CAN’t STOP IT – the musical

CAN’t STOP IT is an original jukebox musical comedy featuring songs by Californian ska band Suburban Legends premiering in Kent, July 2015.

Documenting the rites of passage of a group of teenage friends who embark on an ill-fated and farcical trip to Spain, the musical will premiere in Kent in July 2015.

Connor’s Dad left five years ago when he was thirteen. At the same time, his best friend (and fellow rock band member) Ojay moved away to Spain. Unable to deal with this abandonment, Connor has become ridiculously over protective of his Mother, Teresa. One day, Connor receives five free tickets from Ojay, to visit him in Spain. Collecting his ‘bros’ together, (along with an unfortunate pledge to see who can ’get lucky’ the most times during the vacation) the group descend on the dilapidated Hotel Mierda Apartamentos for probably the worst, yet the most valuable weekend of their lives.

CAN’t STOP IT is high-spirited, funny, silly and slapstick, with undeniable darkness as each character discovers more about themselves and embarks on their inevitable futures. CAN’t STOP IT has shades of The Inbetweeners, American Pie, Clueless, Animal House and Grease.

HOW IT CAME ABOUT

Five years ago Adam Button had written another musical called ’Cheer Up’ which featured the songs of one of his favourite bands, Reel Big Fish. Disaster struck though, when he couldn’t get the rights to use the songs as it was impossible to contact the band’s (defunct) record companies, despite the band agreeing to it in person. Undeterred, Adam started again and wrote ANOTHER new musical! This time he wrote to Suburban Legends, contemporaries of Reel Big Fish, who agreed that he could use their songs. Adam had no idea how he was going to convert the ska rock songs into a musical theatre style, until one day he happened passed a classroom at Phoenix Performing Arts in Canterbury just as the group inside launched into a stunning piece of five-part harmony, led by musical theatre teacher Lemon Otter. Adam said that he had written a musical and could Lemon make it “sound like that, with five part harmonies?”. She said that she could. Adam jumped for joy, cried a bit, kissed her hand, and cried a bit more…. And that was that…

Since then Adam and Lemon have been working non-stop, writing and producing CAN’t STOP IT – the musical, ready for the premiere in early July in Faversham, Kent. They workshopped a few of the songs here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dQMsIbnm88

“This gives you an idea of how I have converted them from ska/pop to musical theatre with a zillion harmonies” says Lemon Otter (Musical Director/Co-Writer) “The production has gone from strength to strength and several exciting developments have occurred. Since agreeing to let us use their songs as the soundtrack (although now firmly musical theatre in style!) we have become friends with Suburban Legends and regularly Skype with the lead singer, Vince Walker.”

The band are currently on a world tour and recently invited the CAN’t STOP IT cast to join them on stage and perform the theme song from the musical ’My Friend’ with them at the O2 Academy, Islington on Tuesday 7th April.

THE SHOW!

Kent performance dates: 3 July-4 July at 19:30

Where: West Faversham Community Centre, Bysing Wood Rd, Faversham, Kent ME13 7RH

Tickets for the performance dates can be booked here: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/event/86116

WHY WE NEED YOUR HELP!

Putting on a musical from scratch is expensive! The musical is also a joint venture with the charity Brake.org.uk. All our proceeds will go to this charity and we hope to work together with them to publicise the musical but also to raise awareness of Brake’s work. We have chosen Brake as one of the members of Suburban Legends (Ryan Dallas Cook, a trombone player) was tragically killed in a hit and run aged only 23. The musical is our tribute to him.

So we’re hoping to cover our production costs through sponsorship and this crowdfunding campaign, which means that as much as possible of the ticket sales can go to charity.

What we need to pay for:

• Sound equipment
• Lighting
• Venue advertising plan
• Venue cut of ticket sales
• Costumes
• Set design
• Props
• Musician fees
• Royalties

All cast and crew are donating their time for free.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT!!!

www.cantstopit.co.uk