Maitland Area School

Well, what a great evening we had for the world premiere of our Junior School musical ‘Grandfather’s Clock’ at the McKnight Theatre back on Thursday December 4,  2008 .

The musical, loosely based on the old Henry Work song ‘My Grandfather’s Clock’, told the story of a race through time to collect four keys that had been stolen from Father Time’s clock and then to wind it back up again before time—literally—ran out.

With a full and enthusiastic house to cheer them on, our 150 R-6 students danced, sang and acted through four thousand years of clock-making history, with stops in ancient Gnomon’s land (shadow clocks), the tropical island of Manawa (sand clocks), the Black Forest (cuckoo clocks) and the Crystal Caves (quartz clocks).

There were fine performances from our older student leads. Ron Edwards and Bridget Honner were delightful as the time travelling twins Ben and Clara (two very demanding roles) while Hilary Greenslade portrayed their nemesis , the nasty—and time obsessed—Baroness Widdershins with just the right amount of evilness. William Taylor-Bowles played the Baroness’s long suffering secretary and Olivia Sly was as confident  Flugejon, keeper of the Time Flies.

Younger classes also had some fine actors, especially Sam Thomson as the Big Kahuna, Jackson Moloney as the Grand Vizier, Brianna Schwartz as Dr. Amethyst and Julia Glazbrook as a very confident Time Fly.  Almost stealing the show were our three very cute ‘opera singers’—Caitlyn Ingham, Ella Simpson and Hayley Willson— while an animated Bradley Robinson had the audience in stiches with his ‘Egyptian’ dancing.

School staff also performed onstage, sometimes looking a little more nervous than the students around them!  Adult actors included our music teacher Vanessa Secomb as the twins’ Aunt Ness and counsellor Belinda Wundersitz as the Goddess Isis. Both teachers were also involved in some of the fine choreography and singing seen and heard during the evening. Junior School Coordinator Beth Hector got in the act with a role as Ms Priscus the antique dealer, Japanese teacher Star Butcher appeared as the Great Kahuness , Shane Thatcher as the voice of the clock and Ali Adams as the super efficient GEODE

Instrumental music teacher Deb Schwartz was in fine voice as Heidi, the clockmaker’s wife and in a case of art imitating life, Agricultural Studies teacher Sarah Townsend played Helga the milkmaid. None of the school cows passed the rigorous auditions so it was left to Jackie Norman to play Hinterwälde the Black Forest cow.

Two senior students deserve mention for their last minute roles, with Jessica Nankivell  filling in as the photographer and Lucy Young as one of the rascally Bob Brothers.

With a show of this size there was obviously a huge amount of activity going on backstage. Thank you so much to community volunteers  Rosemary Morris and Di Bourne for costuming our vibrantly coloured cast and, indeed, for finding costumes that ranged from late Victorian party dresses through Hawaiian hula dancers all the way to a flock of hyperactive cuckoos. They were also involved in the sets, rehearsals and organising the backstage crew.

Community involved also extended into the front-of-house crew. Ex-MAS student Zac Rawlings took time off from his traineeship at the Adelaide Entertainment centre to run the sound system and oversee nearly two dozen radio microphones.   Ashleigh Nankivell, usually behind the desk at Maitland Music and Arts Club performances ran the lighting, with year 7 students Liam Thatcher and Robert Gerschwitz running the music and sound effects. The show’s superb Grandfather Clock—standing much taller and wider than the real thing—was designed and built by local builder Geoff Rawlings, who also donated timber for sets.

Parents and staff were also obviously busy supervising students, shifting sets and organising a veritable mountain of hand props including a 90th birthday (complete with 90 candles!) , an Egyptian ‘book of the dead’ and cuckoo-catching nets.

Thank you once again to all involved in the show—we certainly used our four ‘keys to success’ to achieve a fantastic result.