Behind The Scenes : Cinderella by Eleanor While, Assistant Director

The company have been working hard to discover the magic in the storytelling of Cinderella. Key moments in the story such as the arrival of the beautiful glass slippers and the creation of the carriage that will take Cinderella to the ball have been explored in the rehearsal room to create the most enchanting way for the rats to help Cinderella on her journey.

The actors were given the opportunity to explore the theatre for one day of rehearsals this week. There is an extra challenge and excitement for them with this set as there is a ladder and a slide pole for them to use to travel around the space.

The company have also been working on the final song for the show which is all about fitting in and things that go together. For example…Daddy and Mum, chewing and gum, beans and toast, Pat and post. Maybe you could have a go at making up your own lyrics by thinking of some of your favourite things that go together?!

Behind The Scenes : Cinderella, by Eleanor While, Assistant Director

We had a fantastic day of rehearsals today with lots of laughter and singing and puppets... made out of rubbish! You see this is a production of Cinderella with a twist, instead of a wave of a magic wand sending Cinderella to the ball, she is befriended by a group of vermin- Tails, Ears, Claws, Teeth and Whiskers, the gang of rats that live in her kitchen. As well as five of the actors in the show playing these rats we are also using puppets. These puppets are made out of stuff that you might find in a kitchen, a spatula, an egg-box, a colander to name a few and it is magical to see how they come together and are brought to life when they are manipulated by the actors. You see, this is a theme that runs throughout the play, that with a bit of imagination you can make an awful lot out of nothing! One of the songs that the rats sing explain this to Cinderella...

We’re having to make something out of nothing
‘Cos nothing is the only thing we’ve got.
You can’t do much with a little bit of something,
But when it comes to nothing we’ve got an awful lot of zero and nowt,
But we can still dress up pretend to go out!.......

And to hear the rest of the song you’ll have to come and watch the show and maybe you could sing along.

Behind the Scenes : Cinderella by Eleanor While, Assistant Director

Welcome to this exclusive insider’s view into the Cinderella rehearsal room. This year Christmas in the Courtyard Theatre at The West Yorkshire Playhouse is going to be even bigger and better. With Gail McIntyre Directing a fantastic new play by Mike Kenney, designed by Barney George, with original music created by Ivan Stott all brought to life by six extremely talented actors, we’re set to laugh and dance and sing our way to Christmas and into the new year. The company have been working very hard to find the most exciting, engaging, and original way to tell this classic tale. Gail has been working with the company to create a strong ensemble of actors who are playing, sharing and inspiring each other to discover the most invigorating way to tell this story.

The fabulous songs that will be part of the show are accompanied by so many instruments that I have lost count. Maybe that could be a challenge for anyone coming to see the show!... Can you keep track of how many instruments are played? And of course, if there is music, there has to be dancing. Cinderella loves to dance so Sophie McSheera, the actress playing Cinderella , is practicing her Waltzing and Ceroc every day.

Behind The Scenes by Assistant Director Lisa Blair : The Secret Garden

01.12.09

We rehearsed during the daytime, continuing to adjust and fix various technical aspects, be that lighting or sound and musical notes too. It is such a valuable activity to do during the preview week because this Friday, it is ‘technical lockdown’. This means we won’t be able to change any technical aspects after this date… A scary thing to do!!

Tonight was a very special evening. We had our community network come and see the show which is an event that is really important to WYP. The feedback from the audience was really positive; with many joining in on the songs and getting really involved with the story.

Behind The Scenes by Assistant Director Lisa Blair : The Secret Garden

Tonight we had the first preview performance of The Secret Garden and it went fantastically well!

Before the performance in the evening, we had a dress rehearsal on stage. This was really important for the actors and the technical staff because they wanted to make sure that everything was running smoothly. It was important that we checked that all the lights were working and most importantly, that the cues we had arranged were in the right places! Once the dress rehearsal was completed, all involved felt very confident that we were able to deliver a great performance that evening… And we did!

The actors were very excited about performing to an audience for the first time and despite all the nerves (!), they did a great job. The children in the audience were sitting on the edge of their seats throughout the whole performance – and lots of them were copying the dancing moves that happen in the songs.

We were all very happy that we got brilliant feedback from people of all ages (Mum’s and Dad’s included!) – and we are looking forward to the really long run ahead of us… Until 23^rd January 2010!!

Photos From Tech Rehearsal Before Opening Night

A few More Rehearsal Photos taken by Lisa Blair. The Secret Garden is now showing and the rehearsals are truly over. Click here to book tickets now -

https://www.wyp.purchase-tickets-online.co.uk/public/show_events_list.asp

Behind The Scenes Of The Secret Garden Extract From Lisa Blair Assistant Director 'The Secret Garden'

25.11.09

It's the third day of the technical rehearsals and everything has been going really well. We have been working fantastically well together and it is making the process a very enjoyable experience!
A lot of the garden scenes in the second half of the play have been worked on and they are looking utterly magical. The lighting designer has been using lots of colours and even templates (trees, leaves, patterns etc) to create a very special secret garden.

The actors are having a brilliant time on stage and are getting used to the two different revolve mechanisms that make up the stage. These revolves are fantastically imaginative and have allowed the whole company to work in wonderfully new and exciting ways. We are really making sure that the revolve moves are timed perfectly so that the scenes can flow easily into one another – just like the four seasons we have in the play.

On the musical side of things, the sound is being perfected by the fantastic sound department – all the actors are wearing radio mics which means that they can be heard really easily throughout the whole of the auditorium. It also means that their singing is heard crystal clear too. Steve Ridley, the Music Director is looking forward to tomorrow (along with everyone else!), because the orchestra/band are in rehearsals. This will be super exciting because it will be the second time that the actors have rehearsed their songs with the band and it will be the first time that they have rehearsed on stage, with the musicians and the light… So, it will certainly be a big day!!

Behind The Scenes Of The Secret Garden Extract From Lisa Blair Assistant Director 'The Secret Garden'

Today was a really great day! Mervyn, the puppeteer, was in rehearsals to ensure that the ensemble was performing well with their puppets (especially the Robin who is very important in The Secret Garden!). He made sure that they were moving the puppets in the right way, and even making the right sound. He is very hands on and it was fascinating to watch how he works. He gave a lot of really useful notes to the ensemble and they immediately put it all into practise. Mervyn thinks that it is very important that there is a connection between the actor operating the puppet and the puppet itself. A lot of the energy and focus of the actor goes to the animal puppet so that the audience’s attention is drawn only to the puppet. It is a very interesting process and one that works with brilliant success. The ensemble are doing a great job and are practising really hard… With fantastic results!!

Image Gallery : Behind the Scenes of The Secret Garden Extract from Lisa Blair Assistant Director ‘The Secret Garden’

Control desk 'The Secret Garden'














The Lighting rig having a great effect on the beautiful set.














Tech Rehersals - close to the finished performance.














Wide shot of the stage, Tech Rehersals.

Pictures from The Costume Department Busily Working to get ready for Secret Garden and Cinderella

The stage is set the rehersals are going on - but the as the work has just begun for the production team and actors our very own costume department is still beavering away producing the beautiful costumes that will grace the stage. Here are some images of them hard at work!



























Busily cutting - a real production line going on!



























Some finished costumes racked and ready to go.














Tools of the trade - a compendium of zips, buttons and material of every size. Realism is key.

Adapting a Classic For WYP : An Interview With Garry Lyons

Garry Lyons, who adapted The Secret Garden especially for West Yorkshire Playhouse, talks to Stuart Leeks about Frances Hodgson Burnett, the themes of the Classic Novel, and the process of adapting it for the stage.

STUART LEEKS: Frances Hodgson Burnett was ahead of her time. I wonder how far we can go in thinking about her as a 'green' writer? The healing power of nature to help the humans, and the importance of taking care of the natural world are good ideas aren't they?

GARRY LYONS:

I think we can say that she was an environmentalist before that word was even invented. One of the things that draws me to The Secret Garden is the fact that Mary grows up in India. Gardens as we know them started in Persia, and this was imported to Europe from there.

I love the way in which the book appears to pick up on that. In the very first chapter we find Mary trying to plant a garden in the heat of India. There's a theme there of the East and Eastern thinking. A world that's very different to the industrial North of England, or the North East of the United States that Frances knew.

STUART LEEKS:

The Secret Garden is one of those books that I think children and adults and particularly parents appreciate in different ways. Parents that aren’t there are strong parts of the story and the differences between the coldness of Misselthwaite Manor and the warmth of the Sowerby household are brought into the spotlight. This big empty house with a hundred rooms most of which are shut up, and this tiny cottage with a dozen children rampaging about it. But even in the cottage, there's no mention of a father. It’

s an environment where mothers are the parents. And in the end it's the children who redeem the adults.

GARRY LYONS:

Yes, and it's also the poorer classes who make their masters look good. The whole of the Sowerby family are a force of nature. They embody in human terms what the garden does in natural terms. They bring the spirit of the moor into this great house which is in the vice-like grip of a curse. It's the Sowerby family who release the house, but it takes Mary's arrival to allow their power to come into play. And that's the radical part of the story I think. This obnoxious little girl turns out to be the saviour of them all. As I've worked on the adaptation I've found that there's a tension between two genres in the book. I think you have to embrace the idea that a magical force is at work that is released by the children, and you have to take that at face value.

STUART LEEKS:

One final thing. Are you worried that the lives of the children portrayed in The Secret Garden might seem very remote from those of an audience coming to the play today, whether it's because of the distance in time, or whether it's because of their class or background? Or do you think that for most children those things just don't occur because they enter imaginatively into the world of the story?

GARY LYONS:

It's one of the reasons Ian and I took a while to decide that we would do it. Ultimately, I think the story transcends those considerations because it's about displaced children, and that's something anyone can relate to. The fact that Mary Lennox is so cantankerous when we first meet her makes her so real and individual that she isn't just a product of her class. Yes, she's very dislikeable, but we eventually find out why. Tragically, we're so used to stories of abuse and deprivation that we can understand the ways that Mary and Colin behave. they are emotionally deprived children.

I was talking to one of the Arts Development team at the Playhouse, who has been distributing the script to various people for comment, and one person said that he'd been brought up in care, and that The Secret Garden had been one of his favourite stories as a child simply because he identified so strongly with Colin. So I think that we can all relate to the underlying experiences of Mary and Colin.

Behind the Scenes of The Secret Garden Extract from Lisa Blair Assistant Director ‘The Secret Garden’

The Secret Garden has been a truly exciting rehearsal process! I feel very lucky to have worked on this brand new British musical at West Yorkshire Playhouse. It has definitely been the highlight of my year!

Rehearsals have been going really well. The actors work fantastically as an ensemble and they all share in telling the story of The Secret Garden. It is a brilliant book and the playwright, Garry Lyons and the composer, Tim Sutton, have brought it to life.

I am sure that when people have seen the musical, they won't be able to help but sing lots of songs they have heard! I definitely have a few favourites. I think people should watch out for 'Little Laura' - the skipping song and 'Cabbages'. They are definately my favourites!

We have been rehearsing for approximately four weeks now - and we will go into 'tech week' on Monday 23rd November 2009. During 'tech week' we will be making sure that all the 'blocking' (entrances and exits and where actors stand on stage) we have done in rehersals works well on the actual set.

We will also be creating the lighting for the show and adding the sound effects. This week involves alot of hard work from everyone involved. Not many people will be getting much sleep next week!

I really hope that everyone enjoys this magical show as much as I have enjoyed working on it!

Secret Garden Actors Launch Marks and Spencer's Penny Bazaar

Secret Graden Actors Giles Taylor and Josie Walker launched Marks and Spencer's Penny Bazaar on Friday 13th November. Cutting the Ribbon on a wet evening the crowds that had gathered were not dampened by a great atmosphere.