The Wiz

I thought that Claire did an extremely good job in her first year of directing - she has choreographed many shows, but let's hope this is the first of many shows in the Director's chair. The company also have a new Musical Director, Jonathon Bates, who did extremely well with the singing and the control of the musicians. Ria Westhead (Dorothy), Matthew Walker (Scarecrow), Andrew Stansall (Tinman) and Josh Holliday (Lion) gave good performances and worked well together. Richard Granger (The Wiz), Alison Stansall (Addaperle), Dannai Birks-Hibbert (Evilene) and Katie Mather (Glinda) together with Aunt Em, Uncle Henry, the Gatekeeper, Lord High Underling and Soldier Messenger helped to make a first class line-up. Congratulations to the Set Designers not mentioned in the programme - it really worked well. As for the costumes, well done to Christine Minott - a lot of hard work must have gone into getting the members to "come up with the goods". I particularly thought that the Scarcrow, Tinman, Lion, Addaperle and Evilene's costumes were excellent and as different as their characters would allow  also the different greens in the Emerald City certainly caught my eye. Lighting and sound completed good staging effects.

Congratulations on a good show - the Company has certainly come a long way since I started as Regional Representative in 2001 - long may it continue.

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