After a thrilling 3-month residency, Tomorrow May Be My Last, really did capture the true essence of legendary 60’s rock star Janis Joplin at The Old Red Lion Theatre! With an incredible live band on stage, original music and a true rock feel, Tomorrow May Be My Last featured all the elements of a West End show in an intimate, affordable setting. Having been nominated for four Off West End Awards, including Best Musical Production and Best Leading Actor, and winner of the London Pub Theatre Standing Ovation Award for Best Solo Show written by Performer, this astounding production featured all of Joplin’s greatest hits – as well as stellar original material.
Led by renowned singer-songwriter and actor Collette Cooper, we chatted to her about her feel-good, rock ‘n’ roll show, her inspiration and future plans for the production!
As a singer, I used to get compared often to Janis Joplin which I thought was really unusual because I never knew much about her. It was a name I vaguely recognised and one day a theatre producer said to me after a performance I did at the 100 Club a few years back, you should play Janis Joplin! I always wanted to combine my acting and singing but was never interested in doing musicals as we know them, that wasn’t my thing. So, I started to research her and to my surprise, we were quite alike in terms of energy and both have strong, raspy vocals. I thought, yes, maybe I could play her, why not, I’ll give it a go!
My partner, Mike and I sat down in the kitchen over a bottle of wine, sometime in 2018 and he convinced me to play her and said he would produce it. So I started writing a treatment based around her short life, which was a one-woman play with a live band, set in a Woodstock vibe festival, and backstage in her dressing room. It is what you would call a “gig-play”, as I added extra actors but placed them in the audience only dressed as hippies which would add to the immersive, interactive feel I wanted to create. I wasn’t sure I could write it alone and do it justice so I brought on a friend to see what he could contribute, and his ideas were good but very far from mine, so I knew then, I’d be the only person to write this. I watched every documentary on her and read every biography. I lived and breathed her and eventually, I had a script. We did a read-through in March 2020 just before lockdown, so inevitably had to pause but as soon as things opened up a little we jumped right back on it as I wanted to stage it as soon as possible, despite only being allowed to perform in front of a very small audience in face masks.
I then thought, maybe I needed help directing it, so brought on a pal to contribute as a co-director. We staged it a couple of times at small theatres for a week here and there to test it out. I welcomed my friends’ ideas, bringing the planted actors to be more involved with the narrative, which again was good ideas but for some reason just didn’t gel, and our creative ideas were quite far apart from each other’s. It was then I realised that this project is my baby and my vision alone and the only person to direct it was me, only I could execute it. I had to have faith in myself that I didn’t need any outside influences. So, I went back to my original script and ideas, adding back in projector footage which I only wanted to use original material from the 60s and Mike, my partner and the other producer knitted that together perfectly.
Preparing to play Janis Joplin, is not the easiest of characters to portray. I had to physically change dramatically and work hard on my vocals to reach those very high notes, basically get right under her skin on every level if I was going to succeed. We premiered it at the Old Red Lion Theatre in Spring 2022, and it was really well received beyond our wildest dreams – I couldn’t believe it! So much so, we were asked back to do a 3-month run – which had never been done before at a fringe theatre. My partner and I wrote the title track ‘Tomorrow May Be My Last” which received national radio play on BBC London and BBC 6 Music, along with many other stations.
My partner, Mike Hanson not only produced it, but he was the musical director and brought on three incredible musicians, Jack Parry, Daniel Malek and Jan Simson to come along for the ride. As it’s a fringe theatre, there’s a lot of DIY involved; I designed the set, and borrowed lots of the props from home, along with moody, film lighting. Amanda Newall brilliantly made all the costumes, practically identical to those of Janis’s. Sharath Chandra was our brilliant stage manager and planted, hippy audience member, selling acid trips to the audiences on their way in. Skye Degruttola our second stage manager and actor was a beautiful flower girl, reading everyone’s auras as the crowd entered the theatre. We had pre-recorded voices from several brilliant actors, Star Eddy, Damian Escayg, Nick Patrick, and Mike Hanson Senior. And together we put in 100% to produce the best show we could!
