28 June - 14 July 2013
Musical

The Rainbow Young Performers Project for 2013 is an original production, Can You Feel It?, written and directed by Peter Court and Charon Williams-Ros.  Can You Feel It? sees a departure from the traditional familiar book musical in favour of something a little different. “Part of the publicity campaign is an element of secrecy but we can tell you that there’s great singing, dance, and physical theatre with a distinct ‘Cirque du Soleil’ feel. The storyline, however, relates to South African life and some of the issues facing our youth,” says Charon Williams-Ros.

Spearheaded by PANSA (the Performing Arts Network of South Africa: KZN, and co-sponsored by UKZN's Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre, the project ensures that pupils get a taste of working in the professional arena; an idea of the manner in which a play develops from rehearsals to the construction of the sets; and most of all, plenty of hard work!  The programme promotes discipline, develops confidence, and gives an opportunity to make life-long friendships, to learn a huge amount from the professionals and have a whole lot of fun at the same time.

Almost 400 aspirant performers arrived for the auditions on 13 April with a couple of bus-loads from Hammarsdale (courtesy of  Rainbow). This year four talented kids from Rainbow Star schools are part of the cast which features popular local actor, Rory Booth, as the professional this year. The rest of the cast is made up of young talent from a host of Durban schools (and we even have three talented girls from one pro-active Pietermaritzburg school), all prepared to sacrifice every weekend for three months to be part of this amazing project.  Booking is through Computicket.