ABOUT THE SHOW
BETWEEN is a riveting new musical written by Rudy Percival and produced by current and graduate students of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Using Guildhall ‘CoLABorate’ funding, a selection of the scenes from the show were staged and filmed at the Silk Street Theatre in the Barbican in April 2021, and a complete original cast recording was also made.
Click here to find out how and where to stream our film and cast recording.
THE PLOT
SPOILER ALERT! As we will only be releasing a selection of the scenes on film, the following synopsis details the whole plot.
BETWEEN follows the story of three gay men as they navigate the complexities of love and relationships. The plot is loosely based on the real-life actions of the infamous American serial killer, Andrew Cunanan (who informs the character of James).
In the first scene, James comes to visit his ex-boyfriend, Aaron, in Portland. On the first night of his stay, he invites Aaron’s new lover, Leo to the apartment, and shoots and murders him in cold blood. James’ actions become the axis upon which the plot rotates. The scenes that spiral out from this event consist of flashbacks providing an intimate view into Aaron and Leo’s relationship and infidelities, interspersed with the deeply sinister scenes of the present, detailing James’ sociopathic infatuation with Aaron as he forces him to escape the crime scene in Portland towards the Mexican border through the expansive settings of the Nevada desserts.
This multi-temporal plot eventually unravels in a hellish nightmare sequence, followed by Aaron’s dramatic declaration of love for Leo, something he was never able to say when Leo was living. Overhearing Aaron, James nearly kills him, but in a final twist, Aaron takes control of the gun and injures him. Neither die, and the show ends on an ambiguous suggestion that the police have finally caught up with the runaways…
A TIMELINE: THE CREATIVE PROCESS
Authored by BETWEEN's writer, Rudy Percival
In the Spring of 2019, I decided that I wanted to write a musical about three gay men. From the outset, I was certain that I didn’t want this musical to fixate on an identity crisis (as many shows of this nature seem to do). It had to be about people who knew who they were and who they loved. Importantly, I wanted it to have a narrative that only functioned with three queer characters at its center: a gay ‘love arrow.’ Thus, the idea to use some of the story associated with American serial killer Andrew Cunanan and his first two victims was conceived, when I discovered that this ‘love arrow’ somewhat existed between Cunanan, Jeffery Trail and David Madson.
Other than the very rough outlines of their stories, this is where the similarities stop when comparing BETWEEN to the real-life events that it draws upon, especially because in our story, Aaron does not die. This is important, as Riwa Saab (BETWEEN’s Director and Dramaturg) would later highlight to me, we would otherwise fall into the trap of nearly entirely ‘killing off’ our gay characters. Instead, we wanted this musical to end on a glimmer of hope for Aaron (and even for James).
With the concept in-hand, I began to form a team of fellow students in Guildhall to make the project a reality. This is when Riwa and Lewis Bell (our Musical Director) became involved. Through many coffees and brainstorming sessions in the Barbican Kitchen, we hashed out solid concepts for the show, gradually developing a pitch for Guildhall’s ‘CoLABorate’ commission, which would allow us to stage the work.
We were thrilled when our proposal was accepted in the summer of 2019, and this is when the real work began. The subsequent process of writing the show was indeed an extremely collaborative one, as it was gradually constructed through a series of workshops in Guildhall with Riwa, Lewis, Archie Buchanan (who plays Aaron), Kishore Thiagarajan-Walker (who plays Leo), and Chandler James (who plays James).
PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE EARLY WORKSHOPS OF BETWEEN
L-R: Kishore and Archie practice an exercise, Millie shows us her designs, Chandler sits on a table.
SOME OF THE BETWEEN CREATIVES
Comparing our house plants at the end of a Zoom meeting!
By spring 2020, the team for BETWEEN had grown to include many students from all disciplines in Guildhall (Technical Theatre, Drama, Music, and Creative Enterprise) and together, we had created a new musical!
One month before our staging of BETWEEN was due to take place, the COVID-19 pandemic closed theatres across the world. We were gutted, but we did not give up. I spent the next six months revising and improving the material for the show, and as we partially returned to Guildhall in September 2021, the school provided us with new performance dates. Our team grew again, picking up a number of graduate students and together (entirely on Zoom) we brainstormed our new vision for the show, overcoming every obstacle that COVID-19 thew at us, and adapting the production to be entirely COVID-compliant.
In April 2021, BETWEEN finally became a reality at the Silk Street Theatre in the Barbican. If anything, the pandemic had given us a unique opportunity to develop and grow, creating something more refined than we could have ever hoped to achieve in the one year we had initially planned for. We are all incredibly excited to finally be able to share BETWEEN with the world, and we hope that you love it as much as we loved making it.
