JAMBIZ International is taking a few more steps up the quality bar with their seasonal production, Glass Slippaz.

That is the consensus at Centerstage Theatre, their New Kingston base, as the team is in its final weeks of rehearsal for the Boxing Day opening.

The comedy is the latest ‘Jamaicanised’ adaptation of the classic folk tale, Cinderella, about a beautiful girl who is despised by her godmother.

“I find so many examples of that in real life. It’s a truism that will always be relevant,” writer/co-director Patrick Brown points out.

This time, the team – which also includes producer Lenford Salmon and co-director Trevor Nairne — thinks they have come the closest to producing a genuine musical, although Brown insists it is only “a comedy with music”.

“There is not enough music to make it a musical comedy, so I call it a comedy with music,” he said. “But, it has a little more music than in the past, because we have a few more singers than normal.”

Salmon points out that Glass Slippaz marks the 16th year that Jambiz will open its year-end production on Boxing Day.

“Every year we try to move the bar a little higher, a few more steps trying to outdo ourselves,” he says.

“This year, we have raised the bar in terms of the artistic work on stage, in terms of the technical input into the production. You have to understand that this is a multi-disciplinary production involving music, acting and choreography all coming together, with the icing on the cake being the sound and the light,” he noted.

Jambiz recruited a trained lighting designer, Nadia Roxburg, to design the lighting for the show.

The young cast includes some popular music names, including Alaine (Alaine Laughton) and Donald “Iceman” Anderson, as well as successful singers/thespians such as Sakina Deer, Sharee McDonald Russell and Natalee Cole.

Both Alaine and “Iceman” have recorded reggae/dancehall hits. But, while Iceman has made a name for himself as an actor/stand-up comic, Glass Slippaz marks Alaine’s formal entry into professional theatre.

The main character Cindyrelisha alternates between Alaine and Sakina. She is a young woman who, following the death of her mother, takes over the late woman’s domestic chores, haunted by a nasty godfather (as opposed to a godmother), played by Courtney Wilson, who believes she does not need an education to “feed the hogs, clean the house and wash the clothes”.

Veteran actor Glen “Titus” Campbell, a Jambiz regular, returns as ‘Simple’ the yard boy.