Music teacher Kate Woollatt is giving up the classroom for the stage and hot-footing it to Europe with the cast of Riverdance.

She is due to say goodbye to her pupils at schools across Brighton and Hove this week before heading to Dublin to start rehearsals next month.

It is the first performing job for Kate, 23, who will be singing with an eight-strong choir in the hit show.

She has even rearranged her wedding and honeymoon to fit around the four-month tour.

She said: "I love teaching but this is what I have always wanted to do since I was a child.

"I sang a solo in HMS Pinafore at the Brighton Dome when I was at Rottingdean School and thought, 'this is what I want to do'. Riverdance is very exciting and I hope this will be my big break.

"I was supposed to be getting married on June 2 and my whole wedding, the church, the catering, the marquee, everything has had to be shifted.

"What took three months to be organised has had to be reorganised in just three weeks but my fiance, Daniel Ortiz, and my parents have been very supportive."

Kate of Greenways in Ovingdean met Daniel at the Welsh College of Music and Drama where she was studying singing and he was studying the trumpet. She said: "Dan plays in a show on board a cruise ship. He has been working in the industry a year already and understands now it's my turn and how important it is to me to take this chance.

"I have always wanted to perform and my dream is to have a lead in one of the big musicals in the West End of London or on Broadway in New York."

A former Longhill School pupil, Kate has been working for the Brighton and Hove Music Service since September teaching singing, piano and violin at Dorothy Stringer School, Elm Grove Primary and St Mary's Hall School.

She said: "Teaching has been really beneficial for me. Al-though it was never something I wanted to do forever I have loved working with the children and have really enjoyed it.

"The music service has been wonderful to me but I know that if I stayed and in five years' time I still hadn't had a break into performing I would really regret not taking this chance."

She had only four weeks' notice after auditioning back in August.

Kate, whose stage name is Kate Harvey, said: "It was an open audition, there were hundreds of people there for just a few jobs and it was very nerve-racking. I didn't get called back and I never thought anything more about it, taking the job in Brighton, but then they called out of the blue a couple of weeks ago and offered me a part. I am very lucky."

Riverdance has enjoyed enormous success the world over and Kate has been sent a video and CD of the show to copy.

Since she found out she had the part she has been learning the ten pieces she has to sing.

She said: "People must think I am mad, I have stopped listening to the radio and am singing wherever and whenever I can. I have such a fantastic year ahead of me. I am off to see Daniel in Mexico for two weeks then I am touring Europe in Riverdance for four months and coming home to get married in July."