Curtain call for The Wizard of Oz is only three weeks away and with more than half of the tickets sold, the cast and crew are eager to get the show on the (yellow brick) road.
The Ham Sandwich production, set for Nov. 27 and 28, features 37 local actors and countless volunteers from the community.
Co-directors Alain Lachapelle and Leslie Fernandes agree the rehearsals and work put into the upcoming show are paying off.
“Everything is starting to come together,” said Lachapelle. “All the pieces are there and now it’s just putting them together and making them fit and checking to see which ones don’t fit and tweaking them.”
The cast has been rehearsing for more than a month now and Fernandes says it’s obvious the hard work is producing results.
“All of the rehearsals have been going really well,” she said. “A lot of [performers] know all of their lines already.”
A few hiccups here and there show the importance of rehearsal, but the first-time co-directors say they are on schedule, though a few more hours in the day could go a long way.
“Time is flying by,” said Lachapelle. “Now there’s not enough of it.”
At first thought he suggested that if it were up to him, the cast and crew would have another month before show time.
“But then again,” he said, quickly, “we’d have too much time and we’d put things off.”
In the end, both Fernandes and Lachapelle agreed they were in pretty good shape.
“There’s still times when we feel a little panicky about things,” Fernandes says, but both agreed they were right on track.
As of mid last week, more than half of available tickets had sold for the two-night showing of
The Wizard of Oz.
“I went [Wednesday] to Northern Rainbow’s End just to take a look,” said Lachapelle, “and [it was]up [to], 401 tickets sold.”
Both he and Fernandes hope to have two sold-out shows – that’s a total of 684 tickets.
“We’re pretty pumped,” said Lachapelle, after finding out how well tickets had sold in the first six days. “We’re inching up there.
