This week culminated with our Upper School production, The Wizard of Oz. We talk about ambition and aiming for the stars and I suspect that this single event perfectly embodied this aspiration. From the moment that Mrs Gascoigne and Miss Toyn met last year to talk about a possible musical, they have been chasing dreams! The casting, the rehearsing, the set design and production, the musical arrangement, scenery painting, lighting, sound, costume fitting, choreography, backstage supervision etc etc the list goes on and on and nothing was allowed to be ordinary, Orley Frame doesn’t do ordinary!
On the night, was it alright? No…it was a country mile beyond alright, with performances that were out of this world! I met a number of parents who didn’t even have pupils in the play who were simply spellbound. One father commented that he felt quite emotional and struggled to fathom why, considering that his own children were sitting with him. I suspect that it’s down to being emotionally moved, caught up in something that we’re not expecting, this is a school after all, not the West End. And yet there it is, children standing on a stage, so wrapped up and consumed in their part that they literally pull is into the story, the very reason why acting and performing are and will always be integral to our lives.
Mrs Gascoigne did say to me from the outset that this was one of the most talented casts that she has worked with. This always concerns me as talent rarely lives up to its billing due to a shortfall in work rate! However, we all saw something very special over those two nights and the evidence was in the faces of the entire cast as the curtain fell, they really had given their very all.
Congratulations to all involved, I felt privileged to have been in the audience!
Tim Calvey