An experienced musical director and conductor has provided an “amazing” opportunity to a recent graduate student from her old school, on the set of a hit musical.
Laura Tipoki is directing a music score that blends hip-hop, jazz, R&B and Broadway for Hamilton, which is running at Queensland Performing Arts Centre in Brisbane until April 23.
She has worked on major shows and tours around the world during the past 10 years, including the School of Rock, Wizard of Oz, My Fair Lady Opera, Wicked: The Musical and Les Miserables.
Laura, from the Matthew Flinders Anglican College class of 1999, was eager to help support the next generation of creative artists at the school and had a unique internship opportunity for a keen graduate to join her on the set.
That was the perfect platform for 2022 graduate Katie Collins, who is doing a Bachelor of Fine Arts majoring in acting at the Queensland University of Technology.
Katie was grateful to spend an inspiring five days with the Hamilton cast, crew and creative team in January.
She shadowed the department head of a different section each day, starting in the orchestra pit alongside Laura as the music director to experience the show’s epic music score in real time.
“I was so nervous on that first day,” she said.
“But everyone was lovely, and they all couldn’t get their heads around how I was given such an amazing opportunity backstage on such a major production.
“The whole experience was just so cool.
“And it’s all thanks to Laura and being a part of our college community and the Old Flinderians alumni network.
“With Laura, I got to sit in the orchestra pit and I was given headphones and access to a little console.
“So, while the show was going on, I could control who I was listening to in the cast.
“I could turn up different instruments and they gave me a music score to read along and watch what everyone was doing. It was amazing.”
On another day she shadowed the person in charge of hair and wig design for the Australian and Broadway shows.
“The head of hair and wig design has to go into each performer’s dressing room to fit their wig, so I was able to follow her and meet every cast member as they were getting ready and warming up their voices,” Katie said.
She also had the chance to be backstage during the performance to watch as the crew changed wigs and fixed hair on the spot during the performance.
“So I was literally backstage, watching the performance unfold,” she said.
Katie was delighted to find that the QPAC Lyric Theatre reminded her of her time learning in the state-of-the-art Flinders Performance Centre.
“Because our Performance Centre at Flinders is such an insane venue, I kept thinking how familiar the equipment and layout was at the Lyric Theatre, and I realised, wow, we did this at school,” she said.
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