And now that they both lead departments at the National Theatre, they acknowledge they’ve come a long way from the days when the “meek little Welsh girl” (John) and the “starstruck theatre lover from Wigan” (Tonge) first found their true home away from home.
“Back home, I’d been the odd one out,” remembers Tonge (Stage Management and Technical Theatre, 2002). “I was always the kid on stage at the panto. I was transfixed by set changes – one minute we’d be in a forest, the next in Mother Goose’s kitchen. For the first time at Guildhall, I felt I fitted in, I was in the gang."
Their friendship grew over a mutual love of opera, shared productions – including Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden – and gatecrashing each other’s parties. “We found our feet together,” says John (Stage Management and Technical Theatre, 2001). “We were really close from early on. We came with no preconceptions and were open to absorbing new ideas.”
Both went on to successful freelance and in-house careers: John with the Welsh National Opera and Tonge at Opera North. Their paths crossed a few times – returning to Guildhall to talk to students, and, most glamorously, in New York while John was touring with Sir Matthew Bourne and Tonge with Sadler’s Wells.
Stage management and set design can be challenging. Tonge once had to organise the lighting of 361 candles during a production of Macbeth. And as a stage manager, John oversaw a travelling opera set in a baked bean factory. “I’ve not been able to look at a can of beans ever since.”
Now they’re under the same roof, with John as Head of Construction and Tonge as Head of Company Management. They sit in meetings together, occasionally work on the same productions, and sometimes share a drink at the end of the day. “We regularly ask each other’s opinion,” says John. “We can chew the fat, share gossip, talk over issues. Having that alliance is just wonderful.”
“We have a trust, a shorthand that takes time to build with new colleagues – we can leapfrog that process,” says Tonge. “We’re close in age and both bold, confident women, quite happy to speak up. It’s lovely to have that support.”
John cares deeply about opening opportunities to people who wouldn’t dream of working at the National, and looks after the NT’s apprentices in carpentry, metal and scenic art. Last year, she met NT patron the Duchess of Sussex, who came for a chat with the new trainees – “One of my proudest moments,” she says.
Coming from a working-class mining family, John was perhaps not your typical drama school applicant. She says she wouldn’t be where she is were it not for a teacher who urged her to stage manage a school production of Bugsy Malone. “Not every school child will have access to a teacher like that – it’s our duty to help make this accessible.”
They both owe Guildhall a debt, says Tonge, and not only for the friendships they made. At that time, it was the only school to mix experience in both drama and music, she points out, and it’s still rare. “You’d work on everything, from plays to dance to full-scale opera.”
“It gave us a catapult into the industry,” says John. “If you work hard, you may be able to make your own way, but Guildhall offers graduates a fantastic platform and opportunities to explore their passion. The power of that should never be underestimated.”
This article first featured in the 2020 edition of Guildhall magazine, PLAY, and was written by YBM for Guildhall School of Music & Drama.
