Casting the actors is always the most nerve wracking part of putting a good show together, you have to get that right because everything else depends on their ability to enchant an audience. Auditions are a necessarily evil and can be a pretty brutal experience for all involved, especially when you are looking for actors who can sing, dance and act in equal measure. We had over 700 submissions for the auditions in July, and after four days of seeing some wonderful performers and some not so wonderful, we got our fantastic cast together. I am excited to have cast Amy Green in her first professional job as Cinderella. Amy is a local girl who grew up learning her stuff at a local dance school, Finch Stage school and at only 18 she brings a fresh and appealing quality to our Cinderella.
Chorus auditions saw over 100 children and teenagers eager to take part in the show, and its always tough to reject the majority, especially when they are so young but we have cast a very talented group of 16 young people who have been working their socks off for the past month. You can see another video of the chorus in rehearsal here.
July and August saw Olly, Phil and I sat around a piano on a sunny day talking about how we wanted the music to be. Most often modern pantos use rehashed current pop songs, and there is something to be said for this, it means the audience know the tunes and can delight in new local lyrics. However for Phil, Olly and I the challenge of making a totally new musical score with original songs was far more exciting and so we set out on that process. Olly( the writer) is himself a musician, and kicked off the collaboration with some great lyrics and ideas for melodies. Phil picked these up, developed them,and composed new songs in a range of styles, from vaudeville to rock and roll. The trick here was to create something new in the music which has the feel, sound and magic of a traditional panto. You will have to make up your own minds as to whether this has worked! Certainly for me as director, it feels authentic and refreshing to work with new material, and the chorus has risen to the challenge of learning and performing these new songs. Coupled with exciting choreography by Owen I think we are in for a treat, but there's a way to go yet, so no resting on any laurels!
By the end of August we were on Draft 9 of the script and the creative team were happy that it was now pretty much there. Of course with new scripts you never know totally how it will all work when you put it on its feet, but that is the bit I love the most! Working creatively with the actors leads to all sorts of surprises, ideas and solutions that you couldn't dream up on your own, however prepared you are!
We are also really lucky that in the rehearsal studio at the Malthouse we have quite a lot of the set designed by Ian and painted by Beth. This means we can play with the key elements and see how they work all together, again something that you can't fully achieve just with a model of the set.
Yesterday evening saw the Chorus Group One back in the rehearsal room for 3 hours. I have told them that in my view they are now becoming professionals, and with non stop practice and discipline they will delight and surprise our audiences! I hope I am right!
So I'll sign off here today - and blog more tomorrow. Look forward to your comments and questions. Have a good day!
Early Chorus Rehearsal video here:
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