Summer Production - some pics!

OK, so this is slightly later than anticipated, but here are a few photographs that I took of some of the children involved in the Summer Production at B.A.D.S. last month. I have also included a photo of the ark we made for the Noah play, along with the rainbow that appeared at the end of the play and the tree stump that Noah sat on.

All the plays that were performed on the two nights were so well done by all the children and we were really proud of them all. Each time we start rehearsing for a junior or youth section play, we wonder how on earth it will ever be ready to show to their parents, but somehow it always seems to happen. Children who we thought weren't listening to us at the last rehearsals before the night suddenly do everything you asked and more besides - the younger members perhaps impressed us more this year than ever before, simply because there were no prompts required from any of them, which is quite an achievement for them. We did tell them that one of our aims at Bilton is to never have a prompt, but fully expected to give one or two out on the night due to nerves or lack of concentration. However, it would appear that we are actually having some influence on them, which is so rewarding and fuels our passion for passing on our skills even more. I think one of the best things about watching the children (whatever their age) perform is to see the joy on their faces at the end of the night, when everything has worked and they receive the applause they rightfully deserve.Considering the fact that we were several animals short with only a couple of weeks to spare, we are immensely grateful to Mr Jowett from Preston Primary School, since he helped us fill those places by sending along some keen members of his drama club - they all performed really well and we look forward to their return in September.

Mrs Noah with the girls in the family

The three "boys" (even though one of them is a girl in real life!) of Noah's family.

Noah, Mrs Noah, Rebecca, Japheth, Shem, Ruth, Rachel & Ham.

The animals as they walked to their entrance with me.

Waiting to make their entrance via the auditorium!

This animal also made a convincing God - see next pic!

God - complete with obligatory white beard!

The final scene when the rainbow appears as if by magic!

Youth members backstage waiting for their turn in "Panto Question Time"

"A trio of lovely girls" from the Youth Section - backstage ready for "Emporium 2".

Unfortunately, these are the only photos we managed to take - we didn't have time to take any during the performances as we were both tied up backstage.

The first night was a huge success. We invited some of our patrons to support the younger members and was happy to see that a fair few of them came along. To the delight of the audience (with the exception of one or two of the junior members who happened to be sitting on the front row at the time) a chair that is pushed to the floor during the course of the action in "Last Tango in Little Grimley" ended up rolling off the stage and onto the auditorium. This rendered the remaining cast speechless, the audience were screaming with laughter and the cast members were trying desperately to finish the scene without laughing.There then followed a moment of absolute farce when one cast member (during the scene change which was done in blackout) retrieved the chair from the audience, and another cast member came on looking for it without realising that it had been taken into the wings! Thankfully, nobody was hurt and the 4-strong team continued to the end of the play without losing control of their emotions. Credit to them all - it was a difficult play and they certainly did it justice.

I am pleased to report that our N.O.D.A (National Operatic & Dramatic Association) representative managed to watch the plays on the second evening and I spoke to him at the end of the night. He was impressed with them all, even if he wasn't too keen on one of the Youth Section plays (he's at least honest, which I like) and he seemed most impressed with the junior section's production of Noah.

Our next task is to source material for the Hornsea Speech & Drama Festival -this takes place in November each year and all our members take part in various classes to try and win trophies, but mainly for the experience of being adjudicated by a professional drama practitioner. We start rehearsing for this as soon as we meet again in September, so not much time now for us to get enough material prepared - we haven't yet received the syllabus either!!!

Masks completed.

I've finally completed painting the masks that will act as the 2nd animal for the children who are playing them in the production of Noah's Ark  this coming weekend at Bilton Amateur Dramatic Society. Each child will be dressed in a face/head mask and will also carry their 2nd animal on these sticks we have attached to the masks.

Before they get wrecked (as tends to happen when children and props are put together!) I thought I'd take some photos of them to show you.

I shouldn't really have to explain what animals they all are, so I will leave that up to you:

You're Nicked

We have just held our auditions for the next play to be performed by the Junior members of Bilton Amateur Dramatic Society and it is with great pride that we are to stage a play originally written for the drama club of a local primary school. One of the adult members of BADS, Andy Jowett (or Mr J as he is affectionately known), is also a teacher at Preston Primary School and he often writes plays for the children to perform. He runs the drama club, so he also gets to direct the plays he has written.

If you click on the title of this post, you will be directed to the blog of Preston Primary School and there you will find many comments relating to the school's production of "You're Nicked".

The play has a large cast, originally with 30 named parts, but we have had to double up some of the parts and cut out a few in order to be able to cast it from within our existing membership of 18. Fortunately, Mr J was quite happy for us to edit his original script in order to make it fit our requirements. The other very fortunate element in using a "home-grown" script is that we have no royalties to pay either! These can often be very expensive for a small society such as ours, so it's really helpful.

We saw the original version of this play at the school, so we know how good it is. Even with some editing, I'm sure our production will be just as enjoyable. We may even invite the original cast members to come along to see it, just to get their reaction!

This play will be performed in July, probably on two separate evenings and on the same night as the performances from the Youth Section.

The laborious process of blocking for all these plays is now in place - it takes a long time to plan all the moves of each actor/actress in order to ensure the play itself runs smoothly and to prevent any awkward positioning or stumbles during the performances. Our study has been a whirr of printing recently, with 21 copies of the play being produced for the Juniors, plus several master copies for us as directors. July seems a long way off, but with only 1 rehearsal a week, this is no mean feat, especially when not all the children will be committed to attending every single rehearsal!!!

Next Monday we will be telling the children what parts they have got and giving them their scripts - hopefully to be looked after but, children being children, no doubt several will be forgotten, eaten, sat on, left in a classroom at school or a combination of all those!

I know that some children will be elated, others disapointed with their allocated parts, but we utilise the same code of conduct in the Junior & Youth section that we do in the adult section at BADS. New members simply do not get large parts in plays. Without previous knowledge of anyone's ability to learn lines, act, or even be reliable to turn up on time to rehearsals every week, we do not take a chance and use our most reliable members for the larger roles. This has always worked and it ensures we produce a professional play each time.

Reactions from the younger members may be posted here next week!