Summer Fun for the Coliseum

This week we said goodbye to the fantastic week-long touring production of Sebastian Faulks’s Birdsong which closed on Saturday. This show marks the start of the Coliseum’s hugely hectic summer transition into our Autumn/Winter programme which begins with Chicago in September. 

The summer months are vital for the theatre to prepare for our busiest time of the year and carry out necessary maintenance on our nineteenth century home. We are seeing out July with a flurry of activity in the form of our upcoming Shake It UP! – our week long youth programmed theatre festival. Plus Shakesperience, a fresh fun filled look at six of the bard’s greatest plays including Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet – with famous scenes performed enthusiastically by students of Judes Drama aged 4-20 years old.

Our normal auditorium programme may lessen somewhat each summer until the end of August. This is a vital time for the theatre. I am currently overseeing the second round of auditions for Chicago which requires a crack cast of multi-talented performers to bring this spectacular show to life on stage. The standard of those auditioning for the starring roles has been remarkably high, making my job a lot harder.

Each department in the theatre is currently a hive of activity working towards transforming the auditorium into downtown 1920s Chicago, which is no small task. The set build is shaping up to be a gloriously mammoth undertaking, whilst our wardrobe department is well on the way to creating the glamorous and equally seedy characters in a traditional Vaudevillian style. The play is fast transforming into what will be a treat for the eyes as well as the ears.

Plus, as if trying to focus on Chicago wasn’t enough I currently have Christmas on the brain as I continue to develop and hone the script for our seasonal panto Jack and the Beanstalk. Myself and Coliseum regular Fine Time Fontayne, who also plays Dame Trott this year, have managed to squeeze in a fair few surprises, as well as all the traditional panto fun which you expect from Jack.

With the huge amount of work that goes into pulling together each one of our shows we are forced into thinking months in advance here, where it may appear that things quieten down through August, behind the scenes it is in fact the opposite. 

See you at the theatre,

Kevin Shaw
Artistic Director