Welcome to the Androcles and the Lion Blog!

Welcome to the official blog of Childsplay's Androcles and the Lion! My name is David Dickinson, and I'm playing Androcles in the play. We will be opening this coming Saturday, October 31, Halloween Day! We will be performing the show at the Tempe Center for the Arts until November 15th. We will then go on the road with the show all year throughout the state of Arizona completing the tour in May 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada. This blog will chronicle our trek over the boards and across the state.

We started a month ago with our first read of the play, and after a stream of crazy creative rehearsals, our cast is very excited to finally be able to perform in front of audiences. We had our first preview to a packed house yesterday the Studio at the Tempe Center for the Arts.

The play is in classic Commedia dell'arte style. This means music with the actors playing all the instruments, masks, singing and dancing and highly stylized acting. We begin each performance with "lazzi" which are semi-rehearsed, but mostly impromptu, comic situations that a commedia troupe would perform. The lazzi start the fun and are different every day.

Each of the actors is playing a stock character from Commedia. For example, Androcles is actually the stock character of Arlecchino or the Harlequin. We also have the Captain (Anthony Toudjarov), the Pantalone (Jesse Berger) the two Lovers (Kate Haas and Eric Boudreau) and of course a lion (Scott Jeffers)! The Commedia dell'arte style not only gives a young audience constant and captivating action, but gives the play a connection to theatre's roots which makes this play a unique experience for all theatre goers.

The play is written by Aurand Harris, directed by D. Scott Withers and scored by Glenn Mack. However, the music is adapted beautifully by Jonathan Ivie. The play is a classic for young audiences. I hope you can come out and see this story of friendship come to life!