Opening night! Any excitement around the theatre before was amplified even more today. More rehearsals, more costume fittings and more nerves!

Today was also press night, which means lots of members of the press come to see the show and they review it in their publications. (Check out this great review about last night in the Swindon Advertiser - http://bit.ly/bbj22y )

On press nights, the marketing department at the Wyvern like to dress up and as the following photographs show, this press night was no different!

The Circle Restaurant was transformed into the land of Oz…

The opening night was amazing last night, well done to everyone involved!

Heidi, our lovely cast member said, ”It was actually amazing! I dont think i have laughed so much in my life! the audiance last night was brilliant :)”

Day 12 was the very first dress rehearsal of Wizard of Oz so the Wyvern was buzzing with excitement as everyone wore their costumes for the first time. We took some sneaky photos from rhw rehearsal so you can see the really great costumes!

Day 10 was a very busy day at the Wyvern - it was tech rehearsal day! As well as the actors on stage rehearsing, the Tech team also need to know what cues they have and if all the lighting and set works properly. So it was a very busy and tiring day for our SYPers, but it will all be so worth it because the bits I saw of it look amazing!

Also, our Toto was in for rehearsals too! He loves having his photo taken…

Oh he’s so cute!

Day 9 saw the start of the second week of SYP rehearsals. Day 9 also saw the Flash Mob!

The day started with the Tech team going down to the square at Wharf Green to set up. The Marketing team also went down to the square and began walking around the town centre handing out lollipops to members of the public. Did you get one from us?

Then at around 12:45 the entire cast (with their green tshirts on!) made their way from the Wyvern Theatre through the town centre to the big screen. It was very amusing to see people’s faces as 200 young people walked past them singing!

The weather had been pretty rubbish up until this point, but as soon as they walked down through town the sun came out which was great - we were hoping to see a rainbow!

They made it to the square, got into position and burst into a rendition of ‘The Wicked Witch’. It was amazing to see, they were confident, loud and looked like they were having lots of fun!

Sunday:

Today only the Principals were called in for rehearsals. We started at 11am with a run through of the show.  Parts of the set were used to help the principals plot their movement around the stage.  Some alterations to the blocking were made to avoid collisions with set to make the show run as smoothly as possible.  We ran the show with very few stops finishing just after 1pm.  

Following the run, Cris (Choreographer) taught the principals the dance routine for ‘Ding Dong the Wicked Witch is Dead’ to prepare us for the Flash Mob Event at Wharf Green in the Town Centre on Monday afternoon. 

After all this there was a feeling of excitement for the week ahead.  The Flash Mob Event, Technical and Dress Rehearsals and 6 Performances.

We started this morning (as we do every morning!) with a short vocal warm up session, in the theatre, lead by our musical director Steve, ending with the whole cast singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow. We then start running the show numbers, starting with the Munchkin land song, which I am fairly sure is the kid’s favourite (as they get to sing with wonderful Munchkin accents!) and finishing with Merry Old Land of Oz.

The principals are taken up to the restaurant to run through the scenes, while the kids work with Steve and Chris, our choreographer, on the dances for each of the songs in the theatre.

After lunch the whole cast are called into the theatre for a full run of the whole show, which went rather smoothly…a few stumbles in places, but that’s to be expected!

A very tired cast sit down after the run to get feedback from Rodney, our director, after which the children are sent home to practice, practice, practice!

The principal and senior members of the cast are taken to Studio 1 to run through the numbers one last time before stumbling home to bed, looking forward to another busy day tomorrow!

Of course the backstage crew are working extremely hard aswell, like little theatre pixies, creating wonderful scenery, props, costumes…etc etc!

This is my final post for today - I hope you enjoyed my live feed of blogs.
I wouldn’t miss this one!

5:17 The well known ‘Jitterbug’ song is being sung right now! A young girl just done a gymnastic move (as you can see I’m using the ‘correct’ terminology)

5:20 Just seen a tree prop :)

5:23 ‘How could anyone be so mean?’ ‘Lots and LOTS of practise’

5:24 The guards keep coming on stage singing the ‘yoheho yoho’ They’re a bit scary!

5:30 But the Wicked Witch of the West is scarier.

There’s some brilliant performances in this years SYP I hope it goes really well - it looks like its going to be a great watch. There are some shining performances and some really cute characters but you’ll have to watch the Summer Youth Project to see all of it. (obviously!)

If you would like to make any comments then feel free - you can also reach us on our twitter http://twitter.com/WyvernTheatre and for the facebook fans just search ‘Wyvern Theatre’ in the search box. Don’t forget to follow us on here too.

Becky
Marketing Intern

The Wicked Witch of the West

4:30 Returning from a short break - Scarecrow, Dorothy, Tin man and the Lion back on the stage.

4:40 Full of song and dance.

Today has been a positive experience and fantastic to watch. I hope all the children are enjoying themselves - they seem to be.