Sarah Manton
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Age: “I’m 27—28 in April.”
Currently: Playing Frances “Baby” Houseman in the hit stage version of Dirty Dancing at the Aldwych Theatre. It’s a role that combines dancing and acting. “I think I’m at the perfect stage to do this,” Manton says. “I’ve done so much dancing when I was younger, before drama school.
Hometown: Leicester—home also of one of the country’s most famous producing theatres for musicals, currently being rebuilt on a new site. “I appeared at Leicester Haymarket when I was younger, doing dancing and youth theatre,” Manton notes, “but not since I graduated. I’ve been trying to get in there and have written loads of letters. Hopefully when they reopen I will, but actors always tell me they never work where they are from!” She left Leicester when she was 18, to go to Guildford School of Acting.
Decisions, Decisions: “I’d always danced and done youth theatre, but also I was quite musical and I played violin,” Manton says. “So I had to decide whether to go to music college and really work on that, or become a dancer or actor—or maybe go to university. I really didn’t know what I was doing at 18, and I applied for everywhere. I applied for Guildford by default really—my mum worked with someone who gave her a prospectus. You don’t know which drama schools are good.” Manton’s older sister Emma is also an actress but didn’t go to drama school: “She also in town this season. She’s doing Nicholas Nickleby. It’s really lovely having someone in the family who is also in the business, and she’s so supportive and gorgeous. We give each other tip-offs about auditions.”
Take a Chance: After Manton graduated from Guildford in 2001, she went straight to the National, where she did one musical [South Pacific]. But, she says, she actually wanted to do more straight theatre. That soon followed. “The casting people at the National put me forward for some great work at the studio. They really took a chance on letting me do Pains of Youth there, which we ended up doing at Battersea Arts Centre a bit later. Through that I got The Coast of Utopia, the Tom Stoppard trilogy, which was just fabulous. So it was a 14-month stint I ended up doing there, all with Trevor Nunn, which was amazing. I learnt so much from watching him direct people. He’s brilliant; he says exactly what that actor needs to hear.”
Look Back in Fondness: After her opening stint at the National, Manton has gone on to appear in several seasons at Richmond’s Orange Tree in several plays by Shaw, and most recently starring in Look Back in Anger for the touring Pilot Theatre Company. “That was such a huge, meaty part; when I left the National, I wanted to play bigger parts, I didn’t mind where,” she exclaims. “As long as they were with good directors and good companies, I was realistic about it not necessarily being in the West End. But now I am back here!” And no one, of course, is going to put her (or her character) in a corner.
Sarah Manton in Dirty Dancing
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Dancing into the Spotlight: How did her starring role in Dirty Dancing come about? “Completely out of the blue,” she reports. “My agent rang and asked if I wanted to be seen for it. I went in and did some acting, and then I did some dancing. I hadn’t danced for so long, but I have done lots of different styles of dance so was quite comfortable with the partnering. I just had a great time. I loved the audition and was spinning the whole way through it. It was such fun, and because it wasn’t something I had thought about doing, I didn’t put a lot of pressure on it, either.” She got called back and met Josef Brown (who plays Johnny Castle). “I didn’t know at the time that I was the only one they were seeing, so I was still in audition mode,” she laughs. It wasn’t the only job offer that came up at the time, though: “It’s really funny, you get nothing and then everything comes at once. I was also offered a Greek tragedy—they were poles apart, so I had to decide which to do.”
Jumping into a Hit: “It’s funny coming into something and thinking I probably won’t be reviewed, so I don’t have to worry about that,” Manton notes. “And knowing that most of my run is already pretty sold out gave me confidence.” Nevertheless, she found the role a lot to live up to. Was she a fan of the film herself? “When I saw it originally I loved it—and me and my sister used to try to do the lift in the swimming pool! It sunk into my psyche, but I never realised quite how much till I did the show. It really took me back.” She hasn’t allowed the film to influence her, though: “I watched it once again when I was auditioning, but I didn’t watch it while I was rehearsing, as I didn’t want to copy anything; I wanted to make sure I was doing my own thing.”
The Time of Her Life: “I am absolutely loving [doing the show]—more than I thought I was going to. I didn’t really know what to expect, because it was so different to what I’d been doing, and I’m really connecting with the character and the story now.” Did she have worries about translating the cult film to the stage? “I wondered if there was going to be enough there, and if I might get bored,” she admits. “But there is plenty. There are a lot of extra scenes. And the audience reaction is amazing. They are totally behind you. When we do the last scene of Act One, which is the cabin scene—I love it when you have a really rowdy audience—if it’s played right, they become completely silent. I love when that happens because you can tell they are really, really listening and not just screaming no matter what because they love the movie.”