Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
New Totstars show
Clare and Jill’s new venture is popular
THE first-ever live children’s musical theatre show organised by two Dundee sisters has sold out in double quick time.
Totstars Live!, a new venture by Clare Monte and Jill Markie, launches next month at Broughty Ferry New Kirk after the siblings decided to expand their community group classes, which run in Dundee and Angus, into a live performance.
The show is an interactive singalong musical theatre performance with a jungle theme to suit the whole family, providing every child in the audience with a bag of props to join in the adventure along the way.
Tickets for the show went on sale on Wednesday evening and were sold out by Friday.
Clare, 39, and Jill, 37, who both live in Broughty Ferry and have organised kids’ musical theatre community classes for the past three years, say the idea for the show had been lurking in the back of their minds for quite a while but thought they didn’t have the time, resources or knowhow to put it all together.
And it took a bad experience at another kids’ show to kickstart Totstars Live!, as Jill explains.
“Clare took her daughter to a kids’ theatre show last year, which was far from the quality she expected and that prompted us to begin our venture.
“After a lot of prepping and planning, we announced our ‘soft launch’ on social media and released tickets on Thursday night and got the most incredible response from the public.
“Within the first couple of hours we had sold over half and the show had completely sold out in the morning.
“We thought we would sell about 30 tickets but they just all went really quickly. We couldn’t believe it.
“We felt there was a gap in the market for this kind of show but didn’t expect such a huge response so quickly.”
Clare and Jill founded Totstars community classes in 2021 after they both found themselves a little lost with what they wanted to do for work after lockdown, although they had always spoken about teaming up with their skills to create something together.
The sisters have a long background in music, dance and drama and are delighted to be able to combine their own particular strengths to enable that.
Clare adds: “The time was right. Parents, babies and small children had missed out on so much during Covid and finally there was our class ready to welcome everyone in and straight away we were filling classes across Dundee and Angus.
“Eventually we started delivering our classes to nurseries in the area and doing birthday parties. Our classes provide the customers with a sensory experience which includes song, music, movement, instruments, imaginative play and story telling.
“We include music to suit both kids and adults.
“We use music from all genres and years.
“In one class you can find yourself doing the five little ducks action song, into a bit of drumming to a ’90s dance classic, relaxing to The Beatles and boogying in the bubbles to Taylor Swift.”
Clare has a degree in dance from Telford College in Edinburgh, delivered through Northumbria University. She has been on stage since the age of three and attended dance, drama and piano growing up. She started teaching dance and drama in her late teens and has continued to do so since then.
After graduation she moved to London where she worked in contemporary dance, physical theatre and children’s entertainment. After moving around the UK and Europe for 11 years, she moved back to her home town of Dundee to settle into family life.
Jill’s background is in music and musical theatre. She is a singer and pianist and taught vocals and piano privately on completion of her college course.
She started teaching early years music classes and doing the odd gig here and there to keep her performance skills going. She has been teaching music since her late teens and is now enjoying helping her own teenage son enter into the same field,
Totstars Live! takes place on Saturday April 20 from 2-3pm at Broughty Ferry Free Kirk on Queen Street.
More information on the group is available at totstars.net