BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
The entire experience of putting on Beauty and the Beast has been an absolute pleasure. From the audition process to the rehearsals to the staff team’s meetings, everyone has been calm, happy and excited throughout the process. Key to this is Mr Gifford’s relentlessly relaxed approach. Don’t be fooled: relaxed in his manner; underneath this he is highly organised, extremely well prepared and has had a clear, unfaltering vision for this production that made it easy to work alongside him because he was always very certain about what he wanted Beauty and the Beast to look and sound like. Decisions were made quickly every time and our amazing team of staff were then able to go off and organise their various responsibilities.
In Dance, Miss Richards led on Choreography, setting some really inspired routines to the songs, which included some especially complex ones such as “Belle”, “Be Our Guest” and the “Mob Song”. As you might expect, she set choreography which was ambitious and which would make the very best use of the talents within the cast. This is the first show that Miss Richards has solely choreographed at Matravers and she made a very strong impression.
Mrs Phillips was our Musical Director and she worked countless hours, both with individual singers and also with the whole cast to ensure that she got the very best out of everyone. Squeezing every hour out of the day, Mrs Phillips has been in school for lunch time rehearsals, after school rehearsals, whole cast singing rehearsals, band rehearsals and individual solo rehearsals. Her belief in our students and insistence on perfection is a huge reason for the success of our school productions.
Mrs Byrne has had the huge job of creating and compiling a long list of set and prop requirements. She also takes on costume, hair and makeup. She has the expertise and the resources to make all of this happen. However, one of this things that is always truly amazing is the dedication of Mrs Byrne’s team. Headed up by committed sixth formers Millie Brisden, Charlotte Taylor and Maddie Smith, a 10-strong group of future set designers began work on the ambitious items in June and Mrs Byrne is quite certain that she couldn’t have done it without them. How fantastic that we have plenty of budding designers here at Matravers as well as performing artists!
www.matravers.wilts.sch.uk
And then the cast themselves. What an outstanding bunch of actors they have been. Attendance at rehearsals has been exemplary. The main cast all knew their lines by June. The quality of acting from the lead roles has been an outstanding and inspiring example to the younger member of the cast who will no doubt be aspiring to lead roles over the next several years. They have big boots to fill.
5 performances, 8 months, 54 cast members, 60 crew members and 736 tickets sold. No one said that making a production was easy; but we do it because it is such a fabulous experience for all of us, staff and students alike. And what is gained for each of us involved is so worth the hard work. We hope those of you who came to see the show enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed making it happen!
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