The Corona Diaries: Rebecca McKinnis

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! 

Rebecca McKinnis is part of the original London company of Dear Evan Hansen playing Heidi Hansen. Her other credits include Margaret New in Everybody's Talking About Jamie (Apollo Theatre); Christina in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Playhouse Theatre); Tina Ruston in A Small Family Business (National Theatre); Cover Lauren in Viva Forever! (Piccadilly Theatre); Les Miserables (25th Anniversary Tour); Teacher and Cover Killer Queen in We Will Rock You (Dominion Theatre); Cover Jeanie in Fatpig (Trafalgar Studios); Swing and cover Donna & Tanya in Mamma Mia (Prince of Wales Theatre); Cover Kim and Big Sue in Taboo (UK Tour) and Starting Here Starting Now (Upstairs at the Gatehouse). 

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? 

We got to work as usual and went to warm up. I remember we'd just found out that Broadway had closed the night before so we figured it might be coming. Our producers came on stage and gave us the news we were to go home, it was unbelievably shocking really. We all scrambled to get what we needed from our dressing rooms and said our goodbyes. Very sad.

Can you tell us anything productive you’ve been doing? 

Lots of singing to keep my voice intact, I've learned the ukelele and can play quite a few songs on it now (ones with easy chords that is) and I've been doing workouts every morning, tennis lessons, a lot of reading and, of course, home-schooling my daughter so I guess you could say my teaching skills have improved!