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The Guardian Travel 2 Jun 2025

It's showtime in Andalucía! How I found my voice on a musical theatre retreat

Tracey shipped out to a villa near Tarifa for Sing the Greatest Showman — a week of West End tuition, communal karaoke and views across the Strait of Gibraltar, with a final-night concert to earn.

Andalucian coastline near Tarifa in southern Spain, looking towards the Strait of Gibraltar.
Wikimedia Commons — kallerna

Reporting for The Guardian's Spain holidays desk, Tracey spent a week at Huerta Belinda for Sing the Greatest Showman — a residential retreat run by Sing Eat Retreat, taught by the former musical director of Les Misérables and choreographers off Wicked and Moulin Rouge!. Thirty hours of tuition, twenty-one guests mostly in their forties and fifties, communal dinners with wine and lip trills, and a Friday-night concert with a real audience. She arrived a self-described bucket-carrier and left with functional breathing, an emotional bond with strangers, and — the acid test — a dog that no longer howled when she sang.

Read the original on The Guardian →