And the body hurts.
Protea Stage Production's production of Aladdin and his magic lantern had a very successful run of total 11 shows. After the last show we had the traditional after show party. I got home at three O'clock in the morning and got up again at seven to be back at the hall for the strike. For those who don't know, 'strike' in theatre has nothing to do with no-work-no-pay. It means hard work for no pay. It is when the set is broken down and taken back to the warehouse for storage.
I love offering my skills for theatre. Hard labor is not one of my skills. Unfortunately, it is something that must be done. It does not matter how many hours of sleep we had.
Enough about my pain. We had a great review in the local paper. The reviews from the judges are in. I have a copy of only one of the reviews, and will therefore only talk about this one. I will only comment about the parts where I had a role to play. For the rest, it is sufficient to say that the judge review was great. He loved the show. Now we will wait for Februarry '14 to see if we get any nominations for the annual SANCTA awards. Hold thumbs please!!
Even though I was involved with a lot of areas, let me start to talk about the parts of the review that talks about the music. That is where I played the greatest part (pun intended). Although many of the songs get mentions, it is more in the context of the acting and choreography. Not often that the music get any mention at all, so I will saviour the mentions we did get.
In short, he loved the music, especially, the African songs that opened act 1 and act 2. Woot!
He commented about Storm's performance as Aladdin and offer the opinion that she got the role more for her beautifull singing voice than her acting ability. I agree with him that Storm has a beautifull voice and sings really well in this show. She had some opera training and it paid off. I do not think that her acting abilities lacked at all. I see absolutely no problem with giving some importance to singing abilities when casting roles. I have suffered through many musicals where actors who can not sing two notes got a role because of their superior acting ability (Les Mis, the movie being a good example). Me, being a musician / songwriter myself might be a bit biased.
Shannon's vocal skills in the role of the pink genie also got a deserved mention. In this case her acting ability matched.
Ok, here is the most important part in the whole review. "The band was superb. The musical directors and musicians need a huge pat on the back. Any play with live music is better than a recording and I felt that this particular musical ensemble was definitely an asset." Thank you Mr Judge. I accept and agree with every word.
Later on: "The songs were brilliant choices and ones that the audience enjoyed singing along to." Thank you! The songs were Cameron's choice, and the sing-a-long was co-written by Cam and myself. It had every single audience member on their feet clapping and singing in every single show.
Ok. It is not much out of 5 pages of review, but I am happy with getting any mentions at all!
Once again, congratulations to Cameron for writing and directing this masterpiece.
Next time I will look at the other aspect where I was involved, including the social media marketing campaign.
