March News Roundup

We staged Jez Butterworth’s play ‘The Winterling’ and you certainly approved.  We had great audience numbers and the feedback was spectacular.  Here is one such comment from a group who came:-

“The standards at the Loft are extraordinary.  Can you raise the bar much higher? The quality of acting, sound, lighting and set design all came together in such a powerful production. Massively impressed. It will stay with us for a long time”

My thanks to Tom O’Connor who carried off the directing honours and to his whole company for delivering such a memorable production.

“…….and now for something completely different”, as they say.  Terry Pratchett’s ‘Wyrd Sisters’ is a juxtaposition of Pratchett’s unique humour and parodies of Shakesperian tragedies, with three bickering witches and a plethora of colourful characters.   I was hooked at the reading of the play with the witches’ dialogue, “When shall we three meet again?” which sparked the response “Well, I can do next Tuesday”.  If you like quirky you will love this.

It’s been a busy month, with readings and auditions coming thick and fast.  We have now cast our productions up to and including September and as I write will be moving into audition week for the mighty Macbeth.  So many people have eloquently written about this play, but I can do no better than quote Michael Billington, who was the senior theatre critic of The Guardian for nearly 50 years, who said:-

Macbeth is quite simply the greatest theatrical poem ever written. The language, once heard, haunts the memory forever.” 

In other news, we have now embarked on the huge job of editing our film about the Loft, shot by Mark Ellis during the Centenary year.  There is some more filming to do, mainly external shots of the theatre and its position by the river.  Its theme is us as a theatre at work and we are looking forward to the final edition.

We are also delighted to announce that we have appointed a new Production Manager, Amy Carroll, who will be taking over from Kim Green who has made such a brilliant contribution to us for 11 years.   She will be having a handover period with Kim during her last couple of weeks with us. Amy brings 20 years of professional production management to the Loft and we are all very excited to be working alongside her.  I know that you will all give her a very warm welcome.

I am now turning my attention to planning our programme for 2024.  We have three productions already planned and many more to come. Sadly we are not able to stage anything in our studio theatre for the immediate future, as we have a project underway to replace and upgrade the performance, house lights and working lights in that space.   This is a very expensive, large ticket item and so we are even more grateful to you for continuing to support our production programme. As the weather brightens for Spring and puts a spring in our step too, perhaps we could encourage you to introduce just one of your friends or family to us.  It would make a great additional contribution to swelling our audience numbers and hasten our ability to open the studio to productions again.

I look forward to seeing you very soon.

SUE MOORE, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR