In search of Peter Pan...

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My blog this week is not strictly about a Yew Tree thing as this week I want to write about Peter Pan, a production I’m directing for the West Yorkshire Theatre Dance School. Now I’m saying it’s not strictly a Yew Tree thing but I wrote and am directing it and Danny and Mikey are in it, as are a host of the Orange and Sapphire Company and Alice is stage managing it and Oz is sorting out all things technical so in fact there’s a whole lot of Yew Tree about it…so enough of the justifying, time to make my point. The production is to be performed on the 14th and 15th of October and it’s on a grand, grand scale…there are more than 50 performers in it, there is a whole heap of set and costumes to source/make/gather and for a lot of the actors i.e. the ones that don’t come to Yew Tree this is the most acting they’ve ever had to do…add to that trying to make a cohesive show out of more than 20 dance number that need to be integrated into the play bit of it and essentially what you get is the fact that we’ve all taken on something much bigger than we realised we were taking on at the start of the process. The result has been lots and lots of hours of sometimes seemingly futile rehearsals going over and over the same things with an awareness that other bits are getting sorely neglected as you do this. However the thing that I wanted to tell you about and the reason I’m including it in this blog is because on Saturday afternoon the fruits of the hard work really started to show themselves. We ran the first act and all sorts of brilliant things started to happen. Characters started to emerge much more strongly than before, faces started to light up and look entirely engaged, transitions became smoother, the narrative started to emerge in a stronger defined way…it was a delight to behold…now it’s not there yet…there is still a long way to go but we have a fortnight to do it in…but on Saturday I got that tingly feeling directors get when they can see the performance it has the potential to become and I wanted to share it with someone so I chose you… P.S. If you’re at a lose end in the middle of October come…Danny and Mikey’s performances are worth the ticket price alone…

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