A Dream Made Possible With Commitment

The Perak Society of Performing Arts production “I Have A Dream” was indeed wonderful for it was their first production with a live wind orchestra, the Kinta Valley Wind Orchestra.

The charity concert in aid of the National Stroke Association of Malaysia (NASAM) was held on 16 December 2017 at the Perak RTM Auditorium.    

First time working together PSPA with the Kinta Valley Wind Orchestra

The musical tells about the choir who are going for a trip to Japan. While all are going some members are having difficulty to attend due to parental consent or cost reasons and act it out with music and dance to many of the songs by that 70’s era group ABBA and a few from La La Land.

A wonderful performance that showed up the talents our actors and musicians, all of whom were volunteers, yet performed so well and seamless it was hard notice any flaws if any at all.

Chai Jin Hann, PSPA’s advisor said that he appreciated them a lot for their commitment to the show.

He described the production as a challenge as the actors and musicians totaling around seventy persons were all volunteers.

The cast were all volunteers

‘I Have a  Dream” was planned when doing the post mortem of their last performance of “The Chimes of Love” in 2016.

“The story concept was created then. We decided to have a bigger cast and work with a live orchestra, the Kinta Valley Wind Orchestra, other than the usual piano. So overall it was a bigger production.

It wasn’t till May when the ideas and songs were selected and the script lines completed. Then too we knew the songs required but we didn’t have the music score and the arrangement so we had to find someone to do that. By then it was already June.

Coming together for rehearsals was the greatest challenge. Some started work in KL, others had to prepare for year-end exams but they were committed and learnt their roles or music notes by themselves.

“We had 50 rehearsals but the only time we had 100% attendance was 1 day before the show, on 15^th December” laughed Chai.  

Chai made use of LED projectors extensively and that combined with a split level stage helped replace the use for props and scenes.

Use of LED's ....

replaced the props and showed different spaces

“The LED’s saved the need for a lot of props. The split level stage too helped as it showed two different timeline and spaces”

“I Have A Dream” is another homegrown performance that showed how the PSPA has grown and improved with each production this time with the addition of the wind orchestra.

I wonder what’s in store for 2018.

JAG