Gordon Cope is the president of High Country Theatre and the director of the theatre's production of Jack and the Beanstalk, due to run in the Hanna's Arcade over three weekends during May. He said the theatre was new to the local scene, and presented productions that tended to be a little bit different to small audiences.
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Last year we did 'Animal Farm' in the barn at Saumarez Homestead ...
- Gordon Cope
"We've done some classic children's pieces like 'The Red Balloon' and 'The Little Prince', a classic French tale," he said.
"Then we did 'Wolf at the Door', which is part of Virginia Woolf's life and being, which was great and went down really well. We put that together with a couple of other short plays.
"Last year we did 'Animal Farm' in the barn at Saumarez Homestead, so it really was a lot of fun. It was a huge amount of work and it was so cold out there at the time of year we did it."
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Gordon said their apologises for the cold seemed to be needless because everyone loved the production so much.
"The audience was saying 'No, don't worry about it. We live in Armidale, we know about the cold. Good for you!' It was a really good night," he said, and then laughed at the pleasant memory.
"Then Bob Thompson had this idea for Jack and the Beanstalk. So, he's written the musical score for the show, original songs and we'll have a little combo of five musicians, including a harpist," Gordon said.
He said although the arcade was very difficult acoustically it did have many advantages.
"The Red Balloon was set in Paris, and this is about the closest you can get to a Parisian look in Armidale, without building it yourself. We made use of the two levels. We had a very good sound technician, who tuned the room to the microphones on the main characters to cut down on the echo," Gordon said.
"The Stephens are an incredibly generous family who offered us this space for nothing, including the use of one of the vacant shops. They've put up with our noise and mess and our constant demands for even more help. And of course Phil Hanna who runs New England Properties who manages the arcade, has also been terrific."
The play will run at 7.30pm on Friday and Saturday May 10-11, with a matinee to be held at 4pm on Sunday, May 12. The same sequence of times will be repeated the following week from Friday May 17. On the third week, however, the show will only be staged on at 7.30pm on Friday and Saturday May 24-25.
