As well as sampling of the script and songs, it’s hoped that attendees at the Taster will be able to make a traditional Pace Egg to take home, boil, and keep forever, assuming it doesn’t get cracked! The Taster runs from 14.30 until 16.30. Ideally, participants remain throughout. Anyone can then join the cast without audition and free of charge. Sunday afternoon rehearsals are at the same time every week until a performance on Sunday 19 March.
A few years ago, Music Theatre director Donald Judge was inspired by the chapter The Easter Egg in Alison Uttley’s The Country Child, set in England of the 1840s, to write a play with songs and music called Eggstravaganza! (see the photo above.) The heroine, Annie, had such a large part to act and sing that it was split between four young actors who passed a wooden badge saying A on a ribbon between them. Peg’s Egg revisits, in a different way, the same tale of a girl living on a remote farm who is desperate to show her Godmother’s Easter present – a very special and precious decorative egg – to her schoolfriends. Forbidden to take it to school, can she persuade anyone to make the two-mile trip up hill, down dale, and through some scary woods to see it?
In the 1840s, children had only just been freed from long days working in Bollington’s cotton mills and farms. Some might have preferred to stay like that instead of having to go to school until the age of ten, learning facts by rote, writing on slates or with a dip pen, chanting tables, doing “drill” instead of PE, getting caned for being late, or made to wear a dunce’s cap if they couldn’t recite the right answers. Worst of all, girls and boys had to sit on different sides of the classroom and play in separate playgrounds! Peg’s mother and father think school is a waste of time and money, but Peg is so determined to get an education and write novels, like the Brontë sisters, that she’s prepared to defy them. Full of local references and songs from English folklore, Peg’s Egg will do as all Music Theatre shows try to, to engage, entertain, enlighten, and even educate both performers and audiences.
The Tasters have always given all comers a chance to find out about the group and the show free of charge before committing themselves to what will result in a performance live on stage. Most who come along stay to do at least one show, and a lot have stayed for more, sometimes for years. Since Covid, everything at Music Theatre has been free of charge, but participants’ families have been very generous in making donations that cover expenses, while surpluses find their way into the Arts Centre’s coffers to help keep the Arts alive in Bollington.
Whatever happens, there will be a “performance” on stage on March 19 2023. Whether it’s a full public performance, a showcase for all comers, or a private affair for families and friends, will be decided according to the size of the group and its progress. But members are assured of costumes, action, the bright lights and the buzz of performing live on stage!
The images show Rosie as one of the Annies in Eggstravaganza! in 2016; Bollington’s Victorian children in Millennium Dreams in 2000 (all looking authentically straight-faced!) and some dyed eggs photographed in Latvia but very similar to English “Pace Eggs.”
Tasters, membership of, and any performances by, BFMT remain free of charge with donations gratefully accepted.
