news > LTGnews > LTGnews > LTGnews > events with the aim of creating an ensemble of actors who are comfortable working with Shakespearean text. The project will culminate in a Shakespeare Festival in March 2012 where we will stage two Shakespeare plays (Othello and Romeo and Juliet) using a single ensemble company of actors. Over three weeks these will be performed in repertory alongside a third Shakespearethemed play using a separate cast. Like the RSC’s aim for Open Stages, we see the project’s long-term benefit to The Questors as one that will ‘leave a significant legacy’. Every UK amateur theatre group is invited to make a ‘pitch’ for inclusion in Open Stages by completing the easily downloaded form on the RSC website before the end of March. Once accepted, their work may be ‘badged’ with the RSC Open Stages logo, added to the Open Stages website and their group will have access to high quality training and advice. Ian Wainwright of the RSC is coordinating Open Stages and says that the Shakespeare Festival planned by The Questors is ‘a textbook example of the sort of project we are looking for’. As well as preparing our own entry to Open Stages, The Questors is delighted to be acting as the RSC’s London partner theatre for the project. All London entries to Open Stages will be invited to attend a Skills Exchange Workshop weekend from Saturday 30th April to Monday 2nd May 2011, which will be run at The Questors by RSC professionals. Then in April 2012 The Questors will host the London regional Open Stages showcase. So get on and submit your entries for Open Stages and look out for more information about events taking place at the Open Stages partner theatre for your region.
The LTG continues to grow Although several theatres resigned over the past year or so, this has been offset by new recruits in all three regions. Three new members are The Maddermarket Theatre, Norwich; Brighton Little Theatre; and The Barony Players of Bo’ness, Edinburgh. Meanwhile, last year’s decision to create small regional HUBS to promote local co-operation is making progress. The decision came out of last summer’s Relationship Meetings, when those attending expressed a wish to attend small, local meetings to discuss matters of common interest. Progress has been very encouraging so far – 14 out of the 17 HUBS have already fixed preliminary meetings, and the other 3 are only waiting for confirmation of suitable dates. The list (as at 1.2.2011) is as follows: 22nd January – Lewes Little Theatre (Hub 15) 29th January – Royalty Theatre, Sunderland (2) - Station Theatre, Hayling Island (13) 30th January – Questors Theatre, Ealing (14) 5th February – Bolton Little Theatre (4) - Barn Theatre, Welwyn (11) 12th February – Carlisle Green Room Theatre (1) - Rugby Theatre (8) - Bromley Little Theatre (16) 13th February – Market Theatre, Ledbury (10) 19th February – Doncaster Little Theatre (7) - Sutton Arts Theatre (9) 26th February – Bingley Little Theatre (3) - Playhouse, Whitstable (15) The progress and success of these meetings will be followed with eager interest. There are so many ways that members can learn and benefit from such meetings.
News from around the country Each week it is a pleasure for me to receive Newsletters and Brochures from LTG member theatres, keeping me in touch with what is going on, and enabling me to prepare the Guild’s Quarterly Newsletter. Here are a few interesting items: According to the archives, in May 2011 LEICESTER DRAMA SOCIETY will be celebrating its 1,000th
production with Thornton Wilder’s classic Our Town. “This is your theatre and your chance to celebrate what a wonderful facility we have and how much we enjoy being members of the society.” The first play performed by the Drama Society was The Silver Box by John Galsworthy – I wonder when this was last performed! NEW VENTURE THEATRE, Brighton have now been granted a licence to perform once again in their main upstairs theatre, closed in 2005 because of failure to comply with fire regulations. It is intended to make the space a flexible one while retaining the proscenium arch in principle. With movable seating and differing levels it is hoped to create an exciting performance area. A new fund raising campaign to achieve this was started at the Christmas Party, with over £2,000 being raised on the night! An exclusive fund raising gala is being promoted in April. STOCKPORT GARRICK and CHADS THEATRE held their 4th Joint Weekend in early November – a packed programme, informative and interactive, exploring the challenges of interpreting, presenting and delivering a wide range of texts. The programme reads like a miniature Guild conference, with perhaps the highlight being the Saturday evening entertainment entitled “Sex, Satire and Scandal”! The events were split between both theatres from Friday evening to Sunday luncheon. One doesn’t often read about LTG member theatres taking their productions to other member theatres (more’s the pity!), but in November CRITERION THEATRE, Coventry took their production of Stephen McDonald’s Not About Heroes to TALISMAN THEATRE, Kenilworth for a Saturday night performance in the Studio. At NOMAD THEATRE, East Horsley the bad weather in early December forced the theatre to cancel two scheduled productions “as access to Horsley has been at least hazardous if not impossible for rehearsals as well as performances”. LEWES LITTLE THEATRE also had to cancel two performances because of the snow. THE MILLER CENTRE THEATRE cancelled one performance, and only 9 audience members turned up the next night!
Making money from old books! It is not uncommon to see an untidy bookshelf full of second hand books in theatre lobbies, often with an honesty box, but are they really making any significant contribution to theatre funds? Well, they are at Carlisle Green Room Theatre, as this recent report from Diana Martin in the Newsletter makes clear: “I am happy and proud to report that the books made £495.08 for the club during the last financial year. (Where the 8p came from I know not!) Of course not one penny of this would be possible without the continued support of my generous book donors. I get a regular supply of very good quality books. Any I can’t use go to a book seller on Wigton market and he gives me a donation for them. The very few that are no good to sell still go off to be pulped and then re-made into paper – so literally no contribution is wasted. Internet sales also contribute to the tally. Lately I sold a book to Australia.”
overtaken Ayckbourn for the first time in quite a few years! And by quite a margin! Here is the poll – Number Of Productions 31: William Shakespeare 23: Alan Ayckbourn 17: Willy Russell 15: John Godber 14: Alan Bennett 12: Martin McDonagh 10: Richard Harris, Noel Coward 9: Neil Simon, Agatha Christie 8: Anton Chekhov, Ray Cooney, Terry Johnson, Harold Pinter, Arthur Miller, Peter Shaffer, Mike Leigh. These figures have been compiled from the returns from 100 member theatres of the Guild. In total they presented 839 productions, to audiences of at least 602,199 people. Not every theatre provided membership details, but from the 60% that did, it showed that the average membership was 360. A smaller group provided financial information, 45%, from which an average turnover of £91,800 was calculated. On a humorous note, the most popular pantomime presented was Dick Whittington, which presumably reflected the national concern about making a pile in the City of London! A regular contributor to the Guild’s Newsletter is Martin Bowley QC, a former Chairman of both the Guild and Questors Theatre. He recently wrote: “That Silly Poll - In the November Newsletter Michael Shipley described The Stage’s recent poll of its readers to find ‘the greatest theatre actor of all time’ as a ‘pointless exercise’. He was far too polite. I would call it spectacularly silly. Michael reminded us that it is almost impossible to compare the living with the dead, and that the paper’s short list of 10 possibilities completely ignored the cinema. Not even the editor of The Stage could claim to provide an informed critique of the work of Richard Burbage, David Garrick, Edmund Kean or Henry Irving. But how on earth could he omit from his
Top of the Pops 2010 Culled from the returns for the LTG Year Book for last season comes this list of favourites, plays and authors. Plays performed: No clear favourite emerged last season, but a happy mixture of the popular, the small cast and the big spectaculars enlivened the choice available to our audiences! The most popular were A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Abigail’s Party, Blood Brothers, The Pillowman, Outside Edge, See How They Run, The Graduate, Amadeus, Gaslight, Romeo and Juliet, Art, A Christmas Carol, Steel Magnolias, The Memory of Water, We Happy Few, Dick Barton-Special Agent, Blithe Spirit, Humble Boy, Improbable Fiction, ‘Allo ‘Allo, The Wind in the Willows Popular Authors: The interesting surprise here is that Shakespeare has
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