The first of these will be on Saturday February 25^th 10.00am to 4.00pm at Nantwich Players Theatre. This will be a repeat (the third and final) of my “Direc ting for the Terrified” workshop – full details on attached sheet.

I am delighted that as a result of earlier workshops no less than 3 who came along have gone on to direct their first productions!

Since the last newsletter funding has been obtained to ensure that these will continue and proposed dates (yet to be finalised) are Spring / Early Summer and Autumn with a bvreak during the high summer when many people are likely to be on holiday.

There will be further sessions – or possibly a couple – on directing and an acting masterclass. Both with Chris Honer (Manchester Library Theatre). A new workshop will cover SET DESIGN and there will be a further session on stage combat incorporating stage weapons. The lighting and sound courses will run with sessions for beginners and separately for those with more experience. There will also be further days devoted to choreography and for budding musical directors.

As last time I will keep you informed so that you can enrole early – several of the workshops “SOLD OUT” (with waiting lists) very quickly. Don’t miss getting a place this time.

Our adjudicator already has many dates booked in right through to June.

Please note that for all plays Joa likes to have a script and the system that appears to be working well is when Joan comes to see your play she will collect a script for your next production. When Joan visits to adjudicate that production she will return the script from the previous production.

This is an attempt to save postage wherever possible – not all scripts go through that narrow slot on the post office counter that decides if the charge will be the lower rate.

please be aware that an adjudication form and cheque posted to me unfolded in a large envelope incurred a penalty for underpayment!

As reported I the spring 2006 issue, a ban on smoking in public places in England takes effect from Summer 2007. We have been asked by members how this will work in practice.

In relation to enforcement, interpretation of whether there has been a breach of the law rests with the local authority enforcement officer. It will be their responsibility to produce evidence that the law has been breached and the burden of proof is on the prosecuting authority. If ther is a prosecution it will be against the smoker and the ‘person in control of the premises at the time’.

In June Mark Pemberton, NODA’s Chief Executive, joined a delegation alongside SOLT/TMA and Equity to discuss a proposed exemption from the smoking ban with civil servants at the Department of Health (DoH). The DoH has agreed to include an exemption from the ban for the theatre and broadcasting industries, and our delegation has proposed the following wording: ‘a bona fide theatrical presentation including, for example a play, a performance or ballet or other dance, an opera, a musical, an experimental theatre performance, a circus, a magic or conjuring act and, in so far as the character is being portrayed, a comedy or cabaret act’ and have lobbied for rehearsals to be included as follows: ‘a bona fide rehearsal of scenes or sections of the work to be performed at

which only persons specifically required for the purposes of that rehearsal are present’. This would mean there would be designated rehearsals for scenes involving smoking, from which all people not actively involved in the rehearsal should be excluded.

The Department of Health has recently published Smoke Free Premises and Vehicles, Consultation on proposed regulations to be made under powers in the Health Bill (available from DH Publications on 08701 555455 or email dh@prolog.uk.com) and comments need to be in by 9^th October. This document includes the exemption for performers but not to the extent we had requested: ‘The Health Bill makes provision… for those participating an a performance, or in a performance of a specific description, not to be prevented from smoking if the artistic integrity of the performance makes it appropriate for them to smoke’. We continue to lobby for the exemption to be extended to rehearsals.

With regard to Wales, the Welsh Assembly cannot amend the bill, but it can make it’s own regulations and can choose not to implement the power to provide an exemption for theatrical performances. The Chief Executive is happy to work with members in Wales on lobbying the Assembly once it’s plans become clearer.

Note The DoH has announced the date for the smoking ban in England will be 1^st July 2007.

As those of you who work with children and vulnerable adults will know you should have CRB checks carried out. There are two different types of CRB check, PoCA (children) and PoVA (vulnerable adults) that will affect amateur groups. How do you get a check carried out? Unless you are in the position of being able to carry out hundreds of checks a year you cannot register with the CRB directly, you will need to find an umbrella body that will carry out the checks on your behalf. Another problem with the regulations is YOU have to carry out the check, you cannot rely on an existing CRB check. For example if one of your members is a working schoolteacher and a scout leader they will have had CRB checks carried out by both the school and the scouts, you are not allowed to assume that these checks were OK. A list of umbrella bodies are included on the CRB web site, although when I approached some of them they were no longer carrying out checks for other groups. I have however discovered a company called @lantic Data, they operate over the internet, firstly you need to register with them for which there is a modest affiliation fee based on the number of checks you will be requiring. Each subsequent check costs £7.50 plus any charges levied by the CRB (at present around £30 – which is waived for ‘not for profit’ groups). The forms are filled in over the internet and all further correspondence is carried out via the ordinary mail and is kept confidential between the company and the person applying for the check. Incidentally you are not allowed to request a CRB check on yourself so you might need to register a second named user.

Like many seaside resorts the days of theatres presenting rep – variety shows (often with a mid week change of programme to enable holidaymakers on a weeks visit to go twice to see a different play/show) have long since disappeared.

On a recent holiday in Cornwall staying just outside Newquay I discovered the LANE THEATRE – 75 years young and 26 years entertaining Newquay and it’s visitors!! The curtain up was 8.15pm enabling a meal before the show – and performances were on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. From May 23^rd to July 26^th. There was a chance to see ‘Lord Arthur Savilles Crime’ and from August 8^th to October 11^th “Double Vision’. A very comfortable theatre – green room – bar and plenty of parking and not only tea or coffee in the interval but – ice cream – a must when on holiday and particularly in Cornwall. Any of you who have visited that lovely part of the country will know exactly what I mean.

News from around the groups.

The Club Theatre – have introduced a gift voucher scheme whereby people can purchase a gift voucher for seats at any production in the season as a present. The theatre produce the voucher and a brochure of plays to choose from.

Sandbach Players - 2006 was a special year for this group as they celebrate 60 years of community theatre. Now back in the Town Hall (where they started – having in the meantime played in Hope Street Little Theatre and Sandbach School) you can see them on December 15^th and 16^th with the double bill ‘Last Panto in Little Grimley’ and ‘Last Tango in Little Grimley’.

SaleNomads - Another group with a 60^th birthday – founded 22^nd November 1946. Now alternating between the Friars Road studio theatre and the Robert Bolt Theatre – Sale Waterside – for the BIG productions – ‘DickWhittington’ in January and ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ in May with ‘Hindle Wakes’ to look forward to in March at Friars Road.

It was at the after show party that I had the idea of doing a one off extra performance of Shirley Valentine. Christine Miller (who won the Best Actress award for Shirley Valentine at the recent awards) and I both work as volunteers for our local Hospice St Roco’s and we decides to raise money for them.

Our dramatic society is affiliated to the Methodist Church in Stockton Heath. A group of 28 members of the Church, many of whom are also dramatic society members, have spent two weeks of their holidays in Russia, renovating ana orphanage under the auspices of a charity called Multi-International Aid. Members and friends of the Church have been actively fund raising all summer to pay for materials needed. Over £35000 has already been collected. Our society put together a variety evening which was a great success. So we decided to do another performance of Shirley Valentine for the orphanage in Tula.

Fortunately we were able to keep the kitchen set for another two months. Christine’s task was more difficult as she had to remember her lines all that time! Both charity shows were very well attended and we raised £660 for the Hospice and £550 for the orphanage. We charged £5 admission but also raised extra from a raffle and the sale of refreshments. Unfortunately royalties still had to be paid. Christine lost her voice between shows and sh had to have a radio mike for the last one, but she managed a brilliant performance and all credit is due to her performance.

The work at the orphanage in Tula has been very hard. The volunteers worked on the plumbing, put in a false ceiling, built a staircase, put up partitions in the dormitories, plastered walls, cleaned and decorated. They had minimal facilities for washing and cooking but the incredible team spirit pulled them through, even the night shortly before they left when a terrible storm robbed them of power and also showed up leaks in the roof! After that the working parties had an all night shift as well!

The words of a work do not matter as long as they are unintelligible

It was a great opera disaster. An understudy had been brought in to sing Alfredo in La traviata at the Coliseum. But on Wednesday night, the understudy apparently forgot his lines. Who can tell whether this was a substitute’s first night nerves, or just a romantic tenor’s failure to connect the tip of his tongue to his tonsils? This was a natural mishap.

Normally it would not have mattered. The French text of German opera sung by Swedish artists is usually translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English speaking audiences. The words do not matter as much as the music and the emotion. No opera has a sensible plot. People do not sing when they are feeling sensible. If he had been singing in Italian the understudy could have got away with ad-libbing Orrible or Crudele until the Flight of the Sopranos, or the cows came home. But this was the Coliseum. So the opera was in English. And the English National Opera, in it’s infinite wisdom, displays the words being sung as subtitles on a screen. So the audience could read the lines that the tenor had forgotten. And Alfredo was bending over backwards to try to read the script overhead. In old opera, theer would have been an old mole of a prompter in a burrow behind the footlights mouthing the words. But by accident, the Coliseum may have invented new virtual reality opera. In future the audience should take part, as choruses of gypsies or valkyries, as the libretto demands. And when lost for words, the tenor can hold out his microphone to the audience for a prompt from the Gods.

Spirit of the age.

Stealth advertising is coming to panto near you. McCain, the oven chip maker, is attempting to counter it’s unhealthy image by paying pantomime choruses to sing the praises of chips. It has signed an advertising deal with Qdos, the worlds biggest pantomime producer, for which panto actors will be expected to burst into the McCains jingle, “Chips glorious chips” in the middle of a performance.

Note

Certain groups have yet to affiliate for 2006/2007 and some have had adjudications! Paperwork to enable you to affiliate now please is enclosed.

John R Powell
Chairman