One cast, one director, one disaster!

The Crawford College hall was overflowing for the final performance of ‘Curtain Up’ last Friday.

The intimate theatre with raised seating allowed the audience to feel right in the middle of the action.

College drama specialist and award-winning writer Melissa Wood did not disappoint, blowing the audience away with a creative, hilarious and polished production.

Artistic director, Samantha Wright, outdid herself with the set design transforming the stage with peeling wall paper and graffiti.

‘Curtain Up’ lived up to its tagline “One cast, one director, one disaster!” portraying a farcical play within a play where the audience was taken through the journey of one useless director’s quest to turn his horrible mostly plagiarised script into a stage production.

The audience watched as the over-worked and clumsy stage manager tried to keep everything together with rehearsals with the far-from-talented cast and their crazy antics.

The production was reminiscent of the ‘Noise’s Off’ play performed at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre a few years back.

With a variety of 14 weird and wonderful characters and perfect comic timing, the audience was kept on its toes for the full duration.

“You are such a roman tick” must have been the line of the evening where Sisi the Dumb cheerleader tries to tell her handsome date that he is so romantic.

The script played with the stereotypes of society and was laced with subtle comments on race and politics, with lines such as “There is a toilet paper strike in the building…COSATU !….bless you!”

With each of the 14 actors keeping in complete character, keeping energy and enthusiasm, dealing with props and on and off stage cues seamlessly – the standard was amazingly high for a school production.

Many alumni of the original 2007 cast attended the gala evening and gave the 2014 performance their seal of approval.