The musical follows Matilda, a young intelligent girl with wit, and psychokinetic powers.<\/p>\n
Playing the main role of Matilda are 10-year-old Samantha Douglas from Twyford, 11-year-old Effie Palfreman from Waipukurau, and 12-year-old Bethany Addis from P\u0101k\u014dwhai.<\/p>\n
Rather than sharing the stage each night, each of them will take turns at playing the titular character throughout the show\u2019s run.<\/p>\n
All three actors are big fans of the character.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always been a fan of Matilda, fascinated by it,\u201d Effie said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like that Matilda\u2019s really smart and she loves books, because I really love books as well,\u201d Bethany said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like how she\u2019s cheeky but also stands up for herself and others,\u201d added Samantha.<\/p>\n
The need for three actors to play the same role is because of the musical\u2019s demanding schedule, which includes 11 performances in total, sometimes with two performances in one day.<\/p>\n
During the performances, one Matilda will be on stage while another one waits in the theatre\u2019s wings as back-up, while the third Matilda enjoys time off.<\/p>\n
All three thespians are big fans of Dahl\u2019s novel and the 1996 film adaptation, but it will be Samantha and Bethany\u2019s first time treading the boards in front of an audience.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I\u2019m on stage, I feel like a whole different person. Out of performing, I feel like I\u2019m really quiet, but when performing, I\u2019m like super loud,\u201d Samantha said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a fun experience,\u201d added Bethany.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not really good with social things, so this has really helped me with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The actors have been undergoing nine to 11 hours of rehearsals a week to prepare for the show run, which all three have enjoyed, but said it can be tiring.<\/p>\n
A standout song for all three actors from the show is Bruce, where the character Bruce Bogtrotter is forced to eat a whole chocolate cake after being caught stealing from the evil headmistress Miss Trunchbull.<\/p>\n
The actor playing Bruce Bogtrotter will enjoy a whole chocolate cake to themselves while the rest of the cast sings on in support.<\/p>\n
All three actors said they encouraged people to attend at least one performance of the show.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople should come and see Matilda because of the amazing cast we have and the amazing singing and dancing and how fun the show is,\u201d Effie said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are some good laughs in there, but it\u2019s also quite an emotional show,\u201d Samantha said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a really talented cast and it\u2019s really, really cool to work with them – even cooler to watch them,\u201d Bethany said.<\/p>\n
Tickets for Matilda The Musical are on sale now on the Napier Municipal Theatre website.<\/p>\n
Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke\u2019s Bay Today and has worked in radio and media in Auckland, London, Berlin, and Napier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The musical follows Matilda, a young intelligent girl with wit, and psychokinetic powers. Playing the main role of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[6946,1975,1561,156,1976,78,7240,20695,20696,9381,3607,111,139,69,90,205,2122,223,7069,13082,810],"class_list":["post-19398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-actors","tag-at","tag-bay","tag-entertainment","tag-hawkes","tag-in","tag-lead","tag-matilda","tag-matildas","tag-musical","tag-napier","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-role","tag-share","tag-the","tag-theatre","tag-trio","tag-up"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}