Kate a Storm in a B Cup
REVUE: ACTRESS WANTS TO GET NATION LIVING AND LAUGHING AGAIN
‘We have all passed through a place of shadows; it’s time for lighter moments.’
With her new musical revue Storm in a B Cup, celebrated actress Kate Normington is hoping to make the nation laugh.
On for a limited run until Saturday at the Theatre On The Square in Sandton, Normington hopes to lighten South Africans’ fears and anxiety over the Covid pandemic.
“It left us all abandoned, quite literally, except for odd pockets of activity here and there. Not much to build a character on.
“We have all passed through a place of shadows. But it is time to start living – and laughing – again,” said Normington.
Conceptualised by Rowan and Drew Bakker, Storm in a B Cup is co-written and directed by Russel Savadier.
Normington says she’s most looking forward to the audience’s reaction to the production, which is always gratifying.
“We have given them a different take and hope they will be revived. I love the lighter, funnier moments of the show and want the audience to share in the excitement of live theatre, where anything can – and usually does – happen.”
Normington first rose to prominence playing Sister Mary Amnesia in Nunsense in 1987.
Throughout the ’80s and ’90s she appeared in several successful shows playing Josephine in Romance Romance, Eliza in My Fair Lady, Janet in The Rocky Horror Show and Sheila in Hair.
In 1993, Kate left for England to pursue her career on the international stage and her first job was in the West End production of Sunset Boulevard in which she understudied and performed Norma Desmond in 1995, at London’s Adelphi Theatre. She also appeared in Aspects of Love, Tell me on a Sunday, The Bakers Wife, Into the Woods and Annie.
Back in SA she appeared in Fame, Menopause the Musical, Bombshells, Hairspray, High School Musical, Mama Mia!, Norah Ephron’s Love Loss and What I Wore, and as Fraulein Kost in Cabaret, 2012.
Her last performance at Theatre on the Square was in a comedy sketch show with Ilse Klink, Two in a Bush, devised with Jaci Smith.
Other roles included Mother Superior in the Jo’burg Theatre’s production of Sister Act, 2015; Aunty Silly in Janice Honeyman’s 2016 pantomime, Babes in the Wood and Mrs Brice in the Fugard production of Funny Girl in 2017. Her film and television accomplishments are many and she is a very well-known face on numerous television series, including Scandal, Backstage, Marc Lottering’s comedy series, Sewende Laan and the role of Michelle Shapiro in Tali’s Wedding and Tali’s Baby Diaries for Showmax and MNet’s Legacy.
Among her many awards, Kate recently won a Naledi for best female performance in a musical for her role as the witch in Kickstart’s production of Into the Woods, as well as being nominated for a Fleur du Cap for the same role and that of the Narrator in the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Rowan Bakker, who accompanies Normington on the piano in Storm in a B Cup, is an award-winning musical director, producer and songwriter.
His credits include The Cool Kids Musical (Naledi Award winner as Best Production For Children And Young Audiences in 2018), The Color Purple (Naledi Award Winner 2018: Best Musical Director), Sister Act (Naledi Award 2015: Best Musical Director) and Sweeney Todd (Naledi Award Nomination).
Director Russel Savadier has also been around for decades as an award-winning stage and movie actor.
His movies include The Bang Bang Club, Poseidon Adventure, Mandela’s Gun, Zulu On My Stoep, Jock Of The Bushveld, and Tears In The Rain for which he won Best Actor at the Munich Short Film Festival.
On TV he has been seen in Louis Motors, Fishy Feshuns, The Big Time, The Wild, Bedford Wives, Warrior, Black Sails and most recently as creepy Mike in Legacy.
His stage credits include Burn This, Another Country and Lisbon Traviata, as well as Tale Of The Allergists Wife, Crashing The Night, Romance and Odd Man Out. He was most recently seen as the gloriously inept theatre director in The Play That Goes Wrong.
“With Storm In A B Cup I cann finally tick on off my bucket list: directing the glorious Kate on stage,” Savadier says.