By Rose Rushe
69 O’Connell Street is to host the Irish premier of a musical that played to prominence in the West End, winning many a gong. ‘When Midnight Strikes’, written for piano and cello by Hammonds and Miller, will stage this Friday August 8 and Saturday 9 at 7.30pm, booking through www.limetreetheatre.ie
“Most of cast met on an opera musical theatre course,” reported Pius McGrath of Honest Arts from first rehearsal. “The music examines the complex relationship between friends as a hostess at a 1999 new year’s eve blacktie party finds out that her husband has been unfaithful”.
NMT (New Musical Theatre) Productions, here in association with Honest Arts, is comprised of accomplished music and theatre graduates who are semi-professional, mixing postgrad studies with regular gigs on stage and off.
McGrath warns of a high end production with Michael Young at the helm as musical director and producer ”very much in demand in musical theatre circles”.
Young himself makes no such claim but has put his back into pulling together this show with best friend Aaron Barriscale directing and no official funding.
“The big societies such as Limerick Musical Society and Cecilians will do a show with a chorus of 50,” he points out. “But small, beautiful works such as ‘When Midnight Strikes’ don’t get done. I came across it during work on a new course on which I am staff with Musical Theatre Ireland and loved the music”.
“There’s a cast of 12, it’s an apartment scene where the hostess is throwing this little gathering.
“Yes, it’s largely driven by two principals but everyone sings a solo and then all 12 in the ensemble sing together in four part harmonies”.
The sound is golden with trained singers, a plot enriched by links and lack of them between members of the party: the stranger from upstairs; a former, failed romance; the uninvited guest. More than bells are set to bawl at the midnight hour for millennium year and let’s face it, we all enjoy a little savage with the chic.
Box office in advance at Limetreetheatre.ie for tickets or on the door at 69 O’Connell Street this August 8 and 9, note the 7.30pm bell.
