\n The young cast of West Side Story were happy to pose together for photographer Simon Vail after the turmoil on stage had ended.\n<\/p>\n
\n Dancers, actors and musicians from the DIY Theatre Company and three of Oxford\u2019s twin cities joined forces for three performances of the popular musical at the Amey Theatre in Abingdon.\n<\/p>\n
\n The DIY group was formed in 2009 when music teacher Mel Houldershaw found old theatre lights and curtains in the village hall at Sunningwell, near Abingdon.\n<\/p>\n
\n She spoke to her 15-year-old daughter, Rhianna, who was inspired to write a script based on the story of Snow White.\n<\/p>\n
\n Rhianna recalls: \u201cWe had a series of rehearsals in which we did nothing. We played hide and seek, hit each other with towels and messed around.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cAs production week loomed, we ended up having to ask my mum to help as we had nothing we could have shown on stage.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cAs always, she worked her magic and helped us produce a show, even if the prince was played by a girl, the dwarfs ranged massively in size and our spectacular avalanche that killed the witch, also played by the prince, was a space hopper.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Snow White may not have been DIY\u2019s best show, but it set the scene for the company\u2019s successful future.\n<\/p>\n
\n Since then, it has staged at least two productions a year, mainly musicals, giving youngsters their first experience of performing before audiences.\n<\/p>\n
\n West Side Story was conceived by Jerome Robbins with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by Arthur Laurents.\n<\/p>\n
\n Inspired by William Shakespeare\u2019s play Romeo and Juliet, it is set in the mid-1950s in New York and explores the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs from different ethnic backgrounds.\n<\/p>\n
\n There was doubt at first that a story about racial conflict and gang violence would attract audiences, but West Side Story has proved to be one of the most popular musicals.\n<\/p>\n
\n More of Simon Vail\u2019s pictures and a review on Page 21.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The young cast of West Side Story were happy to pose together for photographer Simon Vail after the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8813],"tags":[748,393,4884,2465,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-423756","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manchester","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-manchester","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115202843611613462","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}