2012 Christmas Show announced!

Yes, you read the title right. The Point Youth Theatre have a 2012 christmas show confirmed. Official. It's been adapted and written by Neil Duffield...... The Point Youth Theatre are proud to present The Snow Queen! 


'The Snow Queen plots to transform the world into a scene of dazzling white where everyone's hearts are as cold as ice. Aided by her henchman the menacing Jack Frost the Snow Queen tricks Kai into looking into her magic mirror where under her evil spell he swears to serve her forever.

Kia’s sister Gerda begins a quest to rescue him and thwart the witch's dreadful magic, traveling with the Goddess of Spring to save her brother and rescue the world from eternal winter, encountering evil trolls, magic goats, a band of robbers and a mysterious Wise Woman of the North. But will they be able to overcome the snow guards and save the world from a cold, cold fate?

A powerful and enchanting tale of good versus evil brought vividly to life by The Point Youth Theatre. With original songs this show reunites the creative team from last years sell out production of Peter Pan. The Snow Queen is adapted from Hans Christian Andersen's traditional story by Neil Duffield, writer of the Youth Theatre’s previous hits A Christmas Carol and The Jungle Book.

Performances: 19th - 24th Dec 2012'

The Making of Romeo & Juliet 3 - Fight!

For those of you who haven't seen the 3rd documentary video, here it is! Filmed and edited brilliantly by James Henderson.

And please note, no actors were harmed or hurt in anyway during this film!

Little White Bird Photo's

Taken from rehearsals and the performance :-)

Jungle Book Photos - Itchen & Marwell

Here are some photos taken from the Jungle Book, at Itchen Valley and Marwell Zoo. First ones up are Itchen Valley!

 

And now Marwell ones:

Anyone there?

Hello? 
Okay, so it's been a loooong time since there's been a blog update from the PYT apologies for that! To keep the blog updated more, Dan and Louise have kindly handed over the responsibility to me (Claudia Hodgson) - one of the PYT members. My ambition is to keep you all updated weekly about what's happening in rehearsals and etc.  


So here's a quick look back on what has happened since then and what's to come. Last time we posted, we posted just before Jungle Book happened and it was a huge success at both Itchen Valley and Marwell. We (as in all cast members) are now waiting *patiently* for the CD soundtrack to purchase. We've had a few sneak previews of it randomly throughout rehearsals which brought back many happy memories. Good times indeed!


After Jungle Book of course, auditions and rehearsals for Peter Pan and Little White Bird began. I was very lucky enough to be involved with both shows, which I thoroughly enjoyed. 
Little White Bird, written and adapted by former PYT member Jonathan Knapp and was brilliantly directed by Louise with the assistance of Alana Sketcher. It was performed beautifully by members of the PYT following the story of David, a young boy who wants to be a little boy forever and doesn't want to grow up. However, once he hears about the story of Peter Pan - the boy who escaped to Kensington Gardens in order to stay a little boy - he changes his mind.
Our trip to Neverland took off after Little White Bird. Directed by Dan and assistant directed by PYT member Richard Gunston. We were also very lucky to have the Point Youth Dance in our show as well, where their incredible dancing talent featured in Neverland, choreographed by the wonderful Jilly! The other most exciting thing about Peter Pan (apart from the sparkly Neverland set and super catchy songs, thank you Carl, Saz and Ivan!) was the fact all 8 shows sold out before the run even began, amazing! As an ASM for the show, it was such a thrill to watch the show from the side of the stage every single night and be able to see the cast members enjoy the show as much the audience members. Pictures to follow soon of pictures from rehearsals/shows!


And NOW, we're into rehearsals for Romeo & Juliet which takes place at the Berry Theatre. This isn't just Romeo & Juliet though, it's Romeo & Juliet with a PYT twist ;-) It's all very exciting as we have a very short amount of time to rehearse, but already it's coming along very nicely. We have Take That and One Direction featuring in our show (of course, not literally, although that would be pretty cool!) As well as the actual show, we have James Henderson (PYT member) making weekly documentaries about the progress of rehearsals up until the show kicks off at the end of February. These will also be posted up on here too if you haven't seen them already.  


So as you can see, it has been crazy busy here but very productive and we are all very excited! I hope this first post from me has been interesting enough for you, if you haven't lost interest and you're reading this...then thank you! I promise my web journalism skills will improve in the near future :-) 


Keep coming back to check for updates. I've been updating the page with our Tweets and YouTube videos for easier access to them. More pictures and videos will be up soon, and you don't want to miss them!

We’re so very nearly there…

So we are now only a week away from the set get in at Itchen Valley Country Park, two weeks away from the technical fit up and precisely two and a half weeks until the technical rehearsals!  Safe to say this is why we haven’t updated our blog as much as we should have done as we have been quite busy trying to get everything ready in time (especially with the amount of props Dan has decided he wants as usual!).

Over the last month myself, Dan and Amy have been busy in the office as well as the rehearsal room (where the cast have been especially busy working hard preparing the show for their performances).  When it comes to our productions, as a youth theatre we rely very heavily on sponsorship and support from local companies and businesses in order for us to be able to afford to put our shows on.  For The Jungle Book, we are very fortunate that RBS Scaffold and Selwood are our production partners.  RBS also sponsored our Christmas show in 2010 and this summer they are building all our structures and technical towers at Itchen Valley Country Park for us!  Geoff from RBS has been incredibly helpful and from next Monday, he and his team will be coming onto site and building all sorts of wonderful structures for us – some for our lighting towers so we can light the scenes but also some for our set, so look out for monkeys clambering over things!  Selwood have also been fantastic, and they are providing us with generators and other plant equipment – things that are so crucial when we are working in an outdoor environment!  So we are so grateful for these two companies and also all the other businesses and organisations that are helping us.

As the DSM (deputy stage manager) for the production, my role in the rehearsal room is quite demanding but also very exciting and creative.  It is the DSM’s job to mark down all the blocking for the production in a copy of the script as well as keep rehearsal notes, so that everything that happens in the rehearsal room can be circulated to the rest of the creative team.  For instance, when Dan decides what props he would like for each character, or a particular piece of set that needs to be included in the scene, this is recorded in the rehearsal notes and is sent out to the creative team, which includes the designer, the musical director, the choreographer,  the stage management team and the technical team.  This way, they are all able to follow the directors’ vision for the production without being in the rehearsal room.  This makes the process smoother when they come to work directly on the piece, knowing what is expected on them.  We are also holding regular conversations and meetings with these members of the team as well so that we all know at what stage each department is at.  Last week, we had a production meeting to discuss all the technical requirements that lasted two and a half hours!  Clearly there were lots of items to discuss – including updates from our lighting designer Elliot about what equipment he needed us to order, how many radios we need to hire, logistics about when set pieces were being delivered and even a discussion about the hire of portable toilets! 

Another one of my roles as DSM, is to collate and record all the props that will be needed for the production, and then to collect and source them.  As much as possible, we are begging, stealing and borrowing what we can (not actual stealing obviously) and we are always blown away by people’s generosity so this is keeping me very busy to make sure that everything is in place as soon as possible.  We’re at one of my favourite stages of the production process now, at the point where everything is starting to come together and we can start to see the results of months of preparation and hard work.  Carl Davies our designer also comes down to start full time at the end of this week, so we’re really going to start to see things happen now and very quickly too.

I am currently writing this blog whilst in a rehearsal – and before you ask, no there is no other work for me to be doing.  Ivan Stott, our wonderful composer and MD (musical director) is teaching our cast one of the songs from Act 2.  This particular one is for Mowgli’s mother to sing to Mowgli after he has returned to the man village – and I would like to say it is beautiful.  The music Ivan has written is gorgeous and the cast have lovely voices – I might be biased about this but I am really excited about this production, possibly more so than I usually am, it is going to be a really wonderful experience for all involved.  I really can’t wait.

Louise Rickwood

Youth Theatre Coordinator

DSM – The Jungle Book

'Who knew ebay could be such fun?’

So it’s been a long while since my last update, but it has been pretty busy to say the least these last couple of weeks! What with rehearsals and sourcing props, materials and all of the other things we need to make a production like this work there’s been no time to/think about anything else but Jungle Book.

WE SOURCED A PROP ON EBAY THE OTHER DAY… and it was a very exciting moment. So one rehearsal our Youth Theatre ASM’s sat bidding on Daniels laptop for 2 hours to get a pair of old opera glasses for Chil the eagle to look down her nose through. I cannot even express the excitement in the room when we were down to the final couple of minutes, as the bidding was drawing to a close. The entire room was shouting the countdown from 10 and it was absolute madness. (Video to be uploaded later courtesy of our Cobra- Beth Folan who was recording the whole thing!) Alas, out first personal prop was found!!

Rehearsals are continuing to look fantastic, there is a lot of great character work happening especially in terms of making our actors look as animal-like as possible without having them all crawling around on the floor. It has been really interesting to find other ways of moving, and how to find animal movements in human beings. All of the scenes have some form of structure which is great, now comes the fun part of going through the play and adding much more detail.

Hugo our fight choreographer has come in a worked with everyone on the big fights in the play which was fantastic; the wolves in particular have been really great to watch in the fight sequences as they have sticks as an extension of their legs to help with movement, what Hugo and Dan have created looks absolutely great and I cant wait to see it in situ at Itchen Valley Country Park.

It is really interesting for me having been a part of the youth theatre since I was 15 which is four years now! I’ve gone from being in the shows every year to being trusted to DSM our Christmas show last year to now assistant directing! It is an incredible opportunity and although I have found this particular transition a challenge I will rise to it and make the most of it.

Sourcing everything we need is taking a while; I never knew how much went in to pulling a production as big as this off! Especially as it is a promenade production and it is outside, so generators, extra lighting, dressing rooms, office space and all the set and props need to be found, and this is not a small job, Louise, Youth Theatre Co-ordinator and Jungle Book’s DSM is working tirelessly to secure all of these.

So Jungle Book is definitely going – its well on its way and everything is looking amazing. Everything is so excited as we draw closer to the production itself and there is still lots to do!

Amy Pattison

Assistant Director