The dress rehearsal date came and I was really concerned as half of them were forgetting their lines constantly. Some were still not actually acting, they were just saying their lines and standing not doing anything. I thought this show was going to be a real shambles and not as good as last years. Somebody reminded me that it was the same last year at that point. I decided not to worry or get stressed over it as it wouldn’t change a thing. It would either work or not. That part of it I wasn’t in control of. I’d done my part, the acting was up to them.

Dress rehearsals are held with an audience – a large group of people from the centre for people with learning difficulties. They make a great audience as they enjoy anything and are a very responsive audience.

The opening video came on, followed by the puppets who basically introduce the story. The audience cheered as they saw the puppets. They made such a din chatting and laughing at them that they couldn’t possibly have heard the puppets speaking :O) We moved into the show…….

I was very pleasantly surprised as it was going really well. If anybody forgot their lines the others would ad lib so it wasn’t noticeable. I had tried to instil this in them so many times and finally they all did it. Not that many lines were forgotten. I was amazed. I should have remembered that some of them don’t actually ‘act’ until they perform to an audience (even though I wish they would) It was going well. This particular audience applaud at the end of every scene, which must be an encouragement for the team.

All in all it was a success!

This was only a rehearsal, and as such there were a couple of scenes that we hadn’t rehearsed – last minute additions and scene changes. The final scene could have been better and the curtain call was all wrong so I made some changes which I typed out and was only able to hand them on the night of the official show, about 30 minutes before the start. I did a quick run through with them and that was that. No time to rehearse it properly.

The room filled up with a paying audience now but I wasn’t too concerned as it had gone well at the dress rehearsal. Sandie & Len and Sindie & Gary came along with Livvie, and Emily who had brought a friend.

My concern had been that we were tackling quite a serious story, and wondering if maybe it might be a little ‘heavy’ for Christmas. That was why we added all the multimedia and puppets. We also made one of the characters funny throughout. Was it going to work and lighten the more serious parts? I think it did. I won’t spoil the DVD I am doing for you all by telling you any more.

The new ending worked! I was thrilled. I have to say that I am very proud of the team, they all worked so hard and pulled out the stops when it mattered. The biggest problem was a child running around with the noisiest toy in the world. It sounded like a football rattle! I had to really chop the video about to eliminate that when making the DVD. Thankfully we had a video of the dress rehearsal so I was able to do it without losing part of the show, even though it wasn’t as smooth as I would like.

Saturday night was not as full as Friday and I was a little sad at that. The last night is important and it would have been better for the team to have seen a packed room. Never mind, the feedback we received was great and we’ve been told that we must put this show on again as it would be criminal to only do two performances of it.

I have the idea of putting a lot more work into it, improving certain scenes, polishing it up and doing it again next year. Maybe we could hire the local theatre and put it on there. It is only my thoughts at the moment but we’ll see :O)

Here are a couple of photos of the main characters.

Obviously the four wise men :O)

Jhalil, played by Pam

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