Fighting through sore throats, illness and exhaustion, we are in our final push to the finish line on Monday. Working alongside Cameron Mackintosh’s musical director and performing on a taped out “life size” version of the stage we began rehearsing a run of the show last night.
The show is of course a totally different production to what was seen in December, but hopefully, all going to plan, the show will be fantastic and the day will be something to remember for a long time to come.

A HUGE BREAK A LEG to the whole cast

Signing out…
THUY

Today the first wave of the Miss Saigon company head to London in preparation for tomorrow’s show. Two trucks full of scenery and orchestral kit will arrive at the Prince Edward Theatre this evening and the set up will begin in earnest.
Tomorrow the second wave of crew depart at 5.30 ready to continue the get in before the orchestra and cast arrive at 10.15 ready to rehearse and perform to a sell out audience that evening.

There has been an incredible amount of organisation put into this event and fingers crossed that it will go smoothly. The two big rehearsals we had last week went well and we enjoyed having Sir Cameron Mackintosh’s Head of Music with us for both rehearsals. Freddie is on the road to recovery, which is a relief and fingers crossed that Paddy and Lou and all therest of the cast will be fighting fit on the day.

See you at the Theatre!

Mr.J

After the joyous news over Christmas that Dauntsey’s was going to get to perform in the West End again (this time with Saigon), the cold hard reality of actually making it happen has set in. Tickets for the show sold out within days. Anyone watching our Twitter feed or Facebook page would have seen the constant updates on the first day of tickets going live of the numbers being sold. The Prince of Edward is no small space and to sell the number of seats we have done in such a short time is incrediably. I foolishly thought that tickets would sell over a couple of weeks. How wrong I was. From all the photos of the stage of the theatre with the Jersey Boy’s set (the show that is currently on) it looked like we’d enjoy a nice big stage space. Something else I was wrong on. After a visit the other week by the Heads of Drama and Music, the reports came back that Jersey Boys is a very busy show which does not leave us with much space to work in. Then came the stage plans and yes every inch of the stage/rigging/wings is taking up by the incumbent show. Wednesday I get to visit the theatre myself along with members of the Drama and Music departments which I am very much looking forward to.

MH.

Link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Drama-at-Dauntseys/138106512900679

So after a fantastic run on home turf, the cast, crew and orchestra of Miss Saigon will now be hitting the West End for a one night run at the magnificent Prince Edward Theatre. Full details will be available i the New Year once we’ve fully digested the news along with the ChristmasTurkey. In 2003 we performed Les Miserables at the Prince of Wales and it was a brilliant day. If March 19th comes close to that last London performance we are in for a treat both on and off the stage!

We are now at half term and its time to assess where we are as we prepare for the first performance in the UK of Miss Saigon, schools edition.

• The cast number has finally settled down and is coming in at a round 100
• The helicopter is presently 14 inches too big to be stored where we initially wanted it – this is simply another challenge to overcome…
• Boys are very excited about getting replica AK47 and M16 rifles
• 2,689 tickets have been booked (11 on Tuesday still left!)
• It is definitely a major challenge for a new Director of Music to be faced with this show in his first term!
• “Kim’s Nightmare” has now been re-named “Kim’s Memory” to avoid confusing certain cast members….
• Video footage planned should be both informative and moving
• Morning of the Dragon is potentially enormously powerful both visually and musically
• The end of Act 1 could well provide goose-bumps…
• Sometimes less is so much more
• We still have a very long way to go….