One of my favorite movies of all time is Mary Poppins. Proof being that when I visited New York City a few years back it was on the top of my list of shows to see on Broadway. I went, I saw, I loved. So, now that we’ve been working with the Grand Rapids Civic Theatre for almost 4 years (has it really been that long?!?) I’ve been waiting for Phantom, Wicked, or Mary to make their way to the stage and this year I got my wish.
When you see Mary Poppins at the Grand Rapids Civic Theatre, you’ll notice there are some differences between the stage show and the movie. But, this performance is a show stopper. You will especially love the song and dance involving Bert’s rooftop crew as they “Step in Time.” The local talent that we have here in G Rap is phenomenal and this show was a prime example.
These photos are a little different than some of the stuff we’ve done for Civic in the past. You see, we’ve been wanting to do a personal portrait project with the theatre for some time now. I knew from the moment the season was announced that with Mary, we would finally make this happen.
Unbeknownst to anyone else (at least I hope no one else heard us cursing under our breath) we had some major technical difficulties when setting up for this shoot. We actually shot these in a room full of mirrors that were partially hidden by a curtain. Our emergency backdrop wasn’t cutting it and we had issues with the lights. Additionally, we had ever-changing scenarios of cast members coming in and out (we shot this during a performance and cast members stopped by in between their scenes). So there were times when we (finally) had the perfect lighting scenario for one person and in popped a group of 15. They had two minutes until they had to be back on stage so there was no time to rig up a new lighting scenario for all of them. We made do, we had so much fun, and I couldn’t be happier with the results.
The costumes, wigs, cast, and crew were nothing short of amazing.
Who doesn’t love some supercalifragilist fun?
Feed the birds… who doesn’t remember that song? And, no one in the audience would even believe this was the same gal that played the evil nanny, Miss Andrew. She had to have been my favorite character. Unfortunately, due the the time restraints between her scenes, we didn’t get much time with her as the crazed nanny, so we had some fun with Bird Woman instead.
Now all I have to do is convince Civic to add Phantom or Wicked to next year’s lineup. Can you even imagine the fun we could have?!? Fingers crossed….
