Stealing scenes, winning hearts and minds

Cast members of Robin Hood by the Beijing Playhouse are of different backgrounds, nationalities and ages. Photo provided to China Daily

Verrill says it usually takes 18 months to do a Beijing Playhouse show. In summer 2013, the artistic board of Beijing Playhouse started finalizing the script, securing partners and recruiting crew members.

"First, we select and then pay for the performance license of professionally written scripts from New York and London. Then we direct them in such a way that transcends language and is enjoyable across cultures," says Verrill.

With an early successful Internet business in the US, Verrill has worked as a director and actor during the last 25 years. He moved to Beijing from San Francisco in 2005 and took a job as a creator, original producer and co-anchor at China Radio International before he decided to launch a theater company.

His original plan was to stay through the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and go back home to San Francisco. But the first show of Beijing Playhouse, Charles Dickens' classic tale, A Christmas Carol, changed his mind.

Verrill received 70 applicants from all different backgrounds, nationalities and ages to audition for the first production's cast of 10. Held in December 2006 at Beijing's Canadian International School auditorium, the production ran for 20 nights and the last show drew a near full house.

Throughout the years, Beijing Playhouse has presented such Broadway favorites as the musicals Guys and Dolls, You Can't Take It With You, Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and Neil Simon's The Odd Couple. Casting requires two things, says Verrill: the actor's ability to act, sing and dance, and the ability to perform in English. In Robin Hood, the youngest actor is 7 and the oldest is 61.

Ellen Lickman plays Maid Marian in Robin Hood. Her first show with Beijing Playhouse was Cinderella. She joined in September 2011, a month after she arrived in the city.

"I'd originally gone along to a meeting just to see where I could help out, work on the crew or be an usher. I was convinced by Verrill and ended up with the title role," says Lickman, 23, who came from Northampton, the United Kingdom, on a six-month teaching internship, which stretched into more than three years.

"I took drama classes for many years as a child and teenager and had been in many local productions. I was amazed I could continue with what I know and love in China."