Oliver

Friday night was the last showing of Oliver Twist at the school, and it was quite the production. I've never seen quite so much effort, expertise, and expense put into a school play. I was actually involved, because I did much of the set building. However, that is only a side note, because the bigger family news was that Allyne was in it. She played Charlie Bates, the sidekick of the Artful Dodger. Below are two photos of her. I'm not going to point her out, because I wan't everyone else to have as hard of a time as we did. I didn't realize she was on stage until she started speaking, and she has at least one friend who sat through the entire play without recognizing her.




This is the cast list from the program, from which I blurred out the names except Allyne. It also gives a nice sense of the international student body.




















This is a video clip of one of Allyne's scenes. It is just a little thing that I filmed with my pocket camera, so the quality is really low. The school had the production filmed as well, so we will get "grandparent copies" sent home later. Just click on the button at bottom left to run it.






Finally, some pictures of the set and prop work that I helped out with. For me, the biggest part of this project was that I designed a set of wheeled metal stands with detachable steps. During this play, it was used as a bridge, a jail, a judge's bench, and part of Fagin's house. My idea was that they would be a versatile set pieces for all future productions as well. I contracted with a Chinese welder to make the pieces. They came out just as ordered, except that he built them out of much heavier steel than I intended him to use. Therefore, the end result came out as this massive, indestructable battleship. I have, in fact, given it a name consistent with the production.... it has been dubbed the "HMS Oliver". It will outlast the building around it, and would be servicable as an earthquake shelter.


The backdrop, with sets for the first scene.


The HMS Oliver