York 2 Pantomime--Wizard of Oz

It's show time! The Annual Pantomime has come around again! This year we did a rendition of the Wizard of Oz and boy did we have some great times! I really enjoyed myself and felt like I developed my stage abilities in more ways this year. Last year I had a 'baddie' part where I made everyone hate me and shouted all the time. But this year I got to be a goof-ball and make people laugh. It was great to have a change from bad to fun. I think I prefer making people laugh, actually. The first picture is of me in our 'dressing room' between shows. I'm dressed in my 'Farmhand' costume. Don't the braids bring back memories of childhood? And you've got to love those radiators! My back was nice and toasty warm!
Here I am putting my stage make-up on. They covered our faces with 'bronzer' and we looked like we had sand all over our faces. But, it does really keep one's face from being washed out under the stage lights. Debbie Balldock (my flatmate), Rose Richardson, Julie Wilson and I all shared this dressing room together. We had a lot of costume changes in this panto.
The opening scene. . . Dorothy (Serena Bortone, aged 14) sitting out on her uncle and aunt's farm in Kansas singing 'Somewhere over the Rainbow' with all her heart. She did a great job with the song. I wouldn't have wanted to sing it.
After Dorothy goes off, the 'Farmhands' come on. There's me, Bishop Richardson, and a man named Gary in this picture, though there are eight of us altogether. We are complaining about the heat and all the hard work we have to do on the farm in this scene.
This next picture has the same people, plus Ben Whitaker, who has just fallen to the ground because he said he wanted to be a famous footballer, rather than a farmhand. He fell down in the process of showing us how he could kick an imaginary ball, so we are all laughing at him.
This is part of our group singing and dancing. Our song is 'We could have been anything' and it's about how we could have made more out of our lives than being farmhands. We had to do a lot of practicing to get our dancing in sync, but we had a lot of laughs in the process. Some people just don't take to synchronized dancing very well! Most of them got there in the end. My flatmate Debbie is in the red shirt there.
Here's a close up of me. I can't remember what I'm doing at the moment, but obviously having a good time of it.
Here we are now as munchkins. We all come on to the stage just after the 'Yellow Brick Road' song and are all put out because we've missed singing it with the other munchkins (played by very small primary kids). The little munchkin in this picture (Isabell age 9) is telling us off for being late and is giving us a lot of work to do; such as fixing the shoemaker's roof. We aren't happy about being given a job, naturally.
This is a portion of our famous 'Clown scene' where we are supposed to be fixing the shoemaker's roof, but goof off instead. This scene had a lot of slapstick activity in it. We all take turns hitting each other 'accidentally' with the plank and I have just knocked Debbie over with it and am going to try and help her up . . . all while standing on the plank and preventing myself from being any use. You get the idea. It was so much fun, this scene, but it took a tremendous amount of energy and a lot of practice to get the choreography right and everything looking realistic.
This picture is a part of a three-way battle over a chair. All three of us want to take a rest in the chair and keep stealing it from each other right before one person sits in it. I have just had the chair stolen from me and have consequently fallen to the ground. Josh Martin (in the yellow, aged 16) is going to sit in it next and Sam Horewell (in the red wig, aged 16) will steal the chair from him only to have it stolen by me. Anyway, it was a fun little scene and the young kids laughed their guts out every performance. Some spectators even told me that they laughed even harder because the kids around them were nearly hysterical. Guess we were successful then!
Finally, I decide to get serious about taking the chair. Josh has just won the day and is laughing at Sam and I while resting in the chair. He bends over to pick up his handkerchief, which he has been using to wipe his eyes because he has been laughing so hard, and I come running from the back, flip over the top of him and grab the chair out from under him in the process. You can see the chair legs coming off the ground in the picture. I end up standing in front of Josh with the chair over my head in triumph. This little stunt got a lot of reaction from the crowd and it was really fun to do on top of that! It's been a long time since I've done any tumbling and I've missed it. Can't wait until the resurrection when I can do it some more without all the aches and pains and potential injuries!
That old chair is still under dispute. Sam and Josh have taken it from me again, and in this part I steal it from Sam. Though the chair is gone, he remains sitting on one leg as if he's still in the chair. He fails to notice the chair is gone and when he does, falls to the ground. The kids also loved that bit.

And then, Debbie runs out to steal the chair from me and we have a slow motion 'Matrix moment' where we are all arching our backs while the chair passes near to our faces. The kids really liked this part as well. Anyway, the scene was a laugh and though I had many bruises from all the falling on the ground and am still nursing a very sore shoulder from the tumbling bits I did, it was worth it! I can't wait to see the video of it since being a participant does not allow you to see how it all looks to the audience.
Here you can see the four principals in all their glory. Dorothy you've already met, but the Tin man is Matteo Bortone (age 12), the Scarecrow is Hannah Horewell (age 13), and the Lion is Shawn McKenna (age 40 something). They did a nice job, especially the Lion. Shawn is the Young Men's President in our ward and I'm sure the boys really appreciate him because he's got a great sense of humor.
Here the Oz-seekers are stuck in the field of poppies. The poppies came from the ranks of the junior primary. They stole the show by singing many fun primary songs (words altered to match the situation, of course) and were all dutifully poisoned by the Wicked Witch shortly after this picture.
Enter Julie Wilson (last year's Fairy Godmother) as the Wicked Witch. We actually had two actresses cast in this part. They each did two shows. The other witch was named Mel (a friend of another cast member and I don't know her last name, aged 16) and both did an outstanding job. Mel even came up with a very good American accent. Julie gave her interpretation a quirky air and Mel was just plain evil.This is a picture of the 'haunted wood'. The young women were under those black lights and white coverings and did a very nice dance to a scary piece of music.

Here we are in our third role . . .we are the gatekeepers to Oz. We are on a lunch break, thus the bottles and lunch bags, and in this picture we are telling 'Knock, knock' jokes to Brian (alias Josh Martin) who is currently guarding the gate while the rest of us sit around relaxing. Ben tells the first joke which was: 'Knock, knock' , 'Who's there?', 'Alex', 'Alex who?', 'I'll explain later!' You have to love obvious humor because that is what a British pantomime is all about.
Here I am enjoying one of the many 'Knock, Knock' jokes that are being told around me. I get my turn to tell the last one.
My joke was 'Knock Knock', 'Who's there?', 'Vera', 'Vera who?', 'Very few people find your jokes funny!' And, of course, I said it all with a Yorkshire accent! It was very entertaining!

This is our fourth role of the night. We are complaining about the quality of the acting in the pantomime and are all lauding our own talent by indicating very famous schools of acting which we have attended. I came from the Royal Shakespeare Company. We decide that we should hold our own auditions for the part of Dorothy and in this picture we are all hoping to be picked for a part in the auditions. Debbie (in the blue) and Rose (in the red plaid) are chosen to sing for the role of Dorothy and I am chosen as one of the four judges. If you know about American Idol, then we're doing that sort of thing, only in England, the sister show to American Idol is 'X-factor'.
Here you see the four judges: Ben Whitaker as Simon Cowell, me as Cheryl Cole, Malcom as Louis some-body-or other, and Bishop Richardson as Sir Andrew Lloyd Weber. We all have pictures of the faces of the people are impersonating and a big black and red 'x' to indicate when we feel the person auditioning should stop singing. Incidentally, we always voted so that there was a dead lock between Debbie and Rose. This was so the audience would have the final say in who would be the new 'Dorothy'. Rose Richardson always won because she sang so horribly! She's never going to hear the end of that one!
And then, here we are in our last scene. It's a little song that involves slapstick movements. We each come on, one at a time, and sing our verse and do our actions. Eventually there are six of us doing various things all together and in synch. The crowd loved it. I think I heard more favorable comments about this little song than about any other part of the pantomime. I came on second of the six. My verse was 'If I were not a farmhand, something else I'd rather be. If I were not a farmhand a conductor I would be. You'd hear me all day long, singing out this song: Tickets please, ring the bell, any more room downstairs? Each person had a verse similar to mine in which they chose a different profession than the one they were dressed as and did actions that matched the new profession they wanted to be instead. I'll tell you, I had my verse stuck in my head for weeks and weeks and will probably break out into it unconsciously at some future point in my life! I was pleased with myself because this was my first chance to sing a solo in front of a large crowd and I was able to do it without being nervous or losing my ability to breathe! Small victories over one's weaknesses are great things!
Here we all are doing our various actions. The humorous bit is when the sixth person, the witch, comes on and starts singing her verse and we all end up smacking her around with our various actions. It's a part of British pantomime to make sure the bad character gets pushed around and made fun of throughout the panto, so the crowd really got into this. Sam Horewell, Josh Martin, Rose Richardson, Ben Whitaker, and Julie Wilson are the people on stage with me.
And then, of course, the finale. We all come on stage, take our bows, and then sing a group song of some sort. This year's was 'Reach for the Stars'.
Anyway, I will be sure to get a copy of the DVD and keep it for future exposure to British Pantomime culture. I will definitely be in the one next year if I can at all manage to do so. It's too much fun not to be.