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.