Take a step back to the last days of the Vietnam War this week as one of the world’s most beloved musicals, Miss Saigon, comes to life on the stage of Macleans College.
Follow the story of 17-year-old Kim (Jackie Liu), as she is forced to work in a Saigon bar run by a notorious character known as the Engineer (Hamish Regan). There she meets and falls in love with an American GI named Chris (Diego Santos), only to be torn apart by the fall of Saigon.
With a cast of 40 and a number of comprehensive costume changes, along with a live orchestra there’s no doubt it will be a truly magical masterpiece.
It’s a performance of epic proportions and the cast is aware of the scale of the piece but they’re more confident than ever that they can pull it off.
Rehearsals have been underway since the beginning of February, but the cast received script material in November last year and have been hard at work in their own time since then.
Diego says as actors, they’ve needed to take a mature approach to the play.
“It’s different from other plays because this is such an epic piece [and] most of the events are inspired from real events. Every scene stands out by itself — you could put any single song, no matter how small or short you could put it by yourself and it would still be an outstanding piece of work.”
The intimate performance space of the school’s Colin Prentice auditorium hasn’t stopped the impressive set design — including a helicopter and a dragon – which was all made on school grounds.
Director of Performance Music, Steve Miles says it’s been an added challenge to make the adult content show family friendly and suitable for a high school audience — but the cast has risen to the occasion.
“It’s an epic production – to put it on in a school environment is a big deal.
“You’re dealing with themes and emotions that most, if not all of the cast would never have experienced or even come close to experiencing so for these guys to put themselves in character and justify the role they’re playing and make it believable…that’s a big challenge for these guys and one they’re really stepping up to.”
- Don’t miss Miss Saigon at Macleans College from Thursday May 10 to Saturday May 19, adults $25, students and pensioners $20, trybooking.co.nz.
