Staging the iconic Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is a challenge at the best of time – but especially so when you have a cast that ranges in age from eight to 30.
Just ask Marie Strang, artistic director with Shazam Theatre Company as she steers the cast towards opening night of their take on the musical at Aberdeen Arts Centre next week.
“The biggest challenge is that we rehearse separately, so the juniors and seniors have their two-hour sessions each week, then at the end of each month we come together to do a joint session,” she said.
“We have 11 brothers and eight of them are juniors and four of them are seniors. So they are learning the blocking separately then we put it together like a puzzle. It’s a bit like doing a jigsaw without seeing the pieces.”
Young cast of Aberdeen’s Shazam Theatre put own stamp on Joseph
The end result, though, will be the amateur theatre company’s own take on a show that has become one of the giants of musical theatre since it was penned by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice.
Not that the show – which was famously revived in the West End by Jason Donovan both in the 90s and again just two years ago – is proving daunting for the young cast. They have been busy putting their own stamp on it, said Marie.
“We have kept quite traditional with it but we have allowed the young people the freedom to block bits of it for themselves. We’ve asked their ideas on how they think their character would do stuff, so that’s been interesting,” she said.
“There’s a really nice bit they have come up for when Joseph is thrown down the well. The juniors have created a movement for that, which is quite nice.”
Marie said this is the first time Shazam, which is based in Rosemount but draws young people from across the city, have staged Joseph.
Timeless classics make Joseph a huge draw for Aberdeen’s Shazam
“It had been mentioned in the past but because it’s sung the whole way through, I’ve always been ‘no, no, I’m more of a drama person’. But it has really suited the cast this year and it has been so much fun seeing more of the movement kind of things.”
Being a sung-through show has actually been easier for the 20-strong cast rather than the challenge you might have expected, said Marie.
“It is easier to learn song words than lines and that seems to be better for them.”
And the young performers are also enjoying the wide range of musical styles that Joseph offers, courtesy of the range of genres which Lloyd Webber and Rice drew on in crafting the original show and which has helped make it one of the most popular pieces of all time.
It features timeless classics like Any Dream Will Do; Go, Go, Go Joseph and Close Every Door.
“It really has such catchy tunes,” said Marie. “There’s a song that is a calypso musical, there’s a French-style song in it. And although it’s set as a biblical story there are rock songs and Pharoah who is dressed as Elvis. It really is fun to do.”
Valuable life lessons for young cast of Joseph at Aberdeen Arts Centre
Away from the fun, the younger members of the cast are also picking up valuable life skills as well as acting and theatre skills during the staging of Joseph, said Marie.
“Nowadays, everyone has to a presentation of some kind at some point and this gives them the confidence to get up and do it. And also the confidence they get by having free rein to do what they want, because then it’s not just them being told what to do.”
And Marie hopes that audiences will get just as much out of the show as the young performers when the curtain goes up at Aberdeen Arts Centre on Thursday June 8,
“I’m sure they are going to have fun and enjoy themselves,” she said. “This is one of those big family shows. There’s nothing inappropriate for children seeing it for the first time and older people might remember it from when Joseph first came out.”
Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat will be at Aberdeen Arts Centre from Thursday June 8 to Saturday June 10. For more information and tickets visit aberdeenartscentre.com or call 01224 635208.
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