A darkened stage, By Tracey Vale

We returned from Kenya to our homeland with only a week to spare before Will Hammer's production of Cinderella was to begin. I was back to performing 'Disney style', with full, petticoated gowns  replacing the modern ballgowns and we were thrown into the cold of a British winter after the often relentless heat of Africa.

I was interviewed for an article promoting Bournemouth’s Cinderella, just prior to the show opening. It featured a number of photographs and gave a lighthearted account of the fitting of the glass slipper. Audiences filled the theatre night after night and I was loving every moment.

I felt truly blessed to be playing Cinderella and to have had the security and enjoyment as a soubrette in summer shows. The costumes and sets were beautiful and the theatre was huge and with the typical grandeur of a number one theatre. I felt so at home there.

In the mornings, I loved to walk onto the darkened stage alone. With only the slight echo of my footsteps, I would then stand at centre stage and look out over the shadowy depths of empty, expectant seats. Only thin wisps of light glowed from  the exit signs. A hush fell as my footsteps faded. “Magic,” I thought, every time. Years later I read an account of this very same feeling in a book about Noel Coward. He liked to do the same thing and felt an awing sense of how special it was to stand alone on a darkened stage in contrast to what it was to become on performance nights.