Into The Woods JR

It was my first visit to NXG to see their performance of  "Into The Woods Jr." The studio is a great space  - it has a proscenium, stage space backwards and forwards of the proscenium and raised tiered seating for the audience. The set designed and built by John Buckley and his team worked very well for this production. There was a tower front and arched window, a large tree, some smaller trees, white rustic farm type fence, some bushes and some flowers . It also had two tiered rostrons with ramps which both added to the stage space and added some great height interest instead of playing all the scenes on the flat. Smaller set pieces eg a table, a stool were carried on as needed. Aaron @ MSL was in charge of the lighting which was sympathetic to the scenes and helped to show the passage of time, he was also on sound – all cues dropped in on time. I would say though that when the cast went off the apron and behind the proscenium it was very difficult to hear any dialogue or vocals, but it was obvious that some of them were working on their projection. Costumes supplied by Chris Anderson @ No Eyed Theatre were very in keeping with the characters, my only niggle was that the witches dress was a little bit to long for her and personally I did find it a tad distracting her flinging it out of the way .

Choreography by Paige Medina Ryan was fresh, I was very impressed (especially given the younger ages in this youth group)  with the absolute  synchronicity in some of the ensemble numbers. Praise must be extended to dance captain Aaliyah Khan – she has obviously well drilled her ensemble team. I enjoyed the use of the ramps on the rostrons within the choreography. Ty Mather as Director had obviously worked very hard with all the Principals as they were all full of confidence and not afraid to get right up to the audience on the apron. I particularly enjoyed an example of this in “Agony” by Lucy Hallam (Cinderella`s Prince) and River Connell ( Rapunzel`s Prince) they brought their characters right up to the fore front, their comedy timing was great and I loved their dramatic head tosses.

Nancy Fletcher as The Narrator had the job of keeping the audience up to speed and connecting us to the characters, she did a great job, diction was clear and she looked at us. Aoife Etchells as Little Red stole every single scene she was in, her character had just the right amount of sass and she made a good connection with the audience. She is one to keep an eye on. Georgia Ennis as The Witch very obviously loved playing her character, she showed some nice light and shade and used her stage space well, diction was good and she had some pleasant vocals. Lexi O`Mara as Milky White really made the most of her character, her facial expressions and matching mooing expressions were very funny she had some good chemistry on stage with Lily-Mabel Leech as Jack.

Thank you for inviting me to your performance of Into The Woods Jr , both myself and my guest enjoyed it and I look forward to seeing you all again soon.

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