How it all happens

As all the cast and crew are having a well earned day off today we wont have a cast/crew member blog post but you might like to know something about how the whole process of putting on a panto happens.
Work begins on the show from the moment that the curtain goes down on the previous years show and keeps going right until the curtain goes down on the final show.
When the title is decided then the months of planning start and the creative team is assembled. Every year the creative team is made up of a mixture of those who have worked on the previous show, or other shows with us in the past and some new faces too. With the creative team in place then our scriptwriter starts his work in consultation with the director and the casting starts. Like our creative team our cast this year is also made up of familiar faces and new additions to the team. Some of our team have literally worked their way up through the ranks in panto having started out in the junior chorus, moved on to one of our teenage roles and then into the ensemble and this year will be appearing in lead roles.
One of the biggest audition days for the panto is the Sunday in October that we audition for our junior chorus and teenagers and some of the best moments happen on that day. We will be featuring some of our juniors here on the blog over the next few weeks and we may even have some video snippets for you. This year we auditioned in excess of 100 children and teens, some as young as 4 years old as well as auditioning for our ensemble, all in one day!
Our Junior chorus rehearse every sunday from the middle of October until the dress rehearsals and they are already looking and sounding fantastic. Their numbers are certainly going to be showstoppers!

The last few weeks before our first script read through really keep all the creative team busy, getting the plans together for the whole look of the show with set designs and costume designs, finalising the script, and picking all the music for the show so that when  the whole team meets up together everyone can have a picture of what the final show will look like. We had our script read through with all our cast and creative team present last Saturday and even from that alone it was very clear that we have the best show ever this year.

Our principal cast and ensemble rehearse for 8 hours a day 6 days a week, they started last sunday and will keep going until we open on December 8th. If they are not involved in the scene that is being rehearsed they are learning choreography or music. Our two red riding hoods, Faye and Molly, also have to stay on top of their school work and use the time between scenes to work on their homework. Faye always has her knitting with her too (as seen on our facebook at twitter pages yesterday).
Sometimes though there can be a little bit of mischief going on and if you leave a phone lying around some of the cast might just take some photographs of themselves with it. They might think twice before doing this again when they realise that these photos will end up on the blog ;-)

Having fun at rehearsals

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Our show opens in the Everyman Palace Cork on December 8th and runs until January 6th tickets can be booked here