ARTISTIC ROUND-UP NEWS FOR SEPTEMBER

Well the summer has flown by, as summers have a tendency to do. Our theatre garden has continued to blossom and we are now on track for the blossoming of our autumn production programme.

Summertime inside the theatre is busier than you might imagine, with our annual external testing and assessment of the health of our stage and auditorium lighting equipment and much preparation by the tech team for that. To reward their hard work, the tech team have been in orbit with the excitement of a shiny, new lighting board arriving today. Get ready to enjoy the fruits of what that will produce on the stage.  We just spoil them, don’t we?

Rehearsals for the September production of Mosquitoes by Lucy Kirkwood are well under way and casting for the first quarter of 2025 is almost complete.  We are very excited to be bringing you news of those casts over the coming days.  

We have also held our AGM and are delighted to report a theatre company in good health.

Our July production of Lovesong by Abi Morgan was a triumph, applauded by our audience and critics alike.  This was our first move into what is known as ‘physical theatre’ and members of the audience were deeply moved to tears by this beautiful play.  To engage with an audience in this way is very special and is what great theatre should be.  My thanks go to Craig Shelton who directed this heartbreaking piece of writing and to Dan Walsh for the exquisite movement.  The movement by the cast was so very impressive; you would have thought they had been working in ‘physical theatre’ for years.  The cast filmed on location during rehearsals and the use of this as part of the video and still projection by Michael Wheeldon added a rich dimension to the storytelling.  I felt immensely proud to be associated with this theatre company.

Next up is Mosquitoes by Lucy Kirkwood.  This is the third play by Lucy that we have staged. I have directed one and been in the cast of two. As you can gauge, I am a huge fan of her writing; she is the real deal and her work has been lauded on both sides of the Atlantic.  It is a masterclass in the writing of natural dialogue for any playwright aspiring to do the same.   We are welcoming new actors to the cast, joining existing experienced members and the staging will be visually exciting and a great challenge for the technical team.  We seem addicted to space and time as a theme recently.  

Mosquitoes was originally staged at the National Theatre with Olivia Colman and Olivia Williams in the lead roles of two sisters whose lives collide. Set in 2008, as the large Hadron Collider searches for the Higgs boson, tragedy throws them together. The collision threatens them all with chaos. 

It is a moving, but also an extremely witty play, with brilliant one-liners and a story line which moves at full speed, propelling you along.  Such an ambitious piece, but the kind we relish.

Don’t miss it.

In other news, our production schedule for 2025 is almost complete, with just two productions still be settled.  It is an exciting year ahead with classic drama, new adaptations, high comedy, contemporary plays, new writing, an audacious musical and more physical theatre.

The first quarter schedule for 2025 in the main house is on the theatre website already. In addition, we are staging a play in our 50 seat Studio Theatre in April, entitled The Just Price of Flowers, with grateful thanks for the performance rights from the highly acclaimed Stan’s Café Theatre in Birmingham. Mark Crossley will be directing.  

For those who love jazz and swing, we are thrilled to announce, after a long wait, that Down for the Count are returning on Sunday 2nd February 2025 with their latest show, Swing that Music.   Unmissable. 

We hope we can tempt you to the autumn line-up of productions.  Following Mosquitoes will be Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov, in a new version by David Fletcher and to round off the year Glorious! by Peter Quilter to bring laughter and pure joy.

Our heartfelt thanks to you all for your generous support of our work so far this year.  Without any external funding we live on our wits and good judgement at the box office to bring you a high quality of theatre.  We always strive for professional standards and you will be assured a warm welcome by our team of volunteers, whose generosity of time and talent knows no bounds.

See you soon.  The auditorium awaits.

Sue Moore, Artistic Director