Cast and Crew
We're back from a one-week residential summer school with the Riding Lights Christian theatre company. What a week it has been! There were 7 courses on offer at Harrogate Ladies College in North Yorkshire: 3 for 14-18 year-olds and 4 for the 19-90s. These included scriptwriting, musical theatre, storytelling (traditional and digital) and the largest course with 24 participants, a staged play. Trevor and I were involved with the latter, where we went through the production process from the initial read-through to a public performance at the end of the week.
The play was Cloudstreet, adapted from Tim Winton's award-winning novel. It follows the lives of two dysfunctional families sharing a large old rambling house in Perth, Western Australia, between 1945 and 1965.
During the first part of the week, both Trevor and I struggled with it all as we felt so utterly out of our comfort blanket. It was more than 5 years since I had performed on a stage and it was Trevor's first attempt. However, as the week went on and we made friends, we did get caught up with the "buzz" of summer school with its theme of 'living in hope'. Performances by the other groups were awesome and we were particularly impressed with the 3 youth groups. With these kids being our future, then our future looks promising.
Cloudstreet, brilliantly directed by Bridget Foreman and Peter Hutchinson, was a huge success and we received some very favourable comments from members of the audience. It was a joy to work with a team of lovely talented and enthusiastic people!
Praise God for a wonderful week, Amen.
Trevor and his "daughter" rehearsing. Peter, the director is on the left.
Trevor checks his lines
More info and pictures can be seen on the Riding Lights blog... click here
Me as Dolly Pickles in the floral dress on the left 
A drunken Dolly tells her daughter that she shouldn't hate her 
Dolly Pickles get chatted up in the local bar 
Dolly is not impressed by the big old rambling house where she and her family have to live 
The girls next door chase after Dolly's son with a pair of scissors. He has just shown one of them his "thingy".
Trevor, as Sam Pickles, pleads with his daughter to visit her estranged mother, Dolly.
