West End and Broadway star visits Solent

Students on the BA (Hons) Musical Theatre course were thrilled to take part in a workshop run by West End and Broadway star Earl Carpenter earlier this week.

Earl has over 25 years’ professional experience working in musical theatre, and has toured all over the world in titles such as The Phantom of the Opera (Phantom), Les Miserables (Inspector Javert), We Will Rock You, Beauty and the Beast, Evita and The Witches of Eastwick to name only a few.

The workshop enabled Earl to impart his years of experience to Solent students, sharing his tips and tricks of the industry, as well as coaching the students' stunning performance of One Day More from Les Miserables.

Earl was also refreshingly honest about the pitfalls of the industry, discussing the importance of looking after your mental health, and the responsibility of producers to look after talent's health – as well as ensuring you have a back-up plan should it not work out how you anticipate.

The workshop ended with a question and answer session where students had the unrivalled opportunity to ask questions such as how he found an agent, how he chose his audition piece and what he plans to do next.

Amy Whittington, first year BA (Hons) Musical Theatre student, said, "The workshop was amazingly beneficial, I know everybody in the class would agree. Earl had so much valuable knowledge and stories to share with us all about the industry, the good and the bad.

"It was refreshingly honest and was just the talk we all needed. It was a great opportunity and one I would hope to experience again!"