Final busy day ahead of Whistle Down The Wind opening
Final rehearsals are going for the Mullingar Musical Society production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, Whistle Down The Wind, which opens tonight and is running until September 21.
It’s a busy scene: Neil Selby is in full Jackson Pollock mode as he splashes the final multihues of colour to the barn set. Choreographer Siobhan Murphy is making sure the cast are all warmed up to ensure that no one actually breaks a leg on stage! Musical director, Angie Lynch, sounds like she is about to lose her voice, which she claims is not atypical as it happens every time before the opening of a show!
And director Sean Lynch is like a proud father on his child’s first day at school. He’s nonchalantly walking here, walking there, cleaning and tweaking when needed, but when he stands back to look at what is sure to be a show of Broadway proportions, you can see how swollen with pride he is!
The cast – Rebecca Heery, Conor Walsh, Graham Dowling, Rebecca Doolin, Richie Geoghegan and Paul McDermott – are getting into character and perfecting their southern accents for a story that revolves around the time and place where the word teenager was invented. Swallow, a 15 year-old-girl up in America’s Deep South in the ’50s, discovers a mysterious man hiding in a barn. When she asks who he is; the first words he utters before passing out are ‘Jesus Christ’, it’s as if all her prayers have been answered.
Swallow and the town’s other children vow to protect the stranger from the world that waits outside – the townspeople who are determined to catch a fugitive hiding it their midst. As fantasy and reality collide, Swallow is torn between the two and begins to discover who she is and where she is going.
Whistle Down The Wind is show for all the family with 14 children in the cast as well as 21 adults. Andrew Lloyd Webbers score looks set to fulfil expectations as always.
Tickets are €15 full rate and €12 reduced available from Mullingar Arts Centre 044-934-7777.