Double Crossed- A Preview

by Eleanor Reid

This week I spoke to members of the production team from the new student written musical Double Crossed about some of the joys and challenges of working on an original student written piece. The musical follows legendary ex-inspector Langham and his moronic junior sidekick Detective Morse as they’re whisked out of their comfortable London homes and called to a case in a Welsh village. Matthew Torkington, the writer, and one of the many creative talents behind this musical told me the story of how it all began.

Matt: It’s come about through a long, long process. It’s difficult to describe as I’ve been reforming and recalculating every single part since the beginning. The inspiration came from the opening song - Pitch Black. When I’d written it and listened back to the song, I realised it had everything that I wanted to create. A catchy, easy tune…non stereotypical chord pattern, fast moving lyrics and an ‘arc’ to the song, something that I see even more explicitly since speaking with John Bucchino.

How did it feel writing a musical, which was a new experience for you, was it more nerve-wracking or freeing to finally get to this stage?

Matt: Honestly it doesn’t feel fully real! It all seems to be happening so fast…sometimes I have to stop for a minute and take note of what’s actually happening, but it is something that has been extremely freeing. Before this, I’d been writing songs for a while, but with no concrete promises of where I was going. It’s also so scary! Everyone in the show and everyone I’ve asked to be a part of Double Crossed is part of the process and is working so hard. I just hope people like it! I want people to see how much hard work it has taken from everyone to make the show possible.

How does it feel knowing that soon people will be get to see all of your hard work?

Matt: It’s incredible. I mean I can’t really describe it, but it’s amazing. I think I’m just very thankful at this stage.  I’m sure the nerves and stress will hit on the night, but it takes a lot of belief to get to this point to begin with. I’m so thankful that MusT believed in our show from the beginning and have given us such a fantastic venue.

Kailee Parsons and Isabel Alexander are the producers of this musical, an integral part of the process. As the ever-reliable organisational pillars, without them the musical wouldn’t run! Neither of them have produced a musical before so together we discussed how they’ve found navigating this new journey.

How have you found producing a musical in comparison to producing a play?

Isabel: Working alongside a musical director and band makes it so much more exciting, I think that’s a side of production that I’ve never really seen before since I’ve never been involved in a musical so that’s been really interesting to learn more about.

Kailee: I’ve produced many, many shows in St. Andrews but never a musical, let alone a student written musical, I think there’s a certain energy to musicals that makes it really fun and a lot more energising but it’s also a much bigger responsibility.

What made you want to get involved with this musical? It’s no secret that student written pieces are more of a risk than a well-known piece.

Isabel: I think the risk is what appeals because you can be a part of the process in building it. Because it’s a working process we need to have been involved in the entire process from the beginning, in fact Kailee was involved in writing the script too.

Kailee: The script has changed so much from when we first started but being there from the very beginning, when Matt first started writing, it’s been fun watching it come together.

What would you say is the biggest challenge that you’ve faced so far?

Matt: For me it’s been having to ‘formalise’ the music. I’m not the best musician theoretically speaking, so having to manually score all the music, every note and every part has been difficult, especially since my understanding is limited.

Isabel: It’s a large cast and that’s probably been our biggest challenge, obviously part of our role as producers is organising all of those people and you can’t rely on the fact that everyone will always be there because we’re students and I think that’s a common challenge student productions face.

Kailee: I was going to say that exact same thing. It’s just so many more people than I’m used to working with.

Isabel: And everyone has such busy lives.

Kailee: Exactly, because it is a musical everyone’s not just involved in another play where they need to learn a few lines or go to another rehearsal but acapella groups and bands on top of all of that.

While it is challenging, of course, what has been your favourite part so far?

Kailee: Hearing songs that I first watched Matt develop on his own using just his voice and garage band finally come to life on stage.

Isabel: And seeing how happy that makes him as well, just seeing how exciting it is for him is special.

Matt: My favourite part has been hearing other, better, singers work on my music! Having Katie, the lead female, sing her soprano solo song instead of me was unbelievable. It was exactly like I imagined but could never create by myself. Hearing people’s own interpretation of some of my music, too has been amazing.

Kailee: I think the cast are having a lot of fun shaping brand new characters and seeing something like that come to life for themselves is very special.  The cast have really made it their own.

Isabel: They really take on these characters and it’s very lovely to be a part of that.

What do you love most about bringing a student written musical to life?

Kailee: It’s a lot of fun

Isabel: I mean we were literally just dancing out of the room!

Kailee: It’s funny, the songs are just really catchy. It’ll definitely put you in a good mood when it’s such a light-hearted and feelgood show. Especially because student theatre tends to be quite dark at times which can also be really fun and I love that we’re able to do such dramatic things but I think that every once in a while, especially with how things have been over the past few years, to have something that is just plain silly and fun is lovely.

Isabel: Especially when the cast are enjoying themselves, you can really tell, it makes you enjoy it too.

Kailee: The past few years I feel like I’ve been involved in productions that are more dark comedies and the tragedies and there’s a lot of heaviness in that. But double crossed is just so much fun.

If you were to sum the musical up in only three words, which would they be?

Isabel: I really want to use a synonym for chaotic.

Kailee: It’s chaotic in a good way. Can you look up a synonym for fun chaos? (Sorry Kailee, there really isn’t a word for that. I tried!)

Kailee: …How about colorful?

Isabel: And feel-good.

Kailee: And fun!

Finally, what is next for Double Crossed? 

Matt: We’ve got big plans for Double Crossed after the Byre.

Isabel: There is quite a lot next actually, we’ve got the recording in a studio so Double Crossed will have a professional album!

Matt: A full cast recording. We can get all the singers into the studio and properly produce the songs from the musical. If all goes according to plan, these can then be distributed on Spotify for people to listen to them.

Kailee: There’s also some things we can’t talk about yet, but we will have that professional recording and also a condensed version of the show going to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this summer from the 8th to the 13th of August!

Isabel: To introduce it to a whole new group of people is so exciting.

Matt: I’m really excited, you never know who’s watching at the fringe!

Filled with fantastic songs, great humour, and a whole lot of heart, Double Crossed is not to be missed. Double Crossed will be at the byre on the 17th and 18th of March as part of the On the Rocks festival. You can get your tickets, and more information on byretheatre.com or by following this link.

ST.ART does not own the rights to any images used in this article. All photographs courtesy of Eleanor Reid.