1st May 2025
Steel Magnolias
Ledbury Amateur Dramatic Society, The Market Theatre, Ledbury
Light The Lights - A Musical in the Making
Author: Alan Bruce
Information
- Date
- 18th October 2018
- Society
- Musical Theatre Stafford
- Venue
- Gatehouse Theatre Stafford
- Type of Production
- Musical
- Director
- Rachel Miller
- Musical Director
- Liz Talbot
- Choreographer
- Rachel Miller
The show commissioned by MTS was written, directed, choreographed and featured Rachel Miller, takes a tongue-in-cheek look at what it takes to put on a musical. Book by Rachel Miller and Tracey Brough-Chesters, started humorously with some very witty and recognisable situation dialogue with some off stage 'open mic oops!' type of presentation, this worked particularly well leading into the Director listing reasons to do a show, the day to day distractions especially the almost mystical draw of the centre aisle of Aldi, leading us into two of the main characters discussing drama, Sam Parton and Tracey Brough-Chesters, the latter leading the discussion round to the topic of Musicals.
This was quite slick and well written, excellent dialogue, it built expectation and kept the viewers interest, especially if you've not seen the show within a show format before, introducing other cast members, bringing us well-known show songs, some slick choreography and cast movement, we were treated to fantastic harmonies and vocals on the whole.
Some stand out pieces were Three Little Maids from Hot Mikado, brilliantly performed 'swing style' by Michelle May, Katie Phizacklea and Lucy Travers; Wedding Vows from I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change timed to vocal perfection, by Jess Smith, Jo Sedgley-Chiles, Emily-Jane Nichols and Sam Parton
Unfortunately, this polished pace didn't continue in the second act, where the dialogue was less present and the emphasis sort of transferred into the show being a review style concert, featuring love ballad after love ballad which didn't attain the level of the good work done in Act 1.
The sound was excellent, Liz Talbot, Musical Director brought out the best of the superb musicians, creating the subtle variations in these different genres of musical stylings. Costumes were well thought out. Spartan but effective scenery, lighting good.
Lively first Act, good well staged cast numbers with excellent vocals, Act Two didn't quite hit the spot for me, I would have liked much more of the excellent dialogue style from Act one with a few more upbeat full cast numbers.
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