Meet Lily!

Hey! My name is Lily, I am the creator of Stage Life and welcome to my performer profile!

As cheesy and cliché as it sounds, musical theatre is a big part of my life. From training, to performing, to just enjoying musical theatre, I love every aspect of it. I am a loud and proud 'am-dram' performer and I have had my fair share of experiences in the musical theatre world. The reason I've written my performer profile is to give anyone who comes onto Stage Life an insight into who I am, my performance background and so you can all understand the reasons as to why I have created Stage Life.

So... here we go...

I started dance lessons aged 3 - my mum took me to a local dance school as I think it was also partly her dream for me to one day become a 'big west end star'. She herself loved to dance when she was little and even wanted to go to ballet school but was just too expensive. I had lessons in ballet, tap and jazz (tap was definitely my favourite, ballet on the other hand....) and I always looked forward to going. I made my first debut on stage only age 5 - my dance school staged a performance of the Nutcracker where I got to dance the part of a doll. I still remember getting so excited about wearing my cute little pink tutu, I'm pretty sure I didn't wear anything else for days after the performance - I was so in love...

As I got older and carried on with my lessons I moved to a more established dance school formerly known as The Deana Morgan Academy. The principal, Deana Morgan was so passionate about giving her pupils the best performance opportunities and she really did organise some amazing venues for us to perform at. I also started singing lessons around the same age as I joined The Deana Morgan Academy.

Every other year we staged our dance school production at the Alhambra Theatre Bradford, which was a truly incredible experience to have, as this theatre was home to so many professional productions. Over the years I was a part of 6 of these productions and they bring me some of my happiest memories from performing - they were not our average dance school productions... they were incredible (in my eyes anyway...).

The year in-between each Alhambra show, Deana organised a charity event around Christmas where we would perform at St. George's Hall. We would re-stage some of the routines we had performed the year before at the Alhambra and also perform some new Christmas routines.

In and amongst all of these fabulous shows, over the years I was given so many more opportunities to perform in some incredible places including The Royal Albert Hall, The London Palladium, and Disney Land Paris. Deana really did put her heart and soul into giving her students the best opportunities and giving them memories that will last a life time. I feel as though I owe so much to her because of all the irreplaceable memories she has given me.

As if going to dance classes everyday didn't keep me busy enough, I became a member of a couple of amateur dramatics companies that were local to me.

I became a part if Bingley Amateur Operatic Society back in 2009 when I got offered the role of a sunbeam in their annual pantomime which they staged at Bingley Arts Centre. I stuck with them for many more years, moving on from being a sunbeam, to senior dancer, to principal dancer, to principal boy in my final 2 years to date. Overall I have been a part of 11 of B.A.O.S pantomimes. As well as their annual pantos, I was also cast in a few of their annual musicals including a principal dancer in Flashdance and Legally Blonde, and Demeter in Cats.

Fun fact... I actually became involved with B.A.O.S musicals because their director once contacted me 2 days before the opening night of their production of 'Acorn Antiques', as one of the dancers had to drop out of the show. So I had to learn the whole show which the cast had been rehearsing for months... in 48 hours! I had so much fun in that short space of time that I could wait to come back and actually get to be a part of the next show.

The other society I became a member of was Ilkley Upstagers. It was the director of the B.A.O.S shows that introduced me to Upstagers in 2016 when he was directing their production of 'Joseph and His Amazing Technicolour Dream Coat'. I was cast as one of Jacobs wives and the tango dancer in Joseph, the following year I played Buffey in Starlight Express (and yes, we actually did the full show on roller-skates and it was a lot of fun) and the year after I was cast as Marty in Grease.

Being a part of "am-dram" societies has given me the chance to not only get to be on stage doing what I love to do best, it has also given me the chance to meet some fabulous people including some of my closest friends - some of which you may see appearing on here in the future...

My training progressed outside of my dance school when I went to Craven College in Skipton to study BTEC Performing Arts. I always knew A-levels were not for me, so by doing BTEC Performing Arts it really helped me develop as a performer, especially in my acting skills which previously I'd not had much training in. My favourite part of college was the annual musical which we performed at the Auction Mart Theatre in Skipton which was a really special, unique place to perform as it was still a functioning auction mart as well as a theatre. First year we performed West Side Story in which I played Maria, and the following year we did Joseph and His Amazing Technicolour Dream Coat (only a year after performing it with Upstagers so it had a lot to live up to...) and I was cast as the narrator, which was really a dream role for me to play.

After leaving Craven College I had a few years of working a few different jobs and carried on with my amateur dramatics and then in 2019 I decided to apply for an entertainment job - working abroad for Thomas Cook in one of their hotels. This experience was incredible! I had 5 weeks of intense training in Bolton, where we had to learn 5 shows and the rest of the entertainment activities. Once we finished training, 2 days later I was on an aeroplane to Paphos, Cyprus where I was to live for the next 5 months. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done - working 14 hour days in 40 degree heat will push anyone to their limits. However, it gave me the most amazing memories and will treasure my time there forever.

And where am I now...

The Coronavirus pandemic made me look at what I wanted to do next... and turns out that was to start a degree in Broadcast Media Technologies at Leeds Beckett University.

I will always continue to have a passion for performing, and as soon as those theatre doors are back open you can guarantee you will see me once again on that stage!