Teen performer Jade Willis flew into the Algarve last weekend to record That’s What I Believe for the original cast album of Churchill – The Musical, currently in production at the ARC recording studio.
Jade, 17, will be playing the part of Anne Frank in the production, which will have its World Premiere at the Lagoa Auditorium on October 1.
The singer, who lives in Kettering in Northamptonshire, has just come from playing the role of Peggy in a production of 42nd Street and is looking forward to playing the iconic role of Anne Frank in the musical. She described the role as being “incredibly challenging and inspiring”.
Meanwhile, work behind the scenes of the musical is well underway with carpenters and painters busy recreating the home of Winston and Clemmie, the cabinet war room, the oval office and Anne Frank’s attic hideaway being some of the sets already being constructed over the past three months.
Wardrobe mistress to the production, Jan Sheppeard, has been busy preparing over 180 costumes and uniforms that are being sent out from various theatrical costumers from the UK and transported to the Algarve by the Algarve Freight Centre in Almancil, while a team of seamstresses in the Algarve has been working to make all the adjustments and resizing that is needed.
To complete the professional production, Andy Chafer, one of the top three theatrical lighting designers, has been working with the musical director Ray Jeffery to put together a lighting programme incorporating more changes and effects than the new London production of Love Never Dies by Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Wigs and makeup are two further important elements for the show with more than 50 wigs being ordered from the UK with a team of makeup specialists joining the director, stage manager, lighting designer, props mistress and principle actors and dancers on the flight to the Algarve in mid September to join the Algarve cast and crew in final preparations.
