Hello, Warren here with the last of the Cinderella Blogs. It’s been a whirlwind week, lots of hard work from everyone paid off and we put together a fantastic show for everyone.
Our show opened fully on Thursday night and the feedback was super. Thank you to all our audience members who joined us at the new venue and hello to all the new ones, we’re lucky to have so many supporters and we hope to see you again soon.
We have a fabulous cast who have all worked so hard and I would like to thank them all for their efforts at rehearsals which meant that when we came to the theatre we were ‘show ready’ and could concentrate on anything the new venue threw at us. Special mention to our newbies too who slotted into the group seamlessly.
The new venue this year meant more space onstage and backstage and so we were able to include a children’s chorus this year and it was a HUGE success. The children have been a joy to have involved and really added something special to the show. We’ve all been so impressed at how well they’ve done and big thanks to all the parents who’ve been a massive help too.
The show continued Friday night and the weekend saw us perform three times on Super Saturday (followed by a party) and finish with a wonderful sold out matinee on Sunday.
Then came the real hard work, the get out! Our cast were fantastic all mucking in to make sure that everything we’d brought into the theatre, and it was a lot, all got speedily packed away, stacked, swept, folded and loaded. Thank you everyone who lent a hand.
Coming to a new venue has been a bit of an adventure and there were a few hiccups but thanks to the experience of everyone involved we managed to get through the show looked fantastic even if there was frantic running around behind the scenes.
We have a fantastic set of people behind the scenes and we’re always on the lookout for anyone who can help with anything so please if you’d like to get involved next show we’d love to have you on-board.
Our show wouldn’t be possible without the support of everyone and I’d like to thank some people both personally and on behalf of SMP.
To our technical team Phil & Derrick on sound and lighting for coming to the rescue and making sure everything was ready for opening night. To Alex for doing a great job as production manager and handling the challenges of the new venue with ease. To Ruth for stepping in to op the desk and Gill, Laura and Claire for spotting. To Adam and Josh, the SMB, for their hard work lifting and shifting in the dark doing all our set changes. To Matt for making some wonderful pieces of set, our props team Debbie, Ellie and Wendy for finding all the weird things we needed for the show and Rob for transporting our set back to our store.
To our team out the front, Kate for running our box office successfully once again, Jo for all her work co-ordinating the FOH team, Yiltan for running our bar and all our volunteers who helped during the week on the front of house team.
To our costume team Fay, Ellie and Debbie, thank you for the wonderful array of costumes ensuring everyone looked stunning. To Lucy and Linda for doing all the paperwork for the children and for sorting out all the chaperones.
To our awesome band who we’re so lucky to have and travel from afar to make sure our show sounds amazing as always, thank you Mike, Paul, Chris, Steve, Tim and John.
To my wife Jo for being an amazing wife and mum, running around doing everything so I can direct the show. I wouldn’t be able to do half the things I do without you and I’m a very lucky man.
Finally to Mike and Fay my partners in crime on the production team. It’s always a pleasure working with you both as we have many times now and this show has been no exception. I’m proud of what we’ve achieved with this show and look forward to working with you both again.
To anyone I’ve not mentioned by name but has helped us in anyway, there are so many of you, your help putting on the show is really appreciated by all of us in the group so thank you too.
And so now we look to our next show Legally Blonde – The Musical which will be a the Millfield Theatre 10th-13th June 2020, you’ll find all the details on our website for Read Through and Auditions if you’d like to be a part of the show.
Thanks for reading the blog, we hope you’ve enjoyed it. We’ll be back with a new show blog once Legally Blonde commences.
