2009 - The Pirates of Penzance
From the Southern Daily Echo:
The award-winning Encore Youth Theatre returns to the Theatre Royal Winchester with a new adaptation of The Pirates of Penzance.
The group aims to retain all the best elements of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, while adding a modern twist with this version by Simon Gallaher.
Encore is committed to offering young people the opportunity to work with theatre professionals to experience all aspects of theatre production, not just on stage but off as well. This year, the company is delighted to have forged a new relationship with the ACE hairdressing and beauty training academy based at Peter Symonds College.
Noël Jones, Artistic Director of Encore, said:
“The overall design of the show this year calls for a real feel of the 1980s and it has been great fun working with Sharron Radford and her team on the look for the hair and make-up.“It’s a great opportunity for Sharron’s team to create a wonderfully theatrical style of makeup for the different characters and to experience the pressure of getting 40 young people on stage in time for their performance. “I think it’s quite different from their normal days in the salon.”
For the last three years, the company has been working successfully with production students from Fareham College who are on a BTEC Performing Arts course. The second-year students take responsibility for, among other things, set design and construction, lighting and sound, as well as running the show in the theatre. Overseen by Encore’s professional production manager, Simon Beckett, they experience all the production elements of putting on a show in a working theatre space.
