HISTORY
A few weeks after the Bike Shed Theatre opened, Kat Brooks (then a third year drama student at the University of Exeter) suggested staging a jazz version of The Magic Flute. It was one of those brilliant ideas that instantly makes sense and I could see clearly the spirit of the piece and how it could unfold.
We planned the production for six months later, in hindsight a remarkably short turn around. Kat would adapt the score, I would direct and we would bring in a librettist. We met a few potential writers and were thoroughly impressed by Elaine Ruth White's take on the world of The Magic Flute. We had, by then, decided to set the play firmly in the 1920s, allowing for references to nightclubs, cocktails and Rudolph Valentino. In casting, we had decided to bring in a mix of jazz and opera singers for the principals, whilst using a large revolving chorus for the three week run.
During rehearsals, the music was snipped and altered, rearranged and, in some places, removed. We delayed the opening night by a week to give us a longer period of rehearsal, opening to audiences in Exeter on the 10th October 2010.
David Lockwood
Co-Artistic Director
The Bike Shed Theatre, Exeter
Elaine Ruth White
Elaine Ruth White is a playwright and librettist. Productions include the recent, highly topical satire, ‘Devon and Demelza’ for CAKE Productions, ‘Around the World in 80 Days’, a stage adaptation for the Dream Team theatre company; a new libretto for Mozart's 'The Magic Flute', set in the 1920s, for Bike Shed Theatre; 'One Day, Two Dawns', an award-winning community opera set in Cornwall, for English Touring Opera; and 'United' for the BBC. Elaine is also a published non-fiction writer who undertook her first degree in Bristol, where she lived for a number of years.