It's a Wonderful Life opened our autumn season last night to a full house and a standing ovation. Read on for more...
There was a palpable sense of excitement and tension in the air yesterday at the theatre as the New Wolsey made final preparations for the opening of our autumn season, with the first ever performance of the world premiere musical stage version of It's a Wonderful Life which we are presenting in association with Avalon Promotions between now and 3 October.
This has been a huge undertaking for all involved. Throughout the day, the largest New Wolsey cast in our history, including one of the teams of child actors, plus all the technical, stage management and front-of-house teams were working flat out to make sure this first performance went as smoothly as possible.
As we put up the 'house full' signs outside, we were dying to see how this capacity audience would react to the show because, in truth, one never knows until a piece of theatre is exposed to an audience whether what worked in rehearsal will achieve the reaction you are hoping for. There are always surprise reactions as the play unfolds and, of course, being live theatre, every performance is different anyway. We need not have been so anxious because the actors took their bows at the end of this first performance to rapturous applause and a standing ovation from every single member of the audience! We've captured some audience reactions on film straight after the show and will be posting these on our web site next week so watch that space.
Tonight it's the turn of the other team of child actors to have their opening night - the excitement's building once again!