When I was young, people often said things happen in threes. If you’d had two lots of good news, you could expect another. If it was two lots of bad news, look out. “Just you wait,” they’d say, “Mark my words. Something bad is going happen.”
I was thinking about this recently when three different things happened to me.
I decided to shake up the new show we are putting together. I asked Robert, our musical director, if he could suddenly, just for the hell of it, pause the music in the Lady Ga Ga number Born this Way. That will give them all something to think about and shake it up, I thought.
I pressed send on the e mail and off it went. You can imagine my surprise when within a minute I received an e mail from Tiffany at Reading Theatretrain who was preparing the same Lady Ga Ga number. She asked me if I would consider putting a pause in the number. I’m not making this up!
10 days ago I went to see Simon, our new patron in Elf. I went round to the stage door to meet him and as I did so there was another face I recognised but couldn’t put a name to. It turned out to be Sylvia Young who has a famous full-time school in the performing arts. Simon went there after Theatretrain. When he saw us Simon said, “I don’t believe this, the two people who started me off in the same place,” and he insisted on taking a selfie of the three of us.
Then on Friday I was chewing over a speech in our upcoming show. It was about a girl describing how bullies had made her life a misery. I thought it needed some music in the background. I wanted a piece of classical music because, when possible, I like to include snatches of music in shows that young people are unlikely to listen to. In my head I had the slow movement of Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto. I emailed Robert and told him that I’d love the lead violin, Jonathan Hill, to play it. He came straight back to me and said, “He’s just released it on 6th January as a download.”
Over two weeks each of these things alone is a little surprising but taken together – that’s an extraordinary set of coincidences. And three of them.
I once read a book called The Celestine Prophecy where the writer, James Redfield explains that the spiritual energy of the world is changing and that if you look for them coincidences create a pathway for you if you keep open, watch, and listen for them.
Crikey I’d say the omens for this next show are something special!
I don’t know what it all means but I’ll see where it leads. Serendipity or whatever!
