13 The Production
Congratulations to the cast and crew of 13!
What a spectacular effort by the students and staff involved in this exciting combined schools production and one that certainly deserves recognition and thanks. Audiences were delighted by the story of ‘Evan Goldman’, a twelve year old preparing to turn 13 and faced with the challenges of settling into a new school and making new friends.
Our matinee performance to the local year 6 students was a huge success with many responding just as we hoped to the scenes where ‘cool kids’ were bullying or being cruel to others. It was a display of poor behaviour by some of the characters in the story and it was clearly ‘not ok’ with our incoming Year 7s!
We were delighted by the way they recognised this; utterly glued to the events unfolding on stage.
Thursday and Friday evening performances were a wonderful success. Musical Director, Steve Sargant, and the awesome rock band sounded spectacular and handled the score, which covered a range of music styles, with absolute precision. Our backstage crew were swift and professional, making the show run so smoothly from scene to scene. Our very sweet and talented students including mic technician Grace Smith (Year 11) and Stage Manager Sophie Woolstencroft (Year 9) also organised and commanded the running of the event with such patience and calm.
The cast and crew from across the four schools pulled together to proudly perform their work to teachers, parents, family and friends. They supported each other beautifully both on and off the stage. Our performers, from Year 7 to 11 were utterly inspiring in their dance, song and efforts. With many of our cast not previously taking part in a musical production and some of our leads giving their first ever solo vocal performance, I was taken back by the courage, creativity and teamwork demonstrated by this beautiful group of young people. The staff and students from across the schools were always such a pleasure to work with and I am very grateful to each member of '13' for making the show a success as well as a pleasure.
Many thanks must go to the parents and families who helped to ‘bump in’ and ‘bump out’, spending hours of their time late at night and on weekends shifting heavy sets and providing the extra hand we sorely needed. The wider community pulled together in support of this production and their help was utterly invaluable. Such massive projects simply cannot be done without the support of our school families.
The Ludlow family and Fords Buses were spectacular in driving the removalist truck for us as well as travelling us all across Shepparton for our roving rehearsals! The maintenance staff across the schools, especially Pete ad Craig, are also thanked enormously for their help in set construction and shifting. I think it is safe to say the cast loves their production jumpers and the audience enjoyed the wonderful programs; both for which we owe great thanks to Noah Culpan for his creative ideas as well as the enormous time and effort given to these tasks. Ex-student Kane Wilson returned to volunteer many hours of time as lighting designer and operator. There is a huge number of talented and generous vocal coaches across the schools who coached individual performers as well as small groups. The ‘go to’ rehearsal coordinators, Lindy Tennant, Sue Heyward, Stacie Lundberg, Sara Cartwright, Amanda Eagle, Charlotte Drinnan and Georgia Goonan without whose generosity these students would not have had this experience. Thank you all very much.
Most of all I thank the students from all the schools who bravely volunteered to take part. I would like to formally recognise each and every one of you for your hard work, commitment, energy and positive attitude. To the VCE Theatre Studies students, special thanks for your courage in trying something new and coming along with me on this incredible journey. You have each achieved so much and it has been a pleasure to witness each of your triumphs along the way.
I hope you all look back with fond memories on our time together, as I do, being the '13' Production Team. Thank you again and well done!
