It’s a pirate’s life for members of the Ham Sandwich theatre company.
The group is putting finishing touches on their next performance, “Treasure Island: A Pantomime.”
Taking heavy inspiration from the similarly named Robert Louis Stevenson classic, the script for the show was written by pantomime producer Ben Crocker.
Beth Heine is co-director of the show, which will include longtime Ham Sandwich members Val Strom, Jon Nicol, John Taylor, Raphael Saray, Alain Lachapelle and Leslie Fernandes.
“We’ve got some new people, too, and some kids. We did set an age limit of 12 though, since almost all the parts are adult parts and it would be really hard to put a really young child in a more grown-up part,” said Heine.
How will anyone coming to the show expecting a faithful reproduction of the original story react?
“You’re not going to get that,” said Heine. “We have pirates who become ladies, ladies who become pirates. It’s a family show. It’s fairly humourous. There’s a large age group in the cast, we go from 12-year-olds to people in their 70s. There’s a little bit of dancing, a little bit of singing. It’s just fun.”
“It’s a pantomime. A pantomime traditionally takes the story and kind of twists it up a bit. It’s kind of a spoof on the original Treasure Island story.”
Heine said the inspiration for the show came from previous pantomime projects done by Ham Sandwich.
“We haven’t done one in a long time, and it’s a way of involving a large cast. This one has over 20 people in it, of all age groups. It’s a family show, and usually in the fall is when we do our family shows. This is the script we came up with,” she said.
With only a few days to go until the show, Heine said final preparations have gone smoothly so far.
“So far, it’s gone well. You always have a rehearsal when somebody can’t make it, but somebody else steps in so that things could keep going. We’re still tying together a few odds and ends, like getting the sound and the lights together,” she said.
“It always gets to be the most stressful toward the end, but we’ll make it.”
Two shows will be held, on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 16 and 17. Both will start at 7 pm at the RH Channing Auditorium.
