amdram.co.uk

• Oct 28th 2009 7:30 pm to Nov 7th 2009 7:30 pm

As Alain Boublil famously penned… ‘Why, God, Why?’

That is what I often ask myself as I wake in a cold sweat in the middle of the night now we are just 3 weeks away from opening night of the gritty, hilarious, emotional rollercoaster of a musical that is The Full Monty!

It all started during a final rehearsal for The Pirates of Penzance in October 2008…. The committee were huddled together in the bar as the cast were happily downing a few extra pints of grog to get into the piratical mood… then over came our Chairman to announce that we would be presenting The Full Monty as our autumn show in 2009.

Oh, how we laughed…

What a great show choice…. gritty production, a well known story, fabulous music, larger than life characters… yeah, but don’t the men have to strip naked at the end…?

Silence…

Now, maybe it was the extra grog that was to blame… but every man around the table that cold October night stood proud, stood strong… and said, as one… ‘we can cope with that’!

3 weeks to go and sleepless nights…

Lets go back 4 months….our spring 2009 production of Anything Goes was an artistic, if not financial, success. We were riding the crest of a wave with a buoyant atmosphere within the society with us all looking forward to the challenge of The Full Monty.

OK, so it is not a huge company production, many members decided to ‘give it a miss’ and bide their time to get involved in future shows we had planned such as Beauty & The Beast, 42nd Street and West Side Story.

But looking at the group of members sitting around the piano on that opening rehearsal it was clear this was going to be something special. The sound coming from a relatively small amount of people was enough to send tingles down your spine… these people were up for this show and were going to take it by the scruff of the neck and not let go.

Of course… nothing ever runs smoothly in amateur theatre and we are not immune from the problems that can so easily affect every society. We had people dropping out due to personal circumstances or work commitments, we had no black actor for the part of ‘Horse’ and we suffered personal loss within the society. But what we also had was one of the strongest casts we have put together in a long time. We had people falling over themselves to get hold of a ticket, we had interest from local press and media the likes of which we had not seen since we produced ‘Barnum’, we had a buzz around the show which was infectious.

By June we had a ‘Horse’, in fact we could have cast 4 ‘Horses’ such was the response to our advertising push to recruit a mature black actor who could move well and had a powerful singing voice. We imported our ‘Horse’ from Leeds (some 90 minutes drive from Darlington) and what a find!

When your cast gel magnificently it makes rehearsals a pleasure. Even those that go on till gone 11pm. You look forward to the next installment, your characters grow much quicker, the scenes zip by, the musical numbers seem to mean so much more. And so it has been throughout this production.

And then came the night…

Late September… we are setting the final routine…. ‘Let It Go’, 6 men, an empty stage, hundreds of women will be in the audience screaming for more… and we all know what is expected of us.

Now, it is hard enough to remember a dance routine at the best of times… but one that requires you to remove all your clothing… remember where to throw each item, how many beats you have to remove your tie, your shirt, your trousers… your boxers…. and, eventually, the red leather thong…

3 weeks to opening night…

If you want to grab yourself a piece of the action call the ticket hotline on 01325 244659 or visit www.darlingtonoperaticsociety.org.uk