In rehearsal at Repertory is an unusual comedy, based on a Sherlock Holmes adventure. Baskerville.
"It is a comedy farce," says director Chris McKenzie. He likened the production to a theatre company in London that puts shows together that deliberately go wrong. "It's kind of like that in that there are
a lot of deliberate errors written into the script."
The script allows for five actors playing 40 characters.
"We cheated a little and we've got six [actors]."
Wanting to act as well as direct and knowing that three McKenzies were auditioning, Chris removed himself from the auditioning panel. All the McKenzie actors made it through.
"The only reason I wanted more than five was if someone was so good we just couldn't leave them out, and that was the case with Jimmy Sutcliffe and Mike Street.
"In the script, actor one plays 14 parts, so we split them, so [Jimmy and Mike] are playing seven each.
"Sandi Black plays all the female parts, so she's playing 13 roles. That's 13 different costume changes, 13 different sets of props ... it is a beast of a show in that it's got so many moving parts. Jimmy, Mike, Zach and Sandi have each got a dresser ... they come off stage, throw their clothes on the floor, and their dresser is ready with the next costume.
"I'm Sherlock Holmes, and Heath, my nephew is Watson, and we have the easiest parts, because we are just Sherlock Holmes and Watson throughout the whole thing. But these other four are different people all the time, with different accents, different mannerisms ..."
Chris says he invented an imaginary UK theatre company — The Crowborough Amateur Dramatic Society — who, in collaboration with Amdram, would put on this show.
They gave themselves different names, and when they put rehearsal pictures on social media, their faces are not shown.
"Over the next couple of weeks we'll put out there the names of the people in [the play]."
Crowborough is in East Sussex and is where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is buried.
Chris says it's a very busy play.
"We're acting in one corner of the stage while [backstage crew] people are working in another corner. A lot of things happen at the same time.
"We tried to make it relatively easy with regards to setting: there is no permanent set, as such. Everything comes on and everything goes off."
He says Ian Jones' painting skills have helped a lot with the set's ease of manipulation. Bearing in mind that sometimes things go deliberately awry.
"But there are going to be unintentional errors."
Chris says, in an effort to recreate old-school theatre, his wife Jacqui is their sound effects person, and all effects are mechanical or vocal, not recorded.
He says sometimes they break character to react to things going wrong, but when they do they become the members of the Crowborough Amateur Dramatic Society.
