Director of ?Lend Me a Tenor? Kelvin Hastings-Smith is feeling a touch of the jitters as opening night nears.

Mr. Smith, who is a lawyer by day, compared directing the play to going to court ? however difficult or easy the case may be.

?I always get a touch of the nerves,? he said. ?In terms of theatre, I get that as an actor before I go on and I just feed off that ? it is wonderful.?

Mr. Hastings-Smith said ?Lend Me a Tenor? is a play written by a lawyer for a lawyer.

It was written by Ken Ludwig ? a practising lawyer in Washington.

He wrote the play in 1988 and it has since been performed on Broadway ? winning a Tony award ? and in London?s West End.

The play will open on September 16 the Bermuda Musical and Dramatic Society?s (BMDS) Daylesford Theatre.

?Lend Me a Tenor? is set around a world renowned opera singer, Tito Merelli. He is due to appear as the guest singer at the Cleveland Grand Opera Company?s 10th Anniversary.

He is late and the organisers are anxious that he has not been involved in an accident or otherwise delayed. At the same time, 50 pounds of shrimp mayonnaise is in danger of spoiling because the refrigeration at the theatre has malfunctioned. Mr. Merelli eventually arrives at his hotel, but all is not well.

Mr. Hastings Smith said when he directed his first play, ?Navy Pier? in 2001, he was not sure of the reaction that he would get.

?It was written as a story that was being narrated by four people and it was based in Chicago,? he said. ?And the people were interrelated in some way. So I had them sat on stage on four bar stools.

?It was a bit of a tragic event at the end, but it worked. I thought, ?I can do it? and the audience were with me. People probably thought, ?this is going to be boring, just four chairs umm...?, but they were with it all the time.

?Then, this year, I was lucky enough to have a play that I wrote for the 15 Minutes Festival (a play-writing competition BMDS holds) picked as a winner. That was ?Orange? and the first night that I sat in the theatre for its world premiere, it was dreadful. I was a bag of slithering, slimy worms.

?It was dreadful, but it was also quite an emotional piece and I felt that I should be crying my eyes out, because the actors and the director had done such a fantastic job with it.

?So, I don?t know how I am going to be come opening night for this but, it should be really great.?

One thing Mr. Hastings-Smith is definitely torn over, is whether to invite Mr. Ludwig to the Island to see his play performed here.

?I have investigated whether I should invite him down for the performance and, as I understand through Daniel Frith who is acquainted with him, he (Mr. Ludwig) would like nothing better than to come to Bermuda. But then I am so nervous. Do I want this man to see how I have completely bastardised his play?

?So, maybe I won?t invite him, just send him a review.?

Tickets for the play have been selling steadily, however, he said.

?The membership has really grown, within the last four years, we have added another 400,? he said. ?It is growing, but one of the problems we have is... do we have to stop at some point and say we can?t take anymore on? There is only so much capacity that we have. Or, do we say the more the merrier.

?The one thing about this society is that, at long last, we are really attracting Bermudians. We have always had Bermudians here, but not in great numbers and it is now great that we are losing the tag of being an expat club.

?We have Bermuda in the title and that is what it is. I won?t be here forever and I would like to think that, when I have left Bermuda, I have left something for Bermuda and Bermudians to enjoy.

?We?ve had some great successes over the years in terms of bringing Bermudians on and we have a charitable arm now where we raise money for bursaries for Bermudian students studying performing arts.

?And that is fantastic, really, really good. So the more the merrier really and if we can get a bigger theatre ? fantastic.?

Mr. Hastings Smith said the BMDS always needs additional assistance.

?In terms of running the theatre, we always look for sponsorship. Every performing arts centre in the world can say it is difficult to get sponsors and this is the first sponsorship for a major show that we have had,? he said.

?We have sponsors for part of the pantomime each year, a sponsor for our ?Famous For 15 Minutes?, but this is the first time for a major production and we hope that Deloitte?s (the accounting firm sponsoring the show) decision would be something that would be picked up by others.?