Over the Christmas and New Year break, Tropical Arts’ members and many others interested, who enjoy our work, continued to ask THE question, “What’s next??” Many suggestions were made, both in formal feedback sessions and social conversation. The list was long, including one of the most popular requests – the famous Scottish Play – (I’m not sitting in a theatre now, so I may avoid various curses and type,) “Macbeth”. “Othello” always got a mention with Warren Clements in the same breath, and “Twelfth Night”, “The Merry Wives of Windsor” amongst other comedies and histories – so the same dilemma arose – how do we make this call? Do we need to do Shakespeare at all? What about the wonderful “Star Wars by William Shakespeare”? or just a Dr Who version of anything would be fine…. such is our eclectic mix of madness at Tropical Arts… how do we make the decision? And our community said, basically, collectively, “I just want to be in it!”
As nobody else was seen putting their cap in the ring to Direct the next production, it seemed that the final suggestion to the Tropical Arts Committee would fall to me. So it was imperative that I think it through for myself too – and here’s what I came to:
- It should be Shakespeare to build on community anticipation.
- And anyway, Shakespeare is great for diversity, self expression and Humanity
- Should be a comedy – I’m personally not sure (yet) about how to direct kids in the kinds of tragedies Shakespeare writes.
- Should be more well known – tends to do better at box office.
For this reason, “Much Ado About Nothing” was high on my list. And then, I had a discussion with our recyle nut designer, Ruby Boussard and she mentioned in passing a desire to make dragons. Well, that was it – Benedick and Beatrice a definately dragons! So there we have it folks, it’s been approved by the committee…
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING DRAGONS!!!
Get on board!
See you in workshops and rehearsal, backstage or in the audience!
Avril