32 | www.amateurstagemagazine.co.uk

ONSTAGE

Dick wasn’t to know that many years later his descendants would be so captivated by the town that they would decide to settle here in 1923. And who could blame them? Sidmouth, as John Betjeman remarked, is “a town caught in a timeless charm”. It’s a beautiful seaside town, set in the green hills of the glorious Sid Valley in Devon, and nestled beneath majestic red cliffs. It is a thriving

town too with many diverse societies and organisations, one of which is the Sidmouth Amateur Dramatic Society (SADS) founded in 1922. Our annual pantomimes began in 1978 with great success, and, together with our three other annual productions, have always been performed at the local Manor Pavilion Theatre. We are very fortunate in having a really great theatre in Sidmouth. It has tiered seating for up to 278 people, an orchestra pit, a large scenery bay, a really good sized stage and seven dressing rooms on two levels. The theatre was built in the early 1900s and was originally a dance hall.

Due to the financial success of our pantomimes, the Society was able, in 1986 to re-build our headquarters/workshop. The new building was designed specifically for drama production, and is situated within ‘The Byes’ in Sidmouth, on land owned by the National Trust. Although we built the hall and maintain it, the building remains the property of the National Trust to whom we pay an annual rent for use of the facilities. The building proudly boasts a rehearsal room, and a large scenery dock for construction, painting and storage. We have a small kitchen, toilet facilities, and a store room for our props. The upstairs section of the hall is home to our extensive wardrobe department. We also hold a tremendous amount of lighting and sound equipment which is stored at the Manor Pavilion Theatre.

The DirecTor’s sToryIt’s May 2010, and I have been asked to direct SADS’ annual pantomime. First there

are meetings with the play reading committee, a vital step – you can’t direct without a script. We looked at and read several, but I knew right from the start that I wanted one of Ben Crocker’s scripts. Why? It was mainly because I knew of him through reputation from the Northcott Theatre, Exeter. A script is like a book for me. It has to grab you within the first couple of pages, which his did, and fired my imagination. I chose Dick Whittington and his Cat because the characters leapt out. They were funny without being silly, as well as strong. The whole script flowed effortlessly from one scene to another. It was modern and up to date, but still traditional, which to me was important.

The script had all the standard characters – Sarah the Cook (the Dame), Dick Whittington, Tommy the Cat, Idle Jack, King Rat (the evil part), Fairy Bowbells, and the wonderful parts of Alderman Fitzwarren, Horatio Fitzwarren and the Emperor of Morocco - the twist is that all three parts are played by the same actor, and throughout the script this leads to increasingly frenetic costume changes. We also had our love

interest Alice, Fitzwarren’s daughter, and a chorus of citizens, rats, sailors, guards, and palace attendants. This gave me a lot of scope to use both our adult and junior members.

We have our script. Next comes the team you need behind you. You can’t manage without them – stage manager, production assistant, set designers, set construction and painters, wardrobe, publicity, lighting and sound, D.S.M. on the book, props and musical director.

Into July and the auditions. If you are lucky you get the cast you have imagined every time you have read the script, which by now you almost know inside out.

Now that the actors and team are in place, rehearsals must start. We began with music and choreography. Opening in London, it had to be a medley of well known London songs. We moved to Lord Mayor’s Day and had a ‘Supercalafragelistic’ day. We went to sea with ‘All the Nice Girls Love a Sailor’ and ‘Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat’, and on to Morocco with a bit of Bollywood, ending with ‘The Bells Are Ringing for Me and My Girl’.

The Society was extremely fortunate to have Ben Crocker hold a master class for all the pantomime cast early on in the rehearsal period. This was held in our rehearsal rooms and he divided everyone into small groups and gave each group an extract from a pantomime script to work on, and they had to produce a piece of theatre from it by the end of the day. It proved to be very worthwhile, and it goes to show that you are never too told to learn, and even cast members with many years of experience learnt new things from this workshop.

It’s October and rehearsals start in earnest. We rehearsed twice a week, putting in music and choreography with the acting, and the script that you have pored over for months comes alive. Of course, as the actors get into their characters, you have to adjust and tweak some of your ideas, because the pantomime grows and evolves naturally.

November comes and goes, full of rehearsals and meetings with your production team, checking things off your list of ‘to dos’.

Moving into December, and the panic sets in. We have extra rehearsals because of weather disruption (you can’t control that) and Sunday rehearsals to run everything together, and all this time the team is working away behind and with you; wondering whether we are going to be ready for that move into the theatre. It’s nearly Christmas and we take a short break. After the Christmas break, full steam ahead. We have the dress rehearsal. It goes well. The day of our opening performance arrives. When you hear the laughter, people joining in, see happy faces, feel the magic, you know it has been worth it and that’s what it’s all about.

All pantomimes tend to have their problems. Last year, we had to cancel a performance because of heavy snow and ice, but we could not have predicted what actually happened this year! A fire - not at the theatre itself, but in a derelict hotel nearby. This meant the entire area was cordoned off, and the fire chiefs told the theatre that they would not allow the show to go ahead that night. This was at 6.15 p.m. with a curtain up of 7.30 p.m.! It’s not until something like this happens that you realise just how many people are involved in a production such as this, and just how long it takes to call everyone - and this didn’t even include the audience, for which we had a full house. Everyone rallied together, and we decided to re-schedule an extra performance for those who were unable to attend that evening. This involved ensuring that the lighting and sound crew were available, the SM and DSM, crew (a minimum of six required), orchestra, children, chaperones, dressers, front of house and of course the cast. Could the theatre get staff in to cover? It was a mammoth task but between the director, SM and the theatre manager, we managed to get it all sorted. Without staging this extra performance, it could have meant that we lost over £2,000 in tickets sales for that night but, fortunately, most people re-booked.

Dick Whittington anD his cat reach siDmouth

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ONSTAGEOur YOuth GrOup

We have a thriving under 18 section, but being a Society that puts on plays (vs. musicals) there is little opportunity for the children to get involved in a fully staged adult production. The pantomime is one production where under 18s can be involved – and they jump at the chance! This year 30 children created a junior chorus of rats and a teenage chorus of cats and dancers working in two teams, performing in alternate performances. We were also fortunate to have three 14 and 15 year old boys who were keen to help backstage. Negotiating rehearsals can be complicated, as children have to finish at 9 p.m. and this year the Director chose to rehearse the child chorus in the early evening, rather than alongside the adult cast. Once we move into the theatre, chaperones must be involved, and we rely on parents and Society members to go through the licensing procedure for us; we usually have enough parents to organise a rota of three/four performances each per run. The children learn many valuable skills (from listening for the cues/call to the stage, leaving the dressing room tidy for the other team, waiting in silence in the wings, to applying stage make-up) and have a brilliant time in the process.

the SetSoon after the panto and its director were selected by the Committee, initial ideas for

the set were laid out in graphic form, and discussed by a sub committee representing the set designers, construction team and sound and lighting specialists. It was decided that, as opposed to previous years, the colouring of the set would reflect a greater use of pastel colours; this in turn would enhance the choice of colours to be adopted for the costumes. The lighting options would highlight the total effect.

The stage layout obviously formed a major consideration in the location of scenery, and the best use of available lighting. The latter of these considerations was dealt with by SADS’ consultants on lighting who are fortunate enough to have available at the theatre a full range of lighting options, helped by a recent upgrade of facilities in the provision of a new, over auditorium, lighting bar. The stage at the theatre offers a wide option of bars for the suspension of lights as well as curtains, cloths and gauzes. In fact about ten bars were brought into use during the production. These included SADS’ starcloth, two full width cloths, double silvers, a black gauze and main curtains. All of these were put to good effect in creating the correct atmosphere and facility for scene changes.

In previous years we have adopted the use 12’ 0’’ high flats to create the correct scene, these being in four sets of three or four flats stacked in a racking system and slid in and out for scene changes, as is widely used in amateur productions. The design this year called for the flats to be mounted on four trucks in a triangular formation. This provided for all scene options allowing a fast and quiet transformation during blackouts. The use of these trucks meant that consideration had to be given by the Director to the stage access by the cast in setting out movements. This could only be done once on stage rehearsals had begun.

The set called for a shop exterior and interior in adjacent scenes and we achieved this by using a castor mounted truck allowing rotation through 180 degrees. Subsequent scenes called for a ship’s hull in dock, and later the ship’s deck complete with ships wheel and 12’ 0’’ high mast. During a most dramatic storm with thunder and lightening, the ship was demasted but lived to provide for further performances. The storm scene was created by use of moving projection onto the cyc wall with realistic sound effects. After all, we are based in a wonderful part of the Devon coastline, and understand the sea.

Our painters achieved some very dramatic effects and a sense of reality. In particular, the scene depicting the royal palace of the Sultan of Morocco gave a dazzling backdrop to so many colourful costumes. The use of scrap lighting foils on the flats provided some wonderful stained glass effects.

In addition to the full use of fixed facilities of the stage and very colourful costumes, set painting and lighting, we were able to enjoy the use of pyrotechnics, a smoke

machine and bubble producing machines to provide a memorable underwater scene.A minimum of six crew (including the stage manager) is required to run this show.

Many willing assistants of mixed age and gender all helped make the various scene changes as slick and as quiet as possible. To make something like this work well requires good team work, and the confidence that you can trust everyone on that team to do exactly what was required, when it was required, quickly and efficiently. It is therefore vitally important that the crew are all involved from the start of rehearsals onwards so that they have a good understanding of exactly what is involved. Regular meetings with the Director are essential, as things have a habit of changing as rehearsals progress. Although this new set design was a challenge for the team this year, everyone worked hard to ensure its success.

COStumeSThis pantomime called for a variety of costumes in scenes that started in London

and moved, via a shipwreck, to the colourful Moroccan court with harem dancers, and ended in a black, white and silver finale. The wardrobe team was able to source a large number of costumes from the Society’s wardrobe, and then hire some from Bath Theatrical Costume in Frome. Of course, there are always those costumes that need to be made – this year they included two special dame’s dresses and the outfit for King Rat. King Rat’s outfit was in the Georgian style and made from dark grey fur fabric and velvet – it worked well, and the actor who wore it was delighted. The children from our Youth Group played the parts of the rats, and the director chose their make up design which enhanced their costumes.

publiCitY As soon as we had chosen a pantomime and director, the publicity team swung into

action. Tickets were ordered and an advert placed in the theatre’s What’s On guide at the beginning of August. Publicity activity included the display of colourful posters, features and advertisements in the local press, flyers in shops, guest houses and hotels, information sent to TICs, schools, clubs and societies and display boards in the local library and theatre foyer. Even the hotel fire gave us additional publicity.

COnCluSiOnDick Whittington and his Cat has been a great success for SADS, and enjoyed by all

involved. Audience reaction throughout the 11 performances has been very positive. We were fortunate in having near full houses for each performance, and the panto should prove to be a box office success.

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