Space Girl Play Characters

[Carolina Bornman]

In its 105-minute run time, the Prairie Theatre Exchange production (PTE) crosses gravitational zones, livestreams a birthday party on the moon and features a surprise guest appearance from Ben Affleck.

In a cozy auditorium nestled on the third floor of Portage Place, Space Girl makes exceptional use of space. In the first act, the stage is fitted with three catwalk-style extensions, allowing the characters to build new worlds.

With their pulse on the currents of social media, Koncan reveals the foolishness and fragility of influencer culture. The play pokes fun at the unnamed billionaires, baby influencers and garden-variety elites who are shielded from the bleak realities of our time.

The Spice Girls are an English girl group formed in 1994, consisting of Mel B ("Scary Spice"); Melanie C ("Sporty Spice"); Emma Bunton ("Baby Spice"); Geri Halliwell ("Ginger Spice"); and Victoria Beckham ("Posh Spice"). With their "girl power" mantra, they redefined the girl-group concept by targeting a young female fanbase.[1][2] They led the teen pop resurgence of the 1990s, were a major part of the Cool Britannia era, and became pop culture icons of the decade.[3][4][5]

The Spice Girls were formed by Heart Management, who held auditions to create a girl group to compete with the British boy bands popular at the time. After leaving Heart, the Spice Girls hired Simon Fuller as their manager and signed with Virgin Records. They released their debut single, "Wannabe", in 1996, which reached number one on the charts of 37 countries.[6][7] Their debut album, Spice (1996), sold more than 23 million copies worldwide,[8] becoming the best-selling album by a female group in history.[9] Producing three more number-one singles: "Say You'll Be There", "2 Become 1" and "Who Do You Think You Are"/"Mama". Their second album, Spiceworld (1997), sold more than 14 million copies worldwide.[10] The Spice Girls achieved three number-one singles from the album with "Spice Up Your Life", "Too Much" and "Viva Forever". Both albums encapsulated the group's dance-pop style and message of female empowerment, with vocal and songwriting contributions shared equally by the members.

In the early 1990s, Bob and Chris Herbert, the father-and-son duo of Heart Management, decided to create a girl group to compete with the boy bands who dominated UK pop music at the time.[33] With the financier Chic Murphy, they envisioned an act comprising "five strikingly different girls"[34] who would each appeal to a different audience. In February 1994, Heart Management placed an advertisement in the trade paper The Stage asking for singers to audition for an all-female pop band at London's Danceworks studios.[35] Approximately 400 women attended the audition on 4 March 1994. They were placed in groups of 10 and danced a routine to "Stay" by Eternal, followed by solo auditions in which they performed songs of their choice.[36]

After several weeks of deliberation, Victoria Adams, Melanie Brown, Melanie Chisholm and Michelle Stephenson were among a dozen or so women who advanced to a second round of auditions in April.[36][37] Chisholm missed the second audition after coming down with tonsillitis.[38] Despite missing the first round of auditions, Geri Halliwell persuaded the Herberts to let her attend the second.[39] A week after the second audition, Adams, Brown, Halliwell and Stephenson were asked to attend a recall at Nomis Studios in Shepherd's Bush, performing "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours" on their own and as a group.[40] Chisholm was also invited as a last-minute replacement for another finalist.[41] The five women were selected for a band initially named Touch.[42]

The group moved into a three-bedroom house in Maidenhead, Berkshire, and spent most of 1994 practising songs written for them by Bob Herbert's long-time associates John Thirkell and Erwin Keiles.[43] According to Stephenson, the songs were aimed at a very young audience, and none were later used by the Spice Girls.[44] During these first months, the group worked on demos at South Hill Park Recording Studios in Bracknell with the producer and studio owner Michael Sparkes and the songwriter and arranger Tim Hawes. They were also tasked with choreographing their own dance routines, which they worked on at Trinity Studios in Knaphill, near Woking, Surrey.[45] A few months into the training, Stephenson was fired for a perceived lack of commitment.[nb 2] Heart Management turned to the group's vocal coach, Pepi Lemer, to find a replacement. After Lemer's first recommendation declined the offer, Lemer recommended her former pupil Emma Bunton, who auditioned for the Herberts and joined as the fifth member.[46]

As their training continued, the group performed small showcases for a few of Heart Management's associates. In one performance, they added a rap section they had written to one of Thirkell and Keiles' songs. Keiles was furious with the changes and insisted they learn to write songs properly. The group began professional songwriting lessons;[47] during one session, they wrote a song called "Sugar and Spice" with Hawes, which inspired them to change their name to Spice.[48]

By late 1994, the group felt insecure, as they still did not have an official contract with Heart Management and were frustrated with the management team's direction. They persuaded Herbert to set up a showcase performance in front of industry writers, producers and A&R men in December 1994 at the Nomis Studios, where they received an "overwhelmingly positive" reaction.[49] The Herberts quickly set about creating a binding contract for them. Encouraged by the reaction they had received at the Nomis showcase, all five members refused to sign the contracts on legal advice from, among others, Adams's father.[49] In January, the group began songwriting sessions with Richard Stannard, whom they had impressed at the showcase, and his partner Matt Rowe. During these sessions the songs "Wannabe" and "2 Become 1" were written.[50]

In March 1995, the group left Heart Management, feeling Heart was unwilling to listen to their ideas. To ensure they kept control of their work, they allegedly stole the master recordings of their discography from the management offices.[51][nb 3] The next day, the group tracked down the Sheffield-based songwriter Eliot Kennedy, who had been present at the Nomis showcase, and persuaded him to work with them. Through contacts they had made at the showcase, they were also introduced to the Absolute production team. With Kennedy and Absolute's help, the group spent the next several weeks writing and recording demos for the majority of the songs that would be released on their debut album, including "Say You'll Be There" and "Who Do You Think You Are".[50] Their demos caught the attention of Simon Fuller of 19 Entertainment, who signed them to his management company in May 1995.[54]

By this point, industry buzz around Spice had grown and major record labels in London and Los Angeles were keen to sign them. After a bidding war, they signed a five-album deal with Virgin Records in July 1995.[55] Fuller took them on an extensive promotional tour in Los Angeles, where they met with studio executives in the hopes of securing film and television opportunities.[56] Their name was changed to the Spice Girls as a rapper was already using the name Spice. The new name was chosen as industry people often referred to them derisively as "the Spice girls".[57][58] They continued to write and record tracks for their debut album.[59]

Following the release of "Wannabe", an article in Top of the Pops magazine identified each Spice Girl with a unique nickname based on their personalities. Though unintended, the use of these nicknames became widespread and they were later adopted globally.[66] Riding a wave of publicity and hype, the group released their next singles in Europe. In October, "Say You'll Be There" was released topping the charts for two weeks. "2 Become 1" was released in December, becoming their first Christmas number one and selling 462,000 copies in its first week,[67] making it the fastest-selling single of the year. The two tracks continued the group's remarkable sales, giving them three of the top five best-selling songs of 1996 in the UK.[68] In November 1996, the Spice Girls released their debut album Spice in Europe. The success was unprecedented and drew comparisons to Beatlemania,[24] leading the press to dub it "Spicemania"[69][70][71] and the group the "Fab Five".[72][73][74] In seven weeks Spice had sold 1.8 million copies in Britain alone,[75] making the Spice Girls the fastest-selling British act since the Beatles. In total, the album sold over 3 million copies in Britain,[75] the best-selling album of all time in the UK by a female group,[76] certified ten times platinum,[75] and reached number one for fifteen non-consecutive weeks.[77] In Europe the album became the best-selling album of 1997 and was certified 8 Platinum by the IFPI for sales in excess of 8 million copies.[78]

That same month, the Spice Girls attracted a crowd of 500,000 when they switched on the Christmas lights in Oxford Street, London.[79] At the same time, Fuller started to set up multi-million dollar sponsorship deals for the Spice Girls with Pepsi, Walkers, Impulse, Cadbury and Polaroid.[80] The group ended 1996 winning three trophies at the Smash Hits awards at the London Arena, including best video for "Say You'll Be There".[59]

In January 1997, "Wannabe" was released in the United States. It proved to be a catalyst in helping the Spice Girls break into the US market when it debuted on the Hot 100 Chart at number eleven. At the time, this was the highest-ever debut by a non-American act, beating the previous record held by the Beatles for "I Want to Hold Your Hand",[79] and the joint highest entry for a debut act alongside Alanis Morissette's "Ironic".[81] "Wannabe" reached number one in the US for four weeks. In February, Spice was released in the US, and became the best-selling album of 1997 in the US, peaking at number one, and was certified 7 Platinum by the RIAA[82] for sales in excess of 7.4 million copies.[83] The album was also included in the Top 100 Albums of All Time list by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) based on US sales.[84] In total, the album sold over 23 million copies worldwide[8] becoming the best-selling album in pop music history by an all-female group.[9]

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