A Stage Further – The Purple Flyer

 

You will now have received the details of the 10 workshops – yes TEN – an increase on last year’s programme – with new workshops added to cover set design and acting. Again I have had a major input into these and I was responsible for the selection of the leader on these workshops. The important thing is to ENROL NOW – the words “to avoid disappointment” really do apply. The sound and light days are limited to 4 places each day – these are in September – it may seem along way off, but these workshops – even with more places were in great demand last year and these was a waiting list! Need I say more? I have received a small number of A4 posters – not enough for you all to have one so these have gone to groups who I consider have somewhere to display.

 

 

AGM / Awards

 

The date is July 4th at Frodsham Community Centre- full details nearer the time. This year some exciting new trophies are to be presented for the first time.

 

Firstly a new cup – and very impressive it is too! This replaces the old “Best Director” trophy that was full of names and rather fragile.

This will be known as “The Chronicle Cup for Best Director” – and our thanks go to Jane Matzen of the Northwich Chronicle who helped put me in contact with the right person at the Chronicle head office who would possibly have some money available to purchase this cup – she did and we have! Wait till you see it – a fitting reward for all the blood sweat and tears that a “Best Director” will have gone through.

 

A second replacement cup is for “Best Production with Musical Content” – this again replaces a cup full of names and slightly worse for wear. Thank you Jimmy Tait who presented the original trophy and who has kindly agreed to donate the replacement.

 

The third new trophy is for a new category “Best Pantomime” and has been presented to us by Wilmslow Guild Players – a group who really know what makes a good pantomime. This will be the “Oh Yes You Have Pantomime Shield”. As Grace Reid of Wilmslow Guild Players quite rightly said “a pantomime should be fun so we chose a fun name for the award”. Thanks to all at Wilmslow Guild Players.

 

Lastly but certainly not least, we have obtained a grant for the purchase of two years supply of our “keepsakes” – the plaque you get to keep and proudly display. These are bigger and better than in previous years and Cheshire Theatre Guild wishes to acknowledge Rural Enterprise / Cheshire County Council as sponsors of these awards . Our Thanks go to them for this financial assistance.

 

 

Changing Times

 

I was loaned a 35 year old programme for “The Day After the Fair” – lovingly kept by a theatregoer from when she saw the London production at the Lyric Theatre. My special interest was that I am directing the play at Nantwich Players for early May performance (see diary).

 

The following caught my eye and I thought you may also be amused.

The management wishes to draw the attention to their patrons to the special service of Tea at matinees price 20p and coffe with buiscuits, price 10p at evening performances, which are served by the attendants. To facilitate service patrons are requested to order in advance. Also available from the attendants, ices at 10p, squash at 5p and chocolates at usual prices.

 

There was also a notice in the  programme “the use of cameras and tape recorders in the auditorium is strictly prohibited”. With the coming of mobile phone cameras – more difficult to detect – a problem the National Trust with it’s “no photography” rule are finding as I know from my work as a volunteer.

 

As you will have realised from past newsletters I have athing about mobile phones, so I was none too pleased when at the start of act 2 of “Hay Fever” at Venue Cymru – Llandudno a mobile rang and rang and rang again – didn’t the idiot owner know how to turn the thing off?

 

 

Out of the Mouths of Panto Babes

 

The performance of “Ciderella” at the Crew Lyceum theatre on 29th December 2006 was brought to a standstill by a 6 year old child from the audiuence, brought up on stage for the song sheet. When asked by Buttons ”what fdo you want to be when you grow up?” the highly focussed tot replied “”A barrister by day and a pole dancer by night”.

 

 

Good Luck Tudors

 

Once again Tudor Players are off to the Easter Festival of Full Length Plays in the Isle of Man.

 

The play is “The Lion in Winter” and I think my duties will include some set painting – stonework actually – my brief is “less is more – I don’t want a pantomime set”

Wish me luck and even more to “The Lion in Winter” cast. I’ll let you know how we got on.

 

 

Griffiths’ Vile Childhood.

 

Richard Griffiths had in his own words an “absolutely Vile and hateful childhood”. The actor grew up in a council flat in “ignorant rough” Stockton on Tees. Both his parents were deaf mutes, so he lived in a world of silence. “They could make noises when they were emotionally aroused”, he told Nigel Farndale in the Sunday Telegraph, “but they couldn’t form it into speech”. At 15 Griffiths got his first radio. He was listening to the promswhen his father nudged him and asked what ir sounded like. “I couldn’t explain music to himm, and I felt monstrous; totally inadequate.” He tried to run away from home many times, but his conscience drove him back. “The trouble was I was sort of responsible for them. From the age of four I would help with the shopping . They would sign and I would translate to the shopkeeper. That’s whi I have a life long loathing of shopping.

 

 

Bad Week for Extras

 

Extras are a dying breed. The actors union Equity claims that professional “supporting actors” who charge around £60 for a day’s work, are being driven out of business by unpaid amateurs – often competition winners, whose prize is to mill around in the background of their favourite TV drama.

 

 

Sheridan Morley

 

Theatre critic Sheridan Morley who died recently was a confidant to the stars. He once asked Laurence Olivier whether David Niven had been Merle Oberon’s lover while the three of them were making “Wuthering Heights” in 1939. “Yes”, replied Olivier, “but there is one thing you have to understand. Although both Niven and I were deeply in love with Merle Oberon, I was the one who married her”. “Er no you didn’t”, replied Morley. “It wasn’t Merle Oberon you married it was Vivien Leigh”. “My dearest boy”, exclaimed Olivier, “You are so right!”.

 

 

Pinteresque Pauses

 

The painteresque pause is under threat – from Harold Pinter himself. The Nobel prize winning playwright is celebrated for the profound silences written into his scripts (there are 224 in The Homecoming), but now he says they shouldn’t be taken so seriously:

 

 “These damn silences and pauses are all to do with what’s going on, and if they don’t make any sense then I always say cut them. I think they have been taken much too far”. His remarks have dismayed directors. “A pause in Pinter is as important as a line”, says Sir Peter Hall. “They are all there for a reason. Three dots is a hesitation, a pause is a mundane crisis and a silence is a crisis”.

 

 

Gossip

 

The only time Margaret Thatcher went to the National Theatre during her 11 years as Prime Minister was to see Amadeus directed by Peter Hall. Shocked by the bad language and scatological humour, she went backstage afterwards to give Hall a ticking off. “It’s absurd”, she declared “Mozart couldn’t possible have been like that”. Hall replied that actually, Mozart was famously coarse and often wrote letters to women full of lavatory humour. The Iron Lady, pulling herself up to her full height, retorted “I thought I just expolained that he couldn’t have been like that”.

 

 

The Last Word

 

Did you know Shakespeare probably died on his birthday. He died on 23rd April 1616 at the age of 52. But no one really knows his true birthday. Working from the date of his baptism of 26th April 1564 he is assumed to have been born 3 days earlier on April 23rd, the date now used to celebrate his birthday.. He wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets.