7 Brides for 3 Brothers

Well, the 3 performances are behind us now and I hope that everyone attending enjoyed the shows. To say that I was a little concerned over the last two weeks before the show would be a slight understatement. Things weren't exactly going smoothly and we didn't get even one rehersal with all cast members present at the same time. The first time was the 1^st night, How scary is that?

The last rehersal was on the night before the 1^st night. A Thursday evening that I don'tthink I'll ever forget. Rehersal started and none of the radio mics were working correctly. Without the mics we couldn't hear lines and songs and almost everyone was forgetting them anyway. Even song words were being forgotten.

We had hired and all singing, all dancing spotlight to add special effects ( a Martin MAC 250). At £15 per day we didn't get sufficient time to program all the effects on the lighting computer earlier and Kames was doing his best to program itas we rehersed which meant several holdups to get it right.

Scenery moving was taking longer than it should and things were forgotten. It looked a bit strange on the Pub scene to have the park trees and bench still in place!!

Add into this equation the fact that 3 of the cast were missing and others were reading their parts and you can see why we all left the practice in a less than confidant mood. The general atmosphere was one of quiet disbelief. No one said very much but all left thinking to themselves "this is never going to work". The last rehersal before ashow has traditionally been poor,but nothing on the scale of this. I don't think I slept much that night.

We all turned up for the first Friday show telling ourselves "it'll all be alright on the night" but I don't think anyone actually believed it would be. There were too many things to rectify!

Andrew had set up the sound system and had found out what was wrong, and James had set up the lighting desk. James said to Andrew "there's a strange noise coming from the monitor". Andrew replied "It should be OK!". Within 5 minutes there was a loud bangfollowed by smoke and I pulled the maind lead from the monitor. We had a spare monitor, but a wire would not fit! Stuart was dispached to home to fetch another one, which fortunately worked. Phew!! And we had 20 minutes spare before curtain up.....

Andrew & James had found out what was wrong with the sound system and the mics were online again, Phew - again!!

7.30 arrived and the show started. Everything worked OK. Hardly any lines were forgotten and it went so smoothly that nobody could believe it. When the final curtain went down everyone admitted to the others their serious concerns after the last rehersal and nobody could believe how well it went.

Well that's show business, or so they say, and I thought you might like to learn of the trials a dn tribulations encountered and sheer panic we were going through. My thanks to all involved with the show and for pulling off tremendous performances which seemed against all the odds.

Choreography by The Dance Zone Academy. The Dance Zone Academy holds regular classes for all ages in the Longford area, please contact Sarah on 07969 033114 for further information.