Behind the Curtain with Amy

In this episode, Natalie Joyce speaks with Amy Lillington, Team Leader and Brand Ambassador at RebuildCostASSESSMENT.com, about directing, choreographing and performing in the Piddle Valley Players’ production of Little Shop of Horrors. Amy shares how she balanced multiple roles, communicated her creative vision and relied on the support and ideas of those around her to bring the show to life. She also reflects on handling unexpected moments in live theatre and the lessons she has taken back into the workplace. Creativity, collaboration and the importance of giving people the confidence to contribute are at the core of this conversation.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

I'm Natika Joyce and I'm responsible for social responsibility and sustainability at Risk Top Group. Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of our People at the Heart podcast. We like to chat about all kinds of things, both serious and lighthearted, connected with our team and our work here at RiskStop Group. Today's episode is all about the business of show business and how creativity, leadership and teamwork come together in ways that might feel very familiar to our day-to-day work. I'm really pleased to be joined again by Amy Lillington, team leader and brand ambassador for RebuildCostAssessment.com, who is going to share her experience of directing, performing and choreographing an amateur dramatic production of Little Shop of Horrors, and what that taught her about leadership, decision making, and working as part of a team. Amy, it's great to have you back. Thank you for joining me and thank you for sharing your experience with us.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Pleasure to be here, as always.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Thank you. So let's go back to the beginning. What first got you into theatre and what do you enjoy about it most?

SPEAKER_01 1:10

So I began my journey in performing arts when I was around four years old. And I developed a lot of that love and appreciation for the arts through Stagecoach Dorchester, which is a performing arts school which I attended on a Saturday morning. And through Stagecoach, I fell in love with the idea of being able to tell stories of other people and to communicate to other people sort of thoughts and feelings that weren't necessarily my own. I am quite a shy character. I might not seem it, but I am quite a shy character. And I always found over the years I had a safe space to be able to experiment with being loud and being funny, being goofy, being creative in that sense and having the courage to be creative. And I think it definitely became a space where I fell in love with because of that, because a shy girl could be anything she wanted to be. And I loved, even though I was maybe too shy to share my own story, that I was very confident at sharing the stories of other people's and other people's work and what they have to say. So what I enjoy most about it is being able to create, create, just create, create anything. Dances, characters, songs, anything like that. I think to make something and to make something your own, I think is a beautiful thing to be able to do.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

You can feel your passion, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

So tell me a bit about your amateur dramatics group. So the amateur dramatics group that I'm part of is called the Piddle Valley Players. And we are a community group that works to putting on musical performances for our local community. We self-fund and fundraise everything that we do. Um, and wrist stop groups support us by helping with areas such as our advertisement to help us put on an amazing show. Brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

So I'm particularly interested in Little Tool Shop of Horrors. Firstly, why that production, and then why take on so many roles? So director, performer, choreographer.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

The reason I picked the show is actually there's a story behind it, so bear with me. I don't know if you ever like believe in like signs of from the universe or anything like that. I I rarely kind of believe in that kind of thing. But there was something that happened. Uh I was on holiday with uh my family, and we were at dinner, and during the dinner conversation, I had a message from our the head of our group saying our MD is going to contact you about ideas for the show. So in within five minutes, I received a message from from the RMD, and he said, you know, what are your thoughts for the show? And I listed a few and Little Shop of Horrors was one of those suggestions. And he responded saying, Little Shop of Horrors exclamation point, big after letters. He he was very much on board with that. And I said to him, I'd love to do it, but I don't really have a character uh for Audrey. So Audrey's the lead lead female on Little Shop of Horrors. And I said I was worried with sort of directing and choreographing that performing in it would be a little bit too much. And he said, Um, I think you'll be great at great at it, but just let us like I completely understand your decision. So anyway, I went back to the dinner table and I sat back down and midway through this conversation that they're having, and I'm trying to catch up. And my aunt looks is sort of having a conversation and she goes, Do you know what name I've always loved? Audrey. And about two seconds after she said that, I'm going, okay, little shop before us, we're gonna give that a go. Um, but I just started thinking, okay, let's go for it. And then from there we sort of apply for the license and and and it got approved, and then we we could sort of start actually pushing it forward. Um why take on multiple roles? Um, I always like a challenge. I performed in many productions and I've choreographed a lot of shows for Pudder Valley Players, which is the amateur dramatics group that I am involved in. And I wanted to give directing a go and doing a musical that I knew I knew well and I loved. It just set seemed like the right time to try something new.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

So you already have a very busy role within rebuildcostassessment.com, which is part of Rist Top Group. How do you balance that alongside all of those roles outside of work?

SPEAKER_01 5:47

A lot of organisation, a lot of support from the people who I was working with. Um, and it was just a lot of kind of trying to keep organized and allowing other people to take the reins a little bit and I would have my say on what I wanted to create, and our backstage manager would sort of create the prop and I could comment on it, and it was kind of basically delegation, I guess you could say. Um, but a lot of it I was very aware of how much it was taking on, particularly the performing part of it. So I actually the when once the license was approved and we got our rehearsal material, um, I actually started learning the lines for Audrey straight away and within four weeks was completely off book, so I didn't need a script. So I was like, okay, the lines are done. Now I've literally just got to focus on choreographing and directing the show. So that kind of level of organisation just took quite a big weight off because I didn't want to be learning lines throughout directing the whole thing. Um but yeah, and then relying on sort of some very key people within the group to help with sort of prop designs and allowing me to talk through things I wasn't sure on, or because I was a first-time director, I'd never done this before. Um, so I was very much reliant on people around me and kind of having them help and support me was such an important part of the process. So yeah, team effort, I think. 100%.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

You've spoken about the kind of difference between the roles that you took on, but how do you shift your mindset between leading the production and then actually performing?

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Difficultly, I think is probably the first word I'd say, because you need to try and find that balance between making sure you know what you're doing as a performer because you are gonna have to perform it, you know, one day, and then making sure everyone else knows what they're doing. Um, but I was very grateful that people if there was something where they felt it was better for me to step out of my audio role into sort of the director's chair, um, there's one particular part where everyone was coming on from different angles and were trying to almost choreograph it. And um one of the um cast members was just came up to me and said, I think you just need to watch it and just and I was really grateful for that kind of support because it reminded me, oh yeah, I I do need to make sure it was all running smoothly. Um but there were times where I would have like focus sessions or focus time where I would sit and direct someone like quite say intensely, but sort of on a one-on-one basis and kind of make sure the scenes all slot together and the choreography all works.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

It's interesting because you're clearly incredibly creative. So how do you communicate your creative vision so everyone else buys into it?

SPEAKER_01 8:42

Communicate early. Um we were fortunate enough to be able to rehearse on the stage that we worked on, so that was a real benefit of being able to make sure people know where like set and props are. But there were times where I would have uh hand-drawn sketches of what I wanted something to look like. When we did the show, um my dad helped me design the largest puppet, which is Audrey II, um, who's was massive in ours. She was like a six-foot like puppet. And again, to to kind of come up with that, we did sort of research and sketches, and we kind of came up with this idea. And a lot of it was just making sure, like sharing with people processes of like this is how far we along with the prop design, or this is what it will be. We would have duct tape on the floor or masking tape on the floor so people knew where props were gonna be, where they should or shouldn't stand, what lines they can or can't cross. Um so we just communicated really early on kind of what we wanted.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

So I'm gonna make an assumption. So I'm assuming there's gonna be different opinions and there's gonna be deadlines that you're gonna have to work to. So what would you do in situations like that?

SPEAKER_01 10:00

I you've never made decisions faster when the show is like 10 days away and people just need answers. So the deadline always helps with that because regardless of what happens, the show's going. Um, but I think a lot of it is, especially in the earlier stages, not rushing a decision because you do have to make sure it fits in in a variety of scenarios, and the cast were amazing, they were very like respectful of the decisions that I was making, and they um were very also very good at suggesting their ideas, which a lot of them we we took forward. So it was all really um collaborative.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

I'd really like to do an element of just like peeking beyond the curtain. So theatre is obviously live, and I'm guessing anything can happen. How do you prepare for the unexpected? What do you do as yourself or what do you do collectively?

SPEAKER_01 10:56

You're right, anything can happen, but I think that's one of the beautiful things about live theatre, it is anything can happen. You know, I've seen professional STEM productions where lines have been missed or delays have happened, and it's one of those things I think it comes with the nature of being a live theatre production. How do you prepare for it? For me, it's making sure I know where I'm gonna be and I know where I need to be. In a theatre setting, it would be making sure I know where all my props are, so I know I know where I need to go or when I need to change. There was a really funny moment on one of the show nights where we did like cast photos and before the show and we were backstage, and as the opening song was playing, um, Audrey, her character, has a black eye. And about 30 seconds before I went on, I realised I didn't put my black eye on. So I was stood backstage with like black eye shadow, trying to give myself a black eye of 30 seconds for I had to sort of run on. But it's those kind of things of like, if I went on without a black eye, no one probably would have noticed or they might have noticed, but just carried on. And I think that's quite an important thing when you don't really know what's going to happen, props can fall, or um someone could drop something. And it's just a kind of case of if that if it does happen, take a breather and then sort of carry on. Um, but it was something that I used to kind of worry a lot about of oh, what if that person doesn't say their line? I'm going, I can't control that. Like I just have to make sure I know what I'm doing and kind of go forward from there.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

So that's interesting from like a preparation perspective. So what happens when something actually goes wrong and what do you do to recover?

SPEAKER_01 12:37

When something goes wrong, um, for me personally, it is a case of just leaving it on the stage and trying to make the next part as brilliant as you possibly can. It's really easy to get spooked in front of a live audience when something goes wrong or you miss your lines, but the show carries on, so you've just got to keep, got to keep going. And it's just a kind of a case of we're all there to support each other. We're all like, it's okay, it doesn't matter, like no one notice, I'm sure it's fine. But it's live theatre, we're all human, you know, anything can happen, and it's just kind of having to just keep going with it and being supportive when it does happen, because we all know it's all happened to us once or twice before. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

So thinking about work now, Amy, how is theatre production similar to a workplace team? And what are some of the biggest lessons you'll carry back into your role at Rist Stop Group?

SPEAKER_01 13:30

I think with any team, we're always working towards a common goal, whether that's a show or in rebuild costessment.com, completing a report for a client. Both of those environments have an element of teamwork, collaboration. All pieces of the puzzle must fit at the exact same time so that everything can happen as it's supposed to. There's no point doing a show and the props department, you know, having we're missing five props. Equally, there's no point doing a report and missing an element of the research. So it's all kind of this teamworking, this collaboration environment. The biggest lesson that I'll probably carry back into wrist stop would be allowing other people the chance to be creative themselves. One thing I'm a very big advocate for is involving other people in sort of projects and creative discussions because I think everyone has a really amazing ideas and thoughts and feelings. And I think definitely when you work with a group of very creative people who are the amazing cast I was able to work with, everyone has amazing ideas and thoughts of how they think something should be done. And it was never something I wanted to like squash or like get rid of because it was great to hear what they thought. Um, one of the biggest ones we had was in one of the death scenes for one of the characters, we completely changed it from what I originally had planned to what someone else just had because I went, actually that's a lot better than what I thought. And I think a re it's really good to allow other people in any kind of environment to come forward and to have their moment to be creative and what ideas do they have that might work best than what we've currently got. So I think what I'll be taking forward is creating more of a culture where people can come forward, can express their thoughts and ideas, um, and taking them on board and creating an environment where people feel comfortable to do that.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

I love that and I completely agree. Amy, thank you so much. It's really fascinating to see how something like theatre can offer such powerful lessons in leadership and teamwork. So thank you for your time today. I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. You can also listen back to Amy's People at the Heart podcast episode titled What Theatre Taught Amy about leadership at risktopgroup.co.uk. Want to see more of what we're doing around social responsibility? Head to risktopgroup.co.uk or follow us on our socials. And that's all for this episode of our People at the Heart podcast. Thank you everyone for listening in. I, along with one or two other presenters, would fax doom with all kinds of things to talk about with different guests. So keep your eyes peeled for more episode announcements. And remember, here at RiskTop Group, it's all about keeping people safe and secure and believing in social responsibility and sustainability. Until the next time, everyone, goodbye for now.