AFTER such shows as Our House and West Side Story, regular Stage Experience director and choreographer Louise Denison wanted to challenge the summer theatre school participants with a traditional musical.
Her choice was Rodgers and Hammerstein's debut 1943 collaboration, Oklahoma!, the one with two love triangles, one brightly and briskly humorous, the other altogether darker. For traditional, you could read old-fashioned, even dated, but you can see the show's attraction with its high-class songwriting, bursting with tunefulness and lyrics that respond to characterful interpretation by the young company.
Sophia Bonini as Ado Annie and Reece McMahon as Will Parker. Picture: David Harrison
At the core of Denison's production are experienced Stage Experience hands Reece McMahon in his 14th show; Conor Mellor in his sixth and Caitlin Calgie in her third. Sophia Bonini, from the St Aidan's talent pool in Harrogate, makes her Stage Experience debut, as does Alexandra Mather after five years with York Theatre Royal Youth Theatre, while Finn East has a track record with other York companies. Luke Wilby is in his second Stage Experience outing with a heap of diverse shows elsewhere to his name.
This all aids an assured production put together since July 23 by Dennison, assistant director Matt Harper and musical director Adam Laird, who have been working with a smaller ensemble than in Stage Experience's early years. Unquestionably this benefits the company and the show, letting routines be drilled with more freedom.
Finn East's Jud Fry and Caitlin Calgie's Laurey. Picture: David Harrison
The principals are terrific. McMahon's isn't afraid to wear white cowboy boots while performing with humorous panache in his tug of war with Wilby's eccentrically lovable Persian peddler over Bonini's pink-bowed, ditzy blonde Ado Annie. Calgie's more thoughtful Laurey sings delightfully, wooed by Mellor's charmer cowboy Curly McLain and hounded by East's oppressive, brooding Jud Fry. Mather's matriarchal Aunt Eller is constantly entertaining as she struggles to hold back the tide of the sparring trios.
Oklahoma!, Stage Experience 2016, Grand Opera House, York, tonight at 7.30pm; tomorrow at 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york
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