Upstagers are first for Saigon show (From Wharfedale Observer)
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Upstagers are first for Saigon show
1:12pm Friday 1st June 2012 in Leisure
Grant McIntyre plays Chriss in Miss Saigon
Ilkley Upstagers are to present the West Yorkshire premier of a top West End and Broad-way musical’s adaptation for younger performers.
Upstagers have been given the opportunity to be one of the first theatre groups in the country to perform the Miss Saigon School Edition.
The group will perform the adaptation King’s Hall, Ilkley between July 11 and 14, 2012.
Miss Saigon is a West-meets-East, boy-meets-girl love story between a 17-year-old orphaned Vietnamese girl, Kim, and an American GI, Chris.
The plot is set in chaotic Saigon in 1975 during the Vietnam war. Kim and Chris meet in Dreamland, a nightclub, where she has just begun working as a showgirl.
Chris is attracted to her because she is shy and innocent, unlike the other girls who are searching for a soldier and a visa to the USA to live the “American Dream”.
Their love blossoms and Chris promises to take Kim back to America with him. However, as the Viet Cong approach, Saigon begins to fall apart.
Chris is called back to the Embassy and orders arrive from Washington for all Americans to be evacuated. Kim is left behind.
The original musical was inspired by a real-life photograph of a little Vietnamese girl about to board a plane from Ho Chi Minh City to America where her father, an ex-GI she had never seen, was waiting for her.
The musical is peppered with wonderful numbers including The Heat is on in Saigon, Sun and Moon, I’d Give My Life for You and many more.
Miss Saigon has enjoyed enormous success since it opened in London in 1989 where it was performed more than 4,000 times before crossing the Atlantic to New York. It is still the eleventh longest-running Broadway musical in musical theatre history.
The Upstagers would like to thank Josef Weinberger Ltd for affording for the opportunity to perform the show.
Music by Claude-Michel Schonberg. Lyrics by Richard Maltby Jr and Alain Boublil. Original stage production by Cameron Mackintosh.
Ticket prices are £13 /£10 for concessions. Telephone (01943) 607944 to book. Performances 11-14 July evenings at 7.15pm and a Saturday matinee at 2.15 pm.
