Tag: Cinderella

Cinderella

7.15 p.m.: The curtain goes up for the final performance of Cinderella, and I’m happy to see that the backdrop of Hardship House and Stoney Broke village looks fine. I’m glad that I put so much variety into the roofline and the chimney pots, because, once the chorus fills up the stage, that’s all that you can see of the scenery.

My forest scene looked suitably soft in my pen and watercolour sketch but in emulsion paint – which dries flat – and outlined in black line, it looks too flat and hard-edged.

At the curtain call, I’m called up on stage by Wendie Wilby, the producer, and presented with an inscribed clock to celebrate my fifty years scenery painting for the Society. It’s the nearest that I’ll ever get to a Lifetime Achievement award.

The Forest Scene

This morning we finished the village scene for this year’s pantomime, Cinderella, and this afternoon we’ve blocked in the forest, on the reverse side of the backdrop. I had no fewer than seven helpers – members of the cast and their mums – filling in the outlines for me.

The flat, rounded shapes remind me of Clarice Cliff designs, but we’ll add a bit of shading and outline tomorrow morning.

Dress rehearsal is tomorrow at two, but I’m sure we’ll be finished by then.

Hardship Hall

This morning is a big anniversary for me as fifty years ago this summer, as soon as I’d completed my O-levels, I went along to Horbury Pageant Players and asked if I could help with painting the scenery. Even so, as I walked into the hall this morning, I really didn’t expect a big band playing a fanfare.

“You shouldn’t have!” I told Wendie, the producer. She hadn’t: she explained that there’d been a double-booking for the hall this morning.

Band rehearsal over, we set about converting the backdrop of last year’s Sleeping Beauty chateau into Hardship Hall (above, on the extreme left) and the surrounding village, for this year’s production of Cinderella.

Last year’s backdrop.

As you can see from my sketch, I’ve kept the trees and the castle door from the old backdrop, but I realise that the door, which is now supposed to represent a shuttered window, is too central and imposing for a village scene, so tomorrow, I’ll  paint that out too and replace it with a more domestic-looking window.