Tuesday 23 December 2008

Blogging off for Xmas

As we have no shows on over the Christmas period – despite frequent calls from people asking us what time Aladdin will finish on Boxing Day (answer: try the Everyman on 01242 572573) – the box office will be closed from now until 10 am Monday 5 January 2009. The theatre isn’t empty, as there are drama workshops, parties and maintenance work taking place most days over this break. In the meantime, we wish all our patrons a very Merry Christmas and look forward to seeing you all in the New Year.

Wednesday 17 December 2008

Notes from The Railway Children (1)

January 2009 sees the return of Cheltenham Operatic & Dramatic Society to the Playhouse stage as one of the first handful of companies to present a new musical version of a classic novel and film. Here, to tell us more, is production director Jill Mico:

“When E. Nesbit wrote her stories of The Railway Children in the early 20th century, she probably never imagined it would be transformed into a musical in the early 21st; a modern musical, which captures all the charm and poignancy of the original story.

Directing any musical is a challenge and The Railway Children has been no exception, with 36 in the cast – many of them, as the title suggests, children. As is the way with modern musicals there was considerable doubling up in the original production (the constraints of budgets on the modern professional musical theatre). Happily that is one restriction we do not face, our actors do not get paid, and therefore we have been able to develop a traditional ensemble cast and give many more their opportunity to shine.

Rehearsals, which got underway in early October have proved challenging for two reasons. Firstly, the structure of the show itself imposes its own restrictions. When one finds principals in both dialogue scenes and the big production numbers, finding the time to rehearse all the elements and keep all your cast productively occupied is challenging. This has been further complicated by the limited time one can work with the children in the evenings - having to let them go around 9pm - which means we've had to squeeze the maximum out of the time we have. The main problem this presents is finding time for relationships between the various characters to develop and gel.

There’s just over a month to go until we move into the theatre and we have an awful long way to go in shaping scenes and knitting all the aspects together, although some of the more challenging close harmony musical numbers are taking shape. With several different locations to portray, often in a single scene, our set designer Michael Barwick is developing a series of magical watercolour backdrops that will be projected onto the back cyclorama - we hope!”

THE RAILWAY CHILDREN
Sat 24 – Sat 31 January (no Sunday performance)
Evenings at 7.45pm, 31 January matinee at 2.30pm

Tickets £13 (£10 concessions on Mon eve and Sat mat)

Please note that tickets for this production will not be available from The Playhouse until Monday 5 January. Prior to this date, tickets are only available through CODS’ private mailing list and company members. There will be a second set of Notes from The Railway Children in the New Year.

Tuesday 16 December 2008

A private production

January, according to our autumn/winter brochure, commences at The Playhouse with The Railway Children. In actual fact, there is another show sneaking in before this when the pupils of Christ College present their annual drama performance.

Only, we can’t tell you what it is. This year’s production was Bugsy Malone, and we were able to tell you about that. But we can’t say anything about this one.

Seriously, we can’t! The school has been given special permission to stage a shortened version of a current West End musical but only on the condition that it isn’t advertised.

Even now, the pupils are in one of our rehearsal rooms, going through the dance routines and practising a few of the songs (I heard them – they were excellent). We always like them to come in before Christmas so that they can have a good look around the place, have a rehearsal, and generally get some of the excitement out of the way so that when they return for the show, they are already familiar and comfortable with being here and can concentrate on the production.

Performances take place at 7.30 pm on Thursday 15 and Friday 16 January 2009. Tickets are priced £5 for adults and £3 for pensioners, children and students, but the Friday performance is already sold out.

However, there are still quite a few seats left for the Thursday performance, so do give the box office a ring on 01242 522852 if you would like to support local schoolchildren in their latest endeavour.

Tuesday 9 December 2008

Notes from Alice in a Non-PC World

Christmas is always hectic down at The Playhouse as assorted performers prepare for our annual alternative panto for childish grown ups, presented under the auspices of Friends Theatre Company (or, as they are now known, Friends: The Next Generation, having last year reached their 21st production).

This year’s show takes Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland as its starting point but gives it a technological spin. In this version, Alice is drawn inside her laptop and encounters all sorts of computer-related entities such as The Mad Hacker, the Google Bird, CD Ron and Auntie Virus. At, the same time, the script takes a well-earned swipe at political correctness and health and safety legislation, so you don’t have to be a computer-whiz to understand all the jokes. And there’s plenty to keep your toes tapping with some catchy tunes and fabulous dance routines with the usual background of a fascinating set.

Speaking of the set, Mike Kingston and Phil Hopkins seem to be spending every waking hour in the workshop building it and designing a weird array of props and creatures including the previously seen flamingos (as used to play croquet, obviously), hedgehogs and several strange green flying creatures that are slightly reminiscent of Martians from an episode of the classic BBC series Quatermass.*

Rehearsals have been directed by Caroline Young who once again has worked her wonders with a great script courtesy of several Playhouse stalwarts. Time has just flown by and it now feels like we have a great show for those who venture out on these cold nights. We just need to keep the energy up, as it’s all pretty fast moving.

The show runs for six nights – Thursday, Friday and Saturday this week and next – and Thursday performances don’t start until 8.30 to coincide with Cheltenham late night shopping (you can never get parked until 8pm, even if you aren’t shopping). There are still tickets available for all performances, although we’re down to under a dozen for the last night and not many more for the second Friday. We really do urge people not to leave it to the last minute for this show.

* Theatre joke for those of a certain age: Why are musical directors often known as Quatermass? Because they are always found in The Pit