The Eagle Eye Theatre troupe will host a whole lot of music, singing and dancing over the next few weeks as Between Shifts Theatre performs its annual Christmas play, Garry Plotter and the Pantomimer's Stone. Director Kathy Daniels said this troupe is especially excited because this will be its first musical performance."This is totally new for me and there is a lot of stuff to co-ordinate because Between Shifts has never done a musical before," said Daniels.Audiences have an opportunity to enjoy the Harry Potter spoof during evening shows at 7 p.m. from Thursday (Nov. 27) to Saturday (Nov. 29) and Thursday Dec. 4 to Saturday Dec. 6, and during Saturday matin茅es at 2 p.m.Daniels said this year she added a dance choreographer and two singing coaches to her production crew."It feels like it has been harder this year because of the sheer numbers, just working out where 20 people are going to be on stage at one time compared to three people," said Daniels. "And it's just a different genre, it's not like a regular play, it's sort of like a giant cartoon."The musical spoof changes names of the most popular Harry Potter characters - such as Hermione to Hurtmyknee, and Weasley to Sneazley - and re-creates roles to make them more gender-bending."The traditional pantomime always has the lead boy played by a girl and the dame played by a guy, so there is always a part in drag," said Daniels.Actors also re-work popular musical tunes, like Sweet Caroline, to give songs a fantastical edge. The Neil Diamond line "hands touching hands," for example, becomes "wands touching wands." The musical was originally written by Michael Coleman and performed by his theatre group, Holiday Pantomime Productions, at the Presentation House Theatre. "We are the first group to do it since the original writer," said Daniels. "So their whole theatre group is coming to see us on Dec. 4 which will be hilarious. There is about 14 of them coming up."Daniels said her version is slightly different because she added local jokes and familiar names to the plot."It has more 樱桃视频flavour in it. I took out a couple of their songs and put in a Bhangra number because I wanted to honour our South Asian people here and just spice it up a little bit," said Daniels.Liz Gruber, who plays the role of the Segregating Hat, said her job in the play is to get the audience involved."I'm supposed to give the audience an idea of what their role is and make them feel included," said Gruber. "My character will sit out here with the audience the whole time, so they'll know when to boo and when to cheer because I'll be doing it."Tickets cost $15 for adults, $10 for seniors and students and can be bought at Billie's Bouquet, the 樱桃视频Adventure Centre, or at Eagle Eye Theatre. Doors open at 7 p.m.
