Connie's Warwick Davis Fanpage and Leprechaun Center

Coming Up Short

Coming Up Short

This article appeared in the Arizona Daily Star on December 23, 1999.

 

LONDON - Here's a millenial labor shortage that no one saw coming. Because of the unprecedented numger of Christmas pantomime productions of "Snow White" this year, Britain is in the grip of a dwarf shortage.

The scramble began in the spring, when most producers started casting for the Christmas season.

Chris Yates, a producer at the Montrose production company in Kent, made his customary call to the Willow actors' agency, whose 109 clients are all 5 feet or under.

Yates had two productions of "Snow White," but his request for 14 dwarf actors was turned down. He was too late.

"We use Willow every year," he says, "but this time they told me, basically, they'd run out of dwarfs."

" 'Snow White' has always been up there in the top five," says Terri Paddock, editor of the British national arts listings service Whatsonstage.com. "It is the most popular panto after 'Cinderella' and 'Aladdin.' But whereas last year there were roughly 10 professional productions, this year it is nearer 20."

The exact number is 18, discounting ambitious amateur productions and the two touring "Snow Whites" making their way across Europe with 14 British dwarfs - or, more properly, people of restricted growth - in the cast.

Cadbury's E&G, which is producing 31 pantomimes this year, snapped up 28 dwarfs before anyone else got started, and by August the Willow agency's books were seriously overstretched.

"We have never seen anything like it," says Peter Burroughs, manager at the agency, which was set up five years ago by Warwick Davis, the dwarf who took the title role in the film "Willow." "There was a run five years ago, but it was not as bad as this."

It had become clear by midsummer that the number of "Snow Whites" in production was running dangerously high. Thus, in September, a great casting net was thrown out and the worldwide search for dwarfs began.

Ideally, actors auditioning for the roles of the seven dwarfs should be 4 foot 6 inches and under, but the height requirement was relaxed as producers became increasingly desperate.