Act Your Age
A Musical in 2 Acts by Christopher Wortley in association Brian Clemens
Synopsis
In Act Your Age there is work for a large chorus and there are 22 named parts, the majority of which are for women aged from 25 to 50 to over 70. The music is written to entertain, with satisfying tunes and harmonies (including a G&S-style ‘patter song’), and the book was written with the help and support of Brian Clemens which has resulted in a traditional heart-warming farce with people popping in and out of doors … astonished people, embarrassed people, and some older folk who are trying to look like super celebrities!
Celebrity Sanctuary is a clinic that offers rest, relaxation and therapy for celebrities. It has however, fallen on hard times and has amassed debts, but lost patients and staff, and now there are just two of each. Valerie, the owner, receives a call from “Victoria’s agent”, and naturally assumes that this is the A-list celebrity in need of some rest and recuperation. She will check in as ‘Mrs Smith’, and the agent stipulates no publicity and a professional, well-run establishment. Valerie, and Pat, her faithful aide-de-camp, are delighted of course, but this quickly turns to concern as they realise that they cannot now provide all the facilities that are expected. (Song : 'Sod's Law').
Meanwhile, at the old people’s home down the road, a bungling workman has dug up the road and left the home without power or water, and the toilets are backing up! Mrs Hewitt decides to take her ‘inmates’ to the clinic while she finds temporary accommodation and marches them all in, to Valerie’s astonishment. (Song : 'Sunny Seniors Are Us'). The old folk are a mixed bag in age and ability (mental and physical) but despite Mrs Hewitt's strict nature (Song : 'A Tight Ship'), all of them read ‘Hello’ magazine and are quite star-struck. Seizing her opportunity, Valerie easily persuades the old folk to masquerade as staff and patients, joining the two ‘proper’ patients, Melanie (a D-list celebrity) and Angela (a middle-aged nymphomaniac), in return for the possibility of meeting ‘Victoria’ and her friends. (Song : 'Count On Us'). ‘Mrs Smith’ duly arrives, heavily disguised, but the person underneath is Jenny, who ran away from home as a teenager. (Song : 'For Once In My Life'). She is soon to be married, and wants to observe her mother again before revealing herself. She has been tipped off that her mother (Valerie) now works at the clinic.
Then a succession of furtive people check in as patients and are assumed to be friends of ‘Victoria’ - a reporter with his photographer; Angela’s latest beau, Mario; and Jenny’s fiancé who suspects her of infidelity. (Song : 'Ever So Discreet'). The new ‘staff’ must take over the daily routines and administer the various designer therapies, resulting in the situation where amateurs are ministering to people they take to be celebrities, and ‘celebrities’ who are nothing of the kind and don’t want to be unmasked. despite the chaotic nature of the arrangement, Valerie is hopeful that her luck has turned for the better. (Song : 'This Could Be The Time'). The workman strikes again when he resumes digging leaving the therapy annexe uninhabitable, so some bizarre alternatives to the usual massage, sauna and other therapies are developed and these take place in make-shift rooms with make-shift equipment. As night falls, classic farce (but set to music as Song : 'You Haven't Seen Me'). descends in a room with three doors - Mrs Smith is creeping about looking for childhood memorabilia; Angela and Mario are creeping about looking for one another; John is looking for Jenny, and the reporter and the photographer are looking for a scoop (Song : 'You've Been Papped'). The first Act closes with Pat dreamily wishing for a star-studded future. (Song : 'I Want To Be A Celebrity').
In the morning, with the new 'therapies' in full swing, (Song : 'The Sing-a-long Therapy Thing'), there is a more traditional farce as patients and ‘therapists’ pop in and out of the make-shift therapy rooms in a succession of complicated manoeuvres, narrowly avoiding revealing their ‘naked’ forms to the audience (this is carefully scripted with helpful rehearsal diagrams).
Cast
Principals: 4 male, 10 female
Plus many names parts and a large chorus
Principals
- Valerie : 50-60, the owner and manager of Celebrity Sanctuary
- Pat : 30-50, Valerie’s loyal retainer, optimistic, resourceful and practical, unsophisticated
- Melanie : 40+, a patient at the Sanctuary, D-list celebrity with pretensions of being A-list (**)
- Angela : 40-55, a patient at the Sanctuary, an ageing nymphomaniac (==)
- Mrs Hewitt : 30+ the Manager of Sunny Seniors Old People Home, likes discipline, a control freak
- Iris : 60+, pretends to be ga-ga, in reality is a clever jewel thief, the home is a cover for fencing
- Joan : 60+, reasonably compos mentis, friendly, helpful, a bit chaotic, has bladder problems
- Joanna : 60+ , also compos mentis, efficient, a natural leader, becomes the old folks spokesperson
- Josephine : 60+, another reasonably compos mentis person, slightly cynical and subversive
- Jenny : 20-30, estranged daughter of Valerie, wants to secretly meet before revealing herself
- Reporter : 20+ (male), incompetent but thinks otherwise (**)
- John : 20-40, Jenny’s jealous fiancée (==)
- Mario : 25-40, a gigolo, Angela’s latest paramour (==)
- Photographer : 20-40, would much prefer to be a fashion photographer
Supporting Cast
- Betty : 60+, once a servant in stately homes, is mistaken for an ageing courtesan
- Ellen McDonald : 60+, somewhat confused, thinks she is ‘Victoria’, cooks with inappropriate ingredients
- Mrs Cousins : 92, an ‘inmate’ at Sunny Seniors
- Joe : 60+, an ‘inmate’ at Sunny Seniors, somewhat lascivious
- Gerry Jackal : 25+ (but should be ten years younger than Melanie), a jewel thief
- The Workman : 25+
- Adrian Cousins : 55-65, Mrs Cousins son, desperate to be associated with celebrities
- Policeman : 30+
- Chorus Old Folk, Police
Notes :
(==) the person playing this role must be comfortable to appear on stage dressed only in a towel
(**) the person playing this role must be comfortable to appear on stage apparently naked behind a towel
Musical Numbers
- Overture - Orchestra
- Prologue - Departure Orchestra
- Sod's Law - Pat, Angela & part-chorus
- Sunny Seniors Are Us - Chorus
- A Tight Ship - Mrs Hewitt, Josephine & Chorus
- Count On Us - Joanna & Chorus
- For Once In My Life - Jenny
- Ever So Discreet - Valerie & Chorus
- This Could Be The Time - Valerie
- You've Been Papped - Reporter & Photographer
- You Haven't Seen Me - John, Jenny, Angela, Mario, Photographer & Valerie
- I Wanna Be A Celebrity - Pat & Chorus
- Make Do And Mend - Orchestra
- The Sing-a-long Therapy Thing - Josephine & Chorus
- I Think I Need A Little Operation (Tango) - Chorus
- I Think I Need A Little Operation (Waltz) - Chorus
- A Rotter Like Me - Iris
- Finale (Part 1) - Valerie, Pat, Joanna, Angela, Mario, John, Jenny, Iris, Jewel Thief, Chorus & Police
- Finale (Part 2) - Jenny & John
- Finale (Part 3) - Company
Instrumentation
Orchestrations / Band Parts are available in either printed form to rent, or pdf's to buy as follows- Piano
- Keyboard
- Drums
- MD