Pick Me Up Theatre staged the British premiere of Seasons, an operetta by Katie Hammond and Elaine Pechacek, as part of the inaugural York New Musical Festival. 

Seasons, which explores the emotions of love and love lost, is the American pair's second collaboriation. Katie was Elaine's vocal student in 2009 and through their first few years as teacher and student they would often jokingly play around with some melodies and lyrics at the end of lessons. After doing this several times they had a conversation that went a little like this: “Hey, we should write a musical” with the other responding, “Okay, sure!” and the rest is history.

Their first musical Delayed, a comedy about the aggravations of getting stuck in an airport, was completed in March of 2010, followed by Seasons in  August 2011. 

After several concert performances of selected songs and abridged versions and staged readings, Seasons featured at the inaugural Times Square International Theatre Festival in January 2012. After a sold out run, the festival producers asked that an additional encore performance be added to close out the festival. 

Pick Me Up's Robert Readman told the York Press: "I listened to the score and there were at least six or seven songs that made me think 'I should do this'."

Reviewing the show, Charles Hutchinson said all four performers "did the story-telling songs proud" and described Barabra Chan's arrangements as "superb". Read his review here.