Magdalena is a second-year Theology student at Keble College, and is back in the Queen’s Gardens after choreographing last year’s Fiddler on the Roof. Since then, she has directed and produced Creditors (MT25) and The Glass Menagerie (HT26) with her production company Crazy Child Productions, performed in Under Milk Wood (MT25) and Translations (HT26) and was recently appointed to Oxford University Dramatic Society’s executive committee as the Welfare Officer.
She has had the most wonderful time creating this show with its fabulous cast and crew, and can’t wait for you to see all the hard work everyone has put in. After hours of commitment from all involved, she wants to say a massive “thank you” to the team for making this experience so rewarding. She hopes you all enjoy the show!
Placing Guys and Dolls in The Queen’s Gardens is a bold shift from a traditional theatre. What drew you to this immersive approach, and how did it shape your overall vision for the show?
As an annual event, the Queens College Garden musical is a highlight of the Oxford theatre calendar year, especially for members of The Queen’s college. With setting Guys and Dolls, it provides us with unique opportunities to build on characterisation and movement direction/choreography when we are limited with set. Being placed outside, and in thrust staging, the opportunity for large flats or set pieces coming onstage is limited, and so myself and the team have had to get creative with the way that we block scenes, smoothen transitions and play with setting. We are using modular blocks painted to look like dice to somewhat stylise our production. It had a massive impact on our overall vision, with set design staying minimal but the storytelling being even more crucial. But our main aim is for the audience and everyone involved to have fun – and what a treat of a show it is to watch in the beautiful Queen’s garden, enjoying the summer weather and the beautiful architecture.
How have you balanced immersion with clarity of storytelling, especially for such a well-loved and familiar narrative?
With small parts of the stage among the audience, and the seats coming right up against the stage, myself and the cast have been enjoying playing with ways to include the audience in on all elements of the story. Musical Theatre lends itself well to this style of direction and immersion, especially with Guys and Dolls. The upbeat nature of the whole show succeeds immensely in drawing the audience in already, and that really can be amplified when the audience also feel relevant to the storytelling. The storyline is able to be counterbalanced with interaction, as important moments of the narrative will be focused upon what is going on onstage, and then bringing the focus out again when necessary so that access and relationship is created between the action on stage, and the people in their seats. The more invested people are with the characters, the more they will be able to sympathise with the ongoings of the narrative. Choosing moments to emphasise the joy of the songs will help me succeed in my vision for the show to be as fun as possible for the audience, treating them to some amazing singing and dancing, well filled out characters, and balance of heartfelt moments. The ensemble is crucial in facilitating this balance too, by providing a certain bridge between the central characters that lead the narrative, and those who fall outside of it (the audience).
As Director and Music Director, how have you collaborated to ensure the iconic score still lands effectively in an open-air setting?
We were lucky enough to have a workshop session with West End Musical Director Wendy Gadian, who helped us and the cast to vocally portray the beautiful score. She really helped us tease out particularities in the music and the storytelling so that we can do our best to do the show justice. Working with a hire sound technician, we are hopeful that the mixing will do the music justice. As we lack the comfortability of acoustics, projection and diction have been crucial to focus upon and understanding the way the story is told through each song, each person, each sequence. Another beautiful thing about this performance space is that we will not only be performing to the audience in the garden, but also the streets surrounding the college. The music of Guys and Dolls will be heard by many people on the high street this May!
You mention not wanting to completely reinvent the show, but rather reframe it. What aspects of the original have you been most keen to preserve, and where have you allowed yourselves the most creative freedom?
Placing it outdoors means that our creativity has been logistically limited, and so we have had to think outside the box for ways to get around these limitations, as mentioned above. With our character development, we have really been looking at the female leads, Sarah and Adelaide, and their relationships with the love interests to feel empowered but not overruling the nuances of the script. We have aimed and hope to succeed in maintaining the core elements of the story, but by building the relationships to emphasize their restrictions and limitations as women in 1940s New York. Their differences in personalities, relationships, love and empowerment have all been crucial to explore for me as a director. We do not want to break them out of their contexts, but to build empathy for their characters and the depth that they hold as women in the show.
The ensemble plays a big role in driving the story. How have you approached directing and musically shaping these group moments to take full advantage of the space?
With a background in dance myself, I have really tried to build characters and storylines into individuals who aren’t given much from the script and pairing that with spatial awareness and how we communicate relationships between characters through space rather than script. Many of the ensemble numbers provoke a real united group feeling, with their comfortability or un-comfortability with one another being important to create a cohesive feel. With the singing uniting their voices, audiences are able to really quickly feel the strong bond in relationship, and with dancing added to that, we have been able to create some really memorable group numbers. The energy of the score and the action also elevates this too, as it creates for a fun rehearsal space and a bonding of the cast members.