Hoodwinked the Finale

To quote Shakespeare’s Hamlet, 'The play's the thing' and wow, what a play, or rather musical it was. I will be honest with you when I say, that there were times during the final week of rehearsals when I wondered if we were going to have a production to put on at all.

However, as with all the best shows a scary final week and a large belief in ‘it’ll be alright on the night’ meant just that. On Friday of our final week we had our first dress rehearsal, which was also our first rehearsal with full lighting, band and audience. It went well but it was not as good as I knew it could be. Therefore, bright and early the next morning saw the whole cast arrive at school at 8.30 and proceed to complete another run in full costume and make up. The experience of the day before and the hours of rehearsals really started to show and I left school on Saturday afternoon feeling quietly confident about our two main performances to come.

Monday evening dawned and, I think for the first time, we had a full cast and with a cast as large as ours, that was a small miracle in itself! Nerves started to show ‘backstage’, or rather in the Common Room and there was much pacing – okay, maybe that was just me! Reminders were given out: slow down, speak clearly, speak loudly, smile, focus, react and ….. breathe. With cries of ‘break a leg’ we headed off to a full Roberts Hall for our first night and as the finale played out, I decided to take my own advice and I started to breathe again.

The children were fantastic and yet, I knew that they had even more to give and so it was proved on our final performance on the Tuesday night. To say I was proud of the performance they gave would be a huge understatement. All the children, without exception gave incredibly professional performances. I could write an entire article extolling how brilliant they were, but as most of you reading this hopefully had a chance to watch the show, you will know for yourselves. Those of you that missed it, there is a DVD available!

I must comment however, on how smoothly the show ran, and would like to point out that there were no adults lurking in the wings, moving and creating sets or handing out props, it was all done by the children. I would also like to mention the follow spot lighting and sound effects that were worked fantastically by two year six girls. Not a single prompt was needed during any performance and I enjoyed myself so much that I even forgot to strike part of the set on time!

This has been my first directorial experience and it has been a wonderful one. I would like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to all those adults who helped put this show together, but most of all I would like to say a massive thank you to my cast and say that you are all stars and I hope you will all be available when I get the call for us to perform in the West End!
Production photos will be put up on this website at the beginning of the summer term. Meanwhile, enjoy some more rehearsal pictures.

Mrs Topping

Director