. . . that talking cat gets everywhere – and gets his just desserts!
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Puss in Boots . . . that talking cat gets everywhere – and gets his just desserts! |
This pantomime was performed in New Yory City in December 2004, suitably modified for the American market!
A pantomime written in a traditional style, but at the same time refreshingly different, Puss in Boots treats your cast to some well made characters and dialogue, and conspires to involve your audience to the maximum.
As well as a talking cat, this show has "Big Boot", the giant leg and foot of the wicked ogre, making its dramatic appearances from above and transforming into first a lion and then a mouse.
There are many opportunities for song and dance, including 23 suggested titles, and plenty of scope for including an undefined number of senior and junior chorus members in the show.
Principals: Male 7, Female 5, Indeterminate 5
© John Owen Smith 1988
The Prologue - In some Dark Alley (Front of Tabs)
Scene 1 - In the Village (Full Set)
Scene 2 - On the way to the Palace (Front of Tabs)
Scene 3 - Outside the Ogre's Castle (Half Set)
Scene 4 - On the way to the Palace (Front of Tabs)
Scene 5 - The King's Garden (Full Set)
Scene 6 - On the path to the Village (Front of Tabs)
Scene 7 - Outside the Ogre's Castle (Half Set)
Scene 8 - Inside the Ogre's Castle (Full Set)
**** INTERVAL ****
This pantomime uses three different full set scenes, separated by half set or front of curtain scenes to allow for backstage activity. The River scene was achieved by using two long pieces of blue material each extending across the stage from wing to wing, and having stagehands raise and shake them at the appropriate time.
Directions given are those used in the original production, but use your imagination according to the facilities available to you. We made Big Boot out of material stitched together in the shape of a giant boot, stuffed with blown-up bin liners and attached to a weighted wooden 'sole'. This was suspended by a couple of ropes which were themselves hidden in a material sleeve representing Big Boot's trouser leg. In the transformation scene, the boot was quickly raised during a brief black-out to reveal the lion or mouse.
A list of songs used in the original production is included for your guidance. Where special words were written these are also included, but feel free to adapt or adopt your own as required.
The concept of the Community Song is where the audience is invited to come up on the stage to help out, and some sort of raucous competition ensues between those brave enough to come up and those left sitting in the auditorium. ("Invited" is perhaps a little inaccurate on occasions, when members of the cast go down in search of friends and other victims!). The positioning of this event just before the final scene also gives people not involved plenty of time to change into their finery for the Walkdown.
I used the general convention that immortals, in this case Bad Puss and Good Puss, speak in rhyme and mortals in prose, and I have introduced the concept of a Prologue and an Interlogue (no, the latter is not in the dictionary) as much as anything to give time for the chorus to react to the fact that the show has started, and actually get on stage! This is known as pragmatism.
So good luck with your show. Put in local variations as you wish, and if you think you can improve on the verse then do that too! Have fun - otherwise, why do it?
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