These recent times have been some of the hardest challenges we've faced and as a community, it hit us pretty hard. However during these difficult times, here at Pocket Size Theatre, we wanted to spread a little positivity and share some peoples experiences because we are all in this together. Each day we'll be speaking to our friends in the industry to share their experiences with you all so take a read and see how people are getting through these hard times.
Let's stick together, share the love and get through this as a community!
Kurt Kansley was most recently seen playing Coalhouse Walker Junior in Ragtime in Australia. His other credits include Che in Hal Prince's Evita, Ensemble in Jesus Christ Superstar, Show Boat, Hair, RENT (Australia); Harry the Horse in Guys and Dolls (Royal Exchange); Koos Malgas in Draadwerk (Tristan Bates Theatre); Bob Tucker and Envy in Exposure (St. James Theatre); That's Entertainment (UK Tour); Ensemble and cover John in Miss Saigon (Prince Edward Theatre); Jacky in Sweet Bird of Youth (Chichester Festival Theatre, The Old Vic); Ensemble and cover Coalhouse Walker Junior and J.P Morgan, Tom Snout and cover Demetrius and Theseus in A Midsummer Nights Dream (Regent's Park Open Air Theatre); Berger in Hair (European Tour); Munitsa and Kolodey in The Love-Girl and the Innocent (Southwark Playhouse); The 12 Tenors (Istanbul); Coalhouse Walker Junior in Ragtime (Landor); Chuck Berry, Richie Vallens and Fats Domino in Rock Around the Clock (UK Tour) and Ensemble and cover Simba and Banzai in The Lion King (Lyceum Theatre).
On Monday 16th March 2020, The Society of London Theatre announced the closure of all Theatres in London. This followed suit with regional venues. Where were you when you found out and what was your initial reaction?
I was at home already in lockdown when I found out. I was showing symptoms of the virus and made the decision to quarantine myself so that I would not expose anyone else. My immediate reaction was sadness, but not only for our theatre community, but also for every other industry that has been affected by this awful situation.
Can you tell us anything productive you’ve been doing?
The lockdown has been a valuable time to work on projects that I have been developing with my writing partner Oliver Lidert for the last few years. We have been writing original musical theatre for about 7 years, our partnership is called Kansley & Lidert. Last year at The Other Palace we showed a workshop performance of our original musical CONFESSIONS. In the lockdown, we had the opportunity to work online with our director/dramaturg on the script and music to make the best edits and additions so that the show will be ready once the lockdown is over to go into production. In late May we had a reading of the script and played the music with some incredible West End actors and our creative team over Zoom. It was so wonderful to feel creative with a group of likeminded people who want to keep the flame of creativity burning.
