Mary Poppins Play Analysis

On March,6th 2016 I went to see PYT’s production of Mary Poppins. The version I watched was the Broadway version, not the movie version, it had a slightly different plot. I saw Mary Poppins at the Mountain View Center of Performing Arts. This show was directed by Meg Fischer Venuti and written by Julian Fellowes. Mary Poppins was played by Freya Forstall, Talia Gloster played Bert, Nina Crofts played Jane, and Michael was played by Kyle Vetter. The theme of Mary Poppins is that there is still a little bit of child in every one of us and, also to not get too caught up in responsibilities and rules and still make time for dreams and hopes.
The Broadway version of Mary Poppins is about the Banks family who live in London on Cherry Tree Lane.
They had set pieces for all parts of the house like the parlor and nursery, the also had set pieces for the park and rooftops and the bank. The set pieces were movable, and most of the time the ensemble would be part of the set. They would act as people in the background making the stage look like an actual park or “talking shop.”For example, during “Let’s go Fly a Kite” the ensemble acted like park-goers enjoying lovely day outside and vendors trying to sell stuff . The sets showed the right place, the street scenes took place in front of a backdrop with a cobblestone street and leafy green trees. The church steps where “Feed the Birds” took place had very real looking “cement” steps and had the doors to the church in the back. My only critique would be that the set changes took too long of a time. The lights were spot-on on portraying what time of day it was, but they were also good at portraying the mood and emotion of the scene. During “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” the lights were bright and had fun colors to them, just like the song. It definitely improved the scene, this also happened during “Feed the Birds.” That song is a slow, partly sad song, during it the lights rarely changed color and were blue and dim which made me feel sad. “Over the Rooftops” is a song that takes place at night. I honestly thought the lights made this song perfect, the lights had the right amount of glow to portray the stars and street lights and certain spots were brighter as if the moon was shining upon the chimneys. However, even with the dim lights portraying nighttime, there was just enough light to make it look like, although night, a very happy time. Sometimes, would be a spotlight on certain characters for emphasis at certain times. The costumes and makeup designs of the show were okay, it only covered making the actor’s appearance more like the character, it wasn’t