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24/10/05: Press Release: Once Upon a Time
It’s the start of every fairy tale, but
what comes next? Remember when you were a child, the magic of those
imaginary worlds you conjured up at bedtime: the grand castles,
charming princes, beautiful maidens, slumbering damsels, temptingly
horrible wolves, adventurous boys, evil witches, terrifying giants
— and of course there was always a dark forest full of mystery.
In Sondheim’s eleventh musical, a gaggle
of the most familiar classic fairytale characters are sent off into
the woods in search of their hearts’ desires. But what they
find there isn’t everything you might expect.
With a generous dollop of commentary on the pains of growing up.
In these woods you’ll find the familiar faces of Cinderella,
Red Riding Hood, Jack, Rapunzel, two very charming Princes, a witch,
a dastardly wolf, and many others. They are joined by two original
characters, a childless baker and his Wife, and when all their paths
cross life gets very complicated indeed.
And if you’re expecting to be transported
into a sickly-sweet Disney world you might just be surprised. The
costumes are colourful and fantastical, the sets spectacular, the
singing sparkling, the music witty and moving, and the characters
absurd, joyous, frightening, silly, shocking, and magical. But nasty
things do happen in the woods and the show reintroduces the gloriously
gruesome aspects of the original Grimm fairytales. It’s a
family show – but possibly one for the older half of the family!
Be careful what you wish for! Only in Into the
Woods can you hear the red-caped girl with the loudest scream, be
wooed by the most glamorous of all princes, laugh at the idiot Jack
and his poor old cow, enjoy being sickened by the slavering wolf,
tremble before the terrible witch, climb the beanstalk, go to the
ball and discover the most beautiful maiden with sixty-foot hair
living in an inescapable tower!
So why not journey with well-known musical theatre
group Ghosts through this magical, musical roller-coaster of comedy,
fantasy and self-discovery as we propel you Into the Woods, to see,
to hear, to laugh, to fear, to cry, to worry, to smile, to frown,
and to see what the trouble is.
And they might just all live happily ever after... perhaps!
Into the Woods will be performed by Ghosts at
the Electric Theatre, Guildford, from 9th-12th November at 7.45pm
daily plus a Saturday matinee at 2.30pm. Tickets are £12.50,
with £11 concessions at some performances. Box office: 01483
444789. But hurry – this award-winning group tend to sell
out in advance, due to a reputation for high-class shows.
19/9/05: A New Jack Climbs
the Beanstalk
Recently, the “Into the Woods” cast
were one member down, when their Jack (of Beanstalk fame) found
that personal pressures – and a whole lot of travelling –
meant that he had to step down from the role.
What ensued was a massive trawl through the production
team’s list of suitable tenors, and finally the part was offered
to Andy Armitage. Andy joined Ghosts two years ago for “Saucy
Jack & The Space Vixens”, and has also done a couple of
shows with Godalming Theatre Group, most recently appearing in his
first principal role as Simon on “Jesus Christ Superstar”,
where he caught the eye of our production team.
Andy was delighted to take on this challenging
role, and the whole cast and crew were enthusiastic in their support
of the directors’ choice, and look forward to meeting him
when he starts rehearsals next week.
31/8/05: Director Learns How to Direct!
By Anne-Marie Davies,
co-Director.
Thanks to the bursary I received from Ghosts I
have just returned from an exciting week at the NODA Summer School
at Loughborough University, and what a week that was!
After checking in and unpacking we had a school
meeting (very scary – 250 people there) then went straight
to dinner (food was plentiful and excellent all week) and then to
our first class. After that, it was a hectic pace – early
breakfast, vocal and body warm-ups, morning and afternoon classes,
evening classes in other disciplines (hence my new-found interest
in jazz dancing), pyrotechnic displays, and so on.
I was on the “Directing a Musical”
course – and the tutor (professional actor/director Martyn
Knight) was excellent and a complete inspiration. The other 24 students
were all very nice people, and the course itself was entertaining.
I learned a lot, most importantly I learned that what I’ve
been doing is right and I don’t appear to have been doing
anything wrong (so far).
Other members of “Into the Woods”
who also went were Vanessa (“Performance – Ragtime”
course), Martin T (“Lighting”) and Maria (“Musical
Directors”). Personally I think Maria had the toughest time
of us all - never having wielded a baton before she conducted the
entire school in “Oliver” on the Wednesday night, and
on Saturday afternoon conducted principals and an orchestra playing
the same show. Meanwhile, Martin’s group did some fantastic
‘storytelling with lights’ on the last day, whilst Vanessa
was a soloist in a 25-minute condensed version of the musical “Ragtime”
– a truly wonderful piece of theatre, sadly unavailable to
most of us due to the colour of our skins…
Most of what I personally learned can be seen
when you all come to see “Into the Woods” (sorry, Rosie,
you’ll have to put up with my new-found enthusiasm for warm-up
games), but suffice to say the Ghosts bursary was well spent!
4/8/05: Fundraising Concert a Huge Success
For those of you who don’t already know
it, musical shows are incredibly expensive to stage, and we always
look to raise around £2,000 from all sorts of sources in order
to put on the very best show we can.
Last weekend, some of the ITW cast and crew got
together to put on a Sondheim concert in aid of the main show budget.
The concert was called “Sondheim…with Friends”,
and was a selection of well-known (and some not so well-known) Sondheim
songs, interspersed with a few by different composers to add a bit
of spice!
The exciting cast of Ben (Baker), Clare (Baker’s
Wife), Craig (Cinderella’s Prince), Elliott (Rapunzel’s
Prince), Penny (Witch), Pippa (Stepmother), Rosie (Director) and
Zilla (Cinderella) had been knocked into shape by MD Niall Bailey
and Director/Choreographer Polly King.
The show was well put together, with a storyline
of life and love linking the various songs together. Particular
highlights were “You Could Drive a Person Crazy” from
‘Company’, “Pretty Women” from ‘Sweeney
Todd, and “For Now” from ‘Avenue Q’. A touch
of ‘Into the Woods’ was heard with Ben’s rather
scary “Hello Little Girl”, and who could forget Penny’s
excellent “Making Love Alone” from ‘Saturday Night
Live’ – causing a few raised eyebrows from the blue
rinse brigade!
It was great to see the cast perform so well and
with such enthusiasm, and it was a good taster for the audience
for the main show – a large number of people immediately made
enquiries about tickets for November, and we can confirm that the
Box Office is now well and truly open!
A big WELL DONE to a hard-working and talented
bunch of people, in particular Niall and Polly for superb music
and direction – and a great choice of entertaining and unusual
songs. And thanks to the cast for all their help in raising a massive
chunk of the fund-raising budget.
23/3/05: Biographies and cast photos up
- see here
23/3/05: Amazon "thermometer"
See how much we're raising through the Amazon
link with our online high-tech "thermometer"... click
here
23/3/05: New discussion forums up
Unfortunately, the demise of the company which
hosted our previous discussion forums means we've had to find a
new one and start from scratch again - join in the discussion here
3/3/05: UPDATE to audition
schedule
22/2/05: Audition Schedule & Parking
Info
Click here to see the
latest audition schedule - who will be needed when.
There is also some new information on the auditions
page about parking at the audition.
19/1/05: Buy your Into the Woods CDs etc.
We've teamed up with Amazon to bring you all the
Into the Woods materials you could want. And even better, when you
click through the links here, you're helping
fund the show - Amazon pay us a percentage of any transaction.
19/1/05: Discussion Forum now open
Click
here to go to the Into the Woods discussion board - talk about
the show, talk about anything in fact.
17/1/05: Audition Pieces now available for download
Click here
to download them
13/1/05: Performance Dates
Performance dates will be 9th - 12th November
2005, at the Electric Theatre in Guildford. There will be a matinee
on the 12th also. Keep in touch with information and notification
of when tickets go on sale through our "Get
in Touch" section.
6/1/05: Expanded "About" section
With more information on Into the Woods, the roles,
the music and information about James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim.
See the about section for more details.
28/9/04 Audition Dates Announced
Open audition dates have been provisionally set
for 12th March 2005. If you would like to audition, we'd love to
see you. Please see the auditions page
for more information.
28/9/04 Into the Woods Website Goes Live
Developed by local web designer Tim
Hatton, the Into the Woods website will become an online source
of information about the Ghosts' production of "Into the Woods".
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