. . . the show with an interval of a hundred years!
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Sleeping Beauty . . . the show with an interval of a hundred years! |
This pantomime was first performed in Mexico City in December 2004, having first been translated into Spanish!
A pantomime written in a traditional style, but at the same time refreshingly different, Sleeping Beauty treats your cast to some well made characters and dialogue, and conspires to involve your audience to the maximum.
Princess Rose is cursed at her christening by Belladonna - and on her sixteenth birthday the curse is to be implemented. Or is it?
There are many opportunities for song and dance, including 20 suggested titles, and plenty of scope for including an undefined number of senior and junior chorus members in the show.
Principals: 4 Male & 7 Female suggested, but genders can be swapped!
© John Owen Smith 2003
Lilac, a good fairy
Belladonna, a bad fairy
Junior chorus of fairies and elves
King Harold of Ambrosia
Queen Matilda, his wife
Princess Rose, their daughter (principal girl)
Marigold, her friend in the Palace
Nurse Constance, nurse to the princess (dame)
Benjamin, chancellor to King Harold
Gerald, herald to King Harold
Prince Rufus of Faraway (principal boy)
Sir Rowan, the prince's squire
Senior chorus of Townsfolk, Palace Attendants, etc
This pantomime uses three different full set scenes, separated by half set or front of curtain scenes to allow for backstage activity.
Directions are suggested, but use your imagination according to the facilities available to you.
A list of suggested songs is included for your guidance, and 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 convention of Fairy Lilac speaking in rhyme, but Belladonna and the mortals speak 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?
In December 2004, a version of this script translated into Spanish was performed in Mexico City. I received the following comments …
"The ballet/panto was a complete success. I do believe
that this is the first panto in Mexico. I gave out programs with a guide on
what to do in a panto, which they followed to the letter - very funny when a
'good' actor entered from the wrong side and was nearly boo'd off stage.
Thank you very much, everyone thought it was funny, and entertaining.
The difference with this one was the ballet content. We managed to get a soloist
from the Mexican national ballet company as the male lead, so the quality was
very high. The audience was 50% kids under 12 and the rest adults."
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