Aladdin Jr. Magic Lamp and Genie - how do I get a Genie out of a lamp?

HSSmusic

Member
Hello,

I am currently working on a production of Aladdin, Jr. and I am looking for ideas on how to make a genie (the wish-granting kind of genie, not the boom) emerge from a magic lamp.

I am in an extremely restricted setting with no trap doors and no ability to completely black out. I can use fog, but for only 8-10 seconds before we set off the alarm. :)

Even if we fog, we've still got a regular-sized child to pull out of a teeny, tiny lamp. And, in the end of the show, the evil Jafar has to get *into* the lamp.

The people on this forum were so helpful when I was working on Beauty & the Beast transformation last year! Hoping the voices of experience can help this year.

Thanks!
 
This could be hard. My guess would be a little burst of fog, and a quick flash of light, followed by the genie popping out from behind the lamp. This may or may not work depending on the blocking, and other scenery. For the return into the lamp, it happens, after Jasmine tricks Jafar, then he screams , and he disapears. If you can, when we did it, we blacked out, then had Jafar run off stage, then just say his last line off stage. Another option, would be to have Genie behind a scrim, then lights turn on, followed by the scrim rising, with the lamp on a pedestal a few feet away, not directly having the genie appear from behind the lamp itself, but somewhere else on stage. This could also be coupled with some fog behind the scrim, that comes out when the scrim rises. Then when Jafar has to disappear, he backs up, and the scrim (or any other curtain, for that matter) comes in downstage of him. Then when he says his line, the lamp could be thrown onstage, perhaps having changed color to black, to signify an evil person in the lamp. This obviously only works with a fly system, and scrim. Being that this is a Junior Show, and most audience members are their for their children, there is already some suspension of disbelief. Not to say that there is any reason to settle for something anything less then the best possible, just that the effect does not need to leave audience members wondering how it was done.
 
If you're looking for something very simple, and without knowing your exact resources... you could place the lamp near one of your legs. With a blast of fog the child could run out with the fog, as if theres air shoving him out of the lamp. Just a simple suggestion.

As for Jafar, Id have to say some flashy flights, more fog if possible then a black out. While the lights are flashing you could have Jafar dance around maybe spin, the other actors can scatter or kneel down to give Jafar the attention. Finally at the black out Jafar runs off stage and the "others" reset.

Thoughts?
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back