The Hobbit is Cast!

Well, it took a good chunk of last night, and makes quite a intricate web of people and parts, but I got the play cast and was able to announce parts at rehearsal today. If anyone is dissatisfied, I haven't heard yet, so I take that as a good sign. Four of the actors have one part each, while the majority have a number of parts to play (with one person with as many as five!). Costume changes will be interesting!

I was glad to be able to add in several non-speaking roles which were not in the script. Though I certainly appreciate Edward Mast's job of shortening the novel to a tolerable length for the stage, he dropped a lot of characters (and races of creatures) that are important to Tolkien's world, and though they won't have much to do, I am glad we will be able to at least visually allude to them in our production. So, though there are no spiders, wolves, eagles or elves (!) mentioned in the script, I had a enough spare actors to work in walk-on roles for each to be represented in our production.

I've been soliciting ideas from a number of friends for the biggest technical challenge of the play--how to portray Smaug the dragon on stage (with little space and budget). This will put my puppet-making skills to the ultimate test!

Let Me Try This Again...

Obviously, I had this idea last year, and failed to follow through with it. The idea is, "Wouldn't it be neat to blog through my experience of directing a play?" Well, yes, it would... assuming I actually did so. I've been contracted to direct the Spring play at Rhema Christian School again this year, and this time we ARE doing "The Hobbit." Auditions were today, and I was quite pleased by the amount of talent I saw. My biggest concern is that only 13 students showed up. Last year we had 20 kids try out for an original play I wrote which no one had heard of; I was expecting a bit more excitement and a larger turn out when this title was announced. So, somewhat surprised... This script (adaptation by Edward Mast) has 29 parts, but with doubling (and tripling) of characters, it says it can be pulled off by as few as 10 actors. So, we'll be closer to the original production than I'd expected. More of an ensemble piece. And my problem last year was coming up with enough parts for the actors who showed up! This should be interesting...