Introduction: Genesis Who?
It was Gustav Mahler who, when asked why his tombstone was to only read 'Mahler', said 'Those who seek me out, will know who I was. Those who do not, do not need to know'. There must be some of you now reading this introduction who might want to know why they should start reading such a very, very long almost semi-book running to dozens of pages, about a theatre company they have probably never heard of. Talking personally, it simply is not enough to say ' Well, you really had to be there to fully appreciate it'.
So here then are a few questions ( put to me by a friend who was not around in the days of 1975/82) and answers provided by myself, destined, I hope, to whet your appetite further:
Q. Who were Genesis Theatre?
A. It was a bunch of talented individuals who were formed early in 1976, with the intention of trying to change the very meaning of the tag 'Amateur' when presenting any of its performances.
Q. What style of music/theatre did they do?
A. It is easier to say what they did not do, namely anything traditionally described as amateur theatre, e.g. South Pacific, Sound of Music, The King and I etc.
Q. Roughly how many people were involved?
A. At any one time the number of people involved in one show reached as many as forty people, over the period of the society's seven or so years, our cast list numbered, to my certain knowledge, at least 122 people.
Q. How did Genesis Theatre affect the lives of a significant number of people?
A. By firstly doing something that had never been attempted before in amateur musical theatre, and moreover doing them to such a degree of professionalism that one can still find people who talk about their productions 25 years later.
Q. What were the highlights?
A. In the course of 7 years of productions, several world premieres, a number of N.W. premieres, and a number of other unique presentations that have never been done by anyone else since, amateur or professional.
Q. Why did they eventually break up?
A. In the end , our Director moved jobs and went down to Somerset, but in another sense of the word, we have never really gone away , because a hard core of us is still in constant contact and we are as firm a bunch of friends now, as we ever were 25 years ago.
Q. Why all this sudden re-interest now?
A. Because time marches relentlessly on, and we are all now in our 50s.If this is not recorded in some way now, it may never be so, and the day will come when all the knowledge is forever lost, and it deserves to be remembered, and recorded.
Q. How can you, after all this time, be so sure about your facts and dates etc.?
A. Never having had a decent memory for little facts, from a very early age, I kept a written record, and scrap book, with all my musical life in it: every time I played anywhere, with whom, what songs we did, how we performed, what we got paid, and completed this with any newspaper clippings, theatre programmes, photographs etc. I did this until 1985 when the theatre group had by then disbanded.
So there you have it: And now like all good stories one should begin at the very beginning, so here goes:-