Audiences are in for a treat this weekend as the Wagga School of Arts Community Theatre (SoAct) group opens the curtains on their latest production.
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Lyricist and composer Stephen Roots has written and directed a brand-new original show filled to the brim with exciting music, heartfelt characters and funny jokes.
'A Midnight Dream' takes the classic Shakespearean tale A Midsummer Night's Dream and gives it some western flair. The three distinct Acts from the original play are drawn together into one cohesive story that audiences can enjoy from beginning to end.
Mr Roots was first inspired to bring a Texan flavour to the show when he began composing a song based on the famous speech 'The course of true love never did run smooth'.
Acoustic banjo sounds naturally made their way into the piece, and the concept grew from there.
"It's so important that original work gets recognised cause that's the way the arts will grow," Mr Roots said.
"It's very easy to put on a scripted piece or previously done piece ... but this is challenging creatively, but also challenging financially."
SoAct originally began rehearsing A Midnight Dream last year, but rehearsals were postponed until this January due to the pandemic.
"During the shutdown I rewrote four songs, edited five pages out of the script, so certainty twelve months I've been working on it," Mr Roots said.
"It's very funny, even the four young lovers who are the most naturalistic characters and have a really heartfelt yearning in their plot, the complications that happen to them are funny."
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Matt Anderson is playing one of the lovers, Lysander, and can't wait to hear the audiences reactions to the shows many jokes.
"There's a lot of talented actors in here and I always love in a show when everyone loves to be there, everyone's encouraging others," he said.
With a cast of 22, a production crew of six and hours of work put into rehearsals, Mr Roots said the show can be summed up as a "celebration of theatre".
"Shakespeare, he must have written it as a celebration of theatre; he threw in all these little stories, Greek mythology, English folktales, his own colleagues in the Globe theatre, he made this concoction," he said.
"It's a celebration of theatre and I find that very moving, especially in these times because it's been very hard."
A Midnight Dream opens at the CSU Riverina Playhouse on Friday, April 22, and will offer performances through to May 1.
Bookings can be made online or by calling 6921 2594.
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