wasn’t his fault, because Greaseball and Caboose did it. That’s what even Pearl gets to know but she can’t leave Greaseball as she also took place in this race and is guilty as well. During the fourth race, Pearl gets injured and Greaseball uncouples her. But before this race takes place Rusty finally meets the Starlight Express and now he has the power to win the race. The race takes place and surprise: Rusty really wins! Pearl just recognizes that she has been in love with Rusty all the time and returns to him.
That’s it and to be honest: I really shorted the story as I think, you have to watch it all by your own. I also didn’t mentioned all characters that occur in the musical.
Anyway, we arrived at the theatre. Maybe I should tell you something about the theatre first? Well, I do: The theatre was built for around 24,000,000 Deutsche Mark (= 12,000,000 Euro) in the time from December 1986 to January 1988. The entire stage equipment was installed in just four months. For that the first Guinnes Book records were for the fastest construction of a theatre (13 months) and for the first theatre built for a show. In May 2002 the stage was remodeled. The technical highlight is the 9-ton bridge, which hovers above the stage. So here I was. Standing in front of the theatre, unable to go inside to have a look onto the stage (but in May, I will and I will show you the stage then). But I didn't know that there's also a steam train standing with a carriage (having all the characters painted on it) in front of the theatre. That really fits to that musical. So I took pictures with it as well.
So we went to the stage door, where we wanted to wait for some actors. The actors are coming from all around the world. We have some from New Zealand, USA, UK, Austria (and also had some from Australia, Japan, Philippines, ....). Okay acutally there are two or three German as well. But that is not that common to that theatre and I wondered if they understand what they are singing as Starlight Express is in German. But I guess I will never know.
First of all we met Marcel Brauneis, who plays Rusty the young steamtrain. He's from Vienna, Austria, but also trained in Los Angeles. He's also one of the finalists of the German castingshow "Musical Showstar 2008." In 2009 he was on stage as Flat Top, the brick truck. A year later as Caboose and since June 2011 as Rusty.
We also met Jos Hoetjes and Edd Hall. Both are Swings here. This means, they cover lots of parts here, if someone is injured or sick or on holiday. Most male Swings cover around 10 - 15 parts.
Jos is by the way from Christ Church, New Zealand. He already played Ruhrgold, the German Intercontinental Express (ICE) in the Tour-production of Starlight Express in New Zealand. One year later he moved to German, for being Ruhrgold for a year. Since June 2011 he's a swing.
Edd is from Essex, England. He also toured through Canada, Mexico, India and the Netherlands with another musical. After doing some musicals he decided to go to Starlight Express. Since 2009 he's over here as a Swing.
That's it for today.
Love and miss you, mummy.
Hami
