Drama Society's "Star-spangled Girl"
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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from June 1978.
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He was talking about putting on shows in Cayman, and the next one to be produced by the C.D.S. will undoubtedly be a lot of fun. It's Neil Simon's hilarious comedy THE STAR-SPANGLED GIRL, and it will open, appropriately enough, on the 4th July, American Independence Day.
Simon is unquestionably today's most successful playwright, and people in Cayman are still talking about his very funny film, The Goodbye Girl. There are just as many witty lines in THE STAR-SPANGLED GIRL, and three really memorable characters. What will be an evening of fun for the audiences means two months of fun, and hard work for the people involved in putting on this show.
As far as the C.D.S. is concerned, a show for Cayman is "born" when someone suggests, and the Committee agrees, that a certain play would be interesting to do, and would have audience appeal. The choice, of course, it limited to a certain extent, because of the size of the Town Hall. On set is virtually a must for a straight play as apart from the expense of extra scenery, there just isn't much room back there.
The director is the most important person in a production, as he or she has the last word on almost everything: The choosing of the cast, the interpretation of the characters, the appearance of the set and even the effect of the lighting. However good the director may be at these things, it would be useless unless he had the people to fill those jobs.
A play may have to be rejected if the actors and actresses cannot be found to fill the roles, and this happened recently with a play the C.D.S. planned to do. It's no good having grandiose ideas about light and shade on the stage unless you have an imaginative electrician who can produce those effects. Visualising the interior of a cosy country cottage, or an exotic south sea island is comparatively easy, but designing and building such sets on a small stage takes talent indeed.
It is the producer of a show who gathers all these various people together after the play has been cast; and the finding of all the other people who contribute to putting on a show, i.e. someone to design the posters and tickets, a stage manager, front of house manager, photographer, and people to find and look after stage properties, make-up, costumes, sound equipment and, no less important, someone to pull the curtain. Oh yes, there's a lot more than acting involved in the Cayman Drama Society.
Michael Parker is the director for THE STARSPANGLED GIRL, and he has either bossed, browbeaten, or perhaps bribed his wife Toni into the tough job of Producer. Toni's assistant is Charmaine Lawrence (one of the lovely Hula dancers from South Pacific), and Carl Studt who built both the South Pacific and Man For All Seasons sets will be doing the carpentry for us for the last time before returning to the U.K.
Three very important people not mentioned yet are the members of the cast. Making her Cayman acting debut, but by no means her first appearance here, is Patricia Jackson Patino, yes, our very own Miss Cayman. Patricia plays an Olympic swimmer and adopts a very convincing Deep Southern drawl! The lucky fellers acting opposite her are Peter Wooton, playing a rather different role from his last one, Sir Thomas Moore, and Ken Clowes, now a veteran of six plays with the C.D.S. as an actor, and one as a stage manager.
There will be seven performances of this very funny and unusual love story, the opening on Tuesday 4th July, followed by the 5th, 6th and 8th, then again the following week on Thursday Friday and Saturday the 13, 14 and 15th. There will be no show on Friday 7th, as Patricia will be attending the elimination contest for her successor as Miss Cayman.
