Evaluation of the performance and the potential of the work in professional terms:

We treated our production of Cinderella much the same as any professional piece of theatre would be treated. As we were performing to schools and the general public as well as family and friends we wanted to give ourselves a good reputation and show we were just as professional as any professional theatre company.

As we wished to work in professional terms in meant that we had no talking off stage or in the wings and we were overall quite good at remaining silent.  

We remained in character throughout, never breaking character when something happened. Such as the Thursday matinee when the children were shouting out remarks. It would have been unprofessional to have broken character despite the loud and distracting comments being shouted. This rule of remaining in character also meant staying in character until you are out of sight of the audience, not just when you are off the stage because if someone has broken character before they are out of the audience’s sight it would’ve broken the illusion of the world of Merrivale we had worked to create.

In any professional stage show it is necessary to work through any issues that you may face on stage. This applied to us on our evening performance on Friday 13^th when Act 2 opened and only four girls were on stage, due to a mistake of not getting our call during the interval. It would have been simple for no one to have joined the four girls on stage to avoid the awkwardness of walking on stage during the song, but it would not have been fair to the girls. More importantly we were treating our show as professional and so that meant we needed to fix it in any way we could. I took the initiative and walked onto stage while singing along to take my position and join in with the dance. All the girls got onto the stage and we did our best to make up for the slight mishap at the start. The decision to walk on rather than run on in a panic allowed us to keep it looking professional despite the fact that it was clear that something was missing at the start. The boys didn’t come on for the dance as they hadn’t been able to make the decision of whether to take the initiative to come on regardless of our late entrance. Unfortunately in a situation like this I found that you don’t put much thought into what you’re going to do, I didn’t. Having been in a similar situation in rehearsals meant that I was able to remain level-headed and come onto the stage to help the four girls who had been left to open Act 2 on their own.

Elements within our show that were particularly strong were our dance numbers. A great deal of time had been spent on perfecting the choreography so that everyone knew the dances inside and out. As we had spent so much time rehearsing the dances it meant that we were able to tighten up the moves and so that when performed all moves were solid and strong and the audience would clap along in support. I think the finale dance was the most successful as it was very upbeat and energetic and got the audience clapping along and dancing in their seats. Despite starting off quite weakly in rehearsals the chorus had come together to make a strong unit. All reactions were large and over-exaggerated and we had no difficulty in giving the show energy. The comedy moments worked effectively and the audience were always responsive in offering a laugh at the jokes. The dance Cinderella teaches Buttons in Act 1, Scene 2 was received really well by both the child and adult audiences as they laughed at the faces being made by Buttons. The Fairy Godfather’s dog was also loved by all audiences, as people love it when a live animal makes an appearance and will spend ages cooing over it.

Despite always bringing energy to each show there were still moments where the pace would slow or the energy would falter slightly and so we would have to work to fix this. This was generally a result of having a quiet audience but if we were doing this professionally and not with college we would be expected to put the same energy into all shows. Despite not doing a professional show we always worked to bring up the energy and pace if it had been noted that we’d become complacent. The further into the run we got the quicker it would take for the energy to drop as we had done the show so many times, but it got easier to notice if we were losing energy and so we could correct it swiftly.

As our finale was one of the final things to be learnt it meant that there were a few people who were still struggling with lyrics and choreography during our performances. On our first show on Wednesday 11^th the finale was lacking as it was obvious that people didn’t know the lyrics or choreography. Half way through the song it would get quiet as half of the cast didn’t know lyrics and so you’d here murmuring and slurring on the lyrics not known. As we got further into the run there was improvement as people were getting more comfortable with the number. This shouldn’t have been an issue as it should have been on point by our final rehearsals. Although it wasn’t we had made a vast improvement as a company from our first performance of “You Can’t Stop the Beat” compared to our final one on the Saturday evening. The slurring of lyrics had gone and so we were able to all sing out loud and clear and the feeling of knowing we pulled it off for the final show was brilliant. 

 

I found that ad-libbing didn’t always achieve its intended response. In the Fairy Godfather scenes Tom would ad-lib lines to help create his wacky, “camp” character, it was quite effective in getting positive audience responses. This wasn’t necessarily the case amongst some of the cast. In Act 1, Scene 3 when the Fairy Godfather visits Buttons we attempted some ad-libbing between the Fairy Godfather and fairies but this only distracted Connor, and so was having a negative effect on his performance. The ad-libbing was a chance to create some business between the fairies but I found that it distracted from Buttons. What I learnt from this was that we needed to be more conscious of what we ad-libbed. We decided to keep ad-libbing to the scenes when the fairies are pretending to be trees and just make large gestures when Buttons is speaking to the Fairy Godfather.

On the whole I think the show was a success. As with any show we were still re-working things during the run to make the show as good as it could possibly be. We didn’t want to settle for average, we wanted it to exceed people’s expectations. Feedback we received suggested that we did. By our final performance on the Saturday evening we had put our all into every aspect of the show and improvements could be seen just between two shows. There is always room for improvement and so if we were to do it again we could take it up a notch and make everything even bigger, add tricks to the choreography or add harmonies to the songs. However we would still do it with the same enthusiasm and enjoyment as we did during our nine shows between the 11^th and 14^th, and this enthusiasm and enjoyment could be seen in the way in which we entered the stage and in every action we made.