Notice is hereby given that the 41^st AGM of the Cheshire Theatre Guild will be held on Wednesday July 13^th at 7.30pm. This will be followed by the awards presentation for the 2004/2005 full length play festival. The venue is once again the Civic Hall Winsford.

It’s not too early to start getting in your numbers for tickets – there will be no restriction on numbers – an order form and nomination form for the committee will follow.

Please note This year we expect everyone to arrive ticket in hand and pre-paid.

Why? Because in previous years it has been difficult to keep a check on who has actually paid up! Breezing in without a ticket saying “I’m with group A and our secretary has posted a cheque to you” doesn’t make it easy for the person on the door. Sometimes this “cheque in the post” has arrived weeks after the AGM. Last AGM was a particular problem as a rough count of people clearly showed that our ticket revenue should have been higher. In simple words some people got in without paying and your committee decided that this cannot continue. The cost of hire for the Civic Hall is a big expense (we have tried to find a cheaper alternative) the cost of your ticket is very reasonable (and we don’t want to increase this). The Cheshire Theatre Guild Committee hope you will ubderstand why we must make every effort to ensure that everyone has paid up. This also applies to the groups asked to present a play extract – yes! You have to pay for the privilege of entertaining a very critical audience – sorry.

Last year we had a record number – can we do better? The only rule is that the poster(s) is for a play performed during the 2004/2005 season – it doesn’t even need to have been adjudicated.

Post you entries to:-

Mrs m Melville, 24 Forest Close, Cuddington, Northwich, Cheshire, CW8 2EE.

PS The final word on the AGM / Awards – it’s the T word (trophies). Cleaned and readily available when I call them in, thank you.

This took place in a very splendid wood paneeled room – part of the Manchester Central Library.

Our tutor for the day was Amanda who explained that her background was mainly dance and movement and these plus the “Alexandra Technique” (part of this way of working is to do as little as possible to achieve a result – a sort of “less is more” approach) would form her approach to characterisation ie the walk and body language.

We then introduced ourselves – a process that took 30 minutes and there were only 11 of us – we also were asked to tell the group about a piece of theatre we had seen that had particularly impressed. I noticed many furtive glances at watches and this suggested to me that this introduction part of the programme was overlong. What was also interesting was that of the 9 females and 2 males only 2 of us were actively engaged in amateur drama – the others were keen theatregoers who had never set foot on a stage.

We started with a warm up and walking in our “normal” way followed by an exaggerated version of our “normal walk” – a sort of OK exercise but not quite what I was expecting.

We then were given our first “task” – we all chose an ad from a lonely hearts page and we were to flesh out the words and create a character. How would they walk, talk, sit, laugh? We then worked in couples – changing places every few minutes and in our character we looked for a suitable partner – a sort of speed dating exercise. Fun, interesting and it made us use our imagination. At the conclusion we read out our ‘ad’ and explained our reasons for playing the character in the way we had selected.

Our next “task” was a short extract from “After Liverpool” by James Saunders. We worked in couples with a “director”. The play is actually a contemporary drama but each director was given a brief of how we were to play the piece. Eg costume drama, radio play, TV soap, even Thunderbirds! It was an interesting piece because although the script was marked M, W – we assumed man, woman the roles could actually be reversed or played with two men or two women.

After lunch ( 1 hour – possibly too long) we presented our piece. Ours was as Costume Drama and with a Cheshire Theatre Guild actor (myself) in the cast plus a Cheshire Theatre Guild director (Jennie Radley) and Pauline who really got into the role I’m pleased to report that as you would expect we got the biggest round of applause!

We were then shown a short video (rather noisy – to the consternation of a librarian in an adjoining room who came in and asked for the volume to be turned down!) It was rather an odd piece about a manic young man who tried to force his attentions on toi a number of people in a dance hall setting – again quite exaggerated movement and this we were to bear in mind for our third and final “task”. We were given extracts from “Hymns” by Chris O’Connell and to treat them as “bold – physical theatre”. I had the job of directing 4 elderly ladies playing laddish types in a bar setting, who tell a series of rather crude, and silly one-liner jokes. Not easy – but I’m sure those 4 ladies learnt a few jokes that they will not be repeating at the next W.I. meeting. A “fun” exercise but did we learn from it? The day concluded about 3.30pm – at £7 it was good value – interesting and worthwhile.

Sadly these activity days have not been particularly well supported and run at a loss – future sessions are in the balance.

I understand that the play reading days attract larger numbers. These take place monthly on Fridays 10.30 to 12.30 at the Central Library. If I hear of further events likely to be of interest to Cheshire Theatre Guild members at the Library Theatre I will keep you informed. John R Powell

Tudor Players (Manchester) took part this year in the Easter Full Length Festival on the Isle of Man.

There were 13 trophies for which they were eligible (there was no-one under 21 in the team and no-one will admit to being over 60!).

Although they lost the Audience Award by two votes (what do they know anyway!) They received four nominations:-

Shirley Southern for Best Actress

Gary Woodhall for Best Actor

Terry Hollinshead for Best Actor in a Supporting

Role

The award for Best Ensemble Playing

The Best Play (Humble Boy by Charlotte Jones) The Best Director (Jeff Brailsford) The Best Drama Moment (Gary Woodhall) The Best Comedy Moment (Meg Cooper) Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Meg Cooper) The Adjudicator's Award (for the set) The Backstage Award (the best team to work with).

Jeff Brailsford who directed "Humble Boy" by Charlotte Jones, gives his own personal insight.

Take 14 people - half of them of "a certain age" - plus 4 cars full of props, garden fencing, artificial flowers, 4' x 2' MDF painted to look like patio flags, all the costumes, and a bee hive. Yes, a bee hive. Add a 25 square metre roll of artificial grass, several mini discs of music and effects, and bucket loads of adrenaline.

Your mission - should you choose to accept it - is to go to the beautiful Matcham - designed Gaiety Theatre, Douglas; once there, you have to erect a stage set (using massive 16' 5" flats), dress it, light it, run your effects and music cues, present your performance, take the whole thing down again and pack it all away. Not counting the night before (when you have between 11,15p.m. and 00.30 to locate 27 rostra in the theatre, get them and their tops down on stage, and secured in situ, move the eye back several yards, re-hang that and then try to get some sleep) you have between 9.00a.m. and curtain up at 7.30p.m. to construct the whole thing. The playing area is vast, but for these purposes it's 28' wide at the Proscenium Arch, x25' deep.

And by the way, the setting's a garden (you try finding high summer flowers in March), it has three levels of rostra - lawn, patio, and bark chippings area with planters - and you've never done the play before - ie not even had a DR. You're reliant on your host team for the bigger props - garden tables and chairs, a water butt, garden tools and a garden swing (and you're all praying that they're going to arrive on time; the swing got to the theatre at about 6.00p.m.). Just for fun, you've been given the wrong heights for the rostra (they're 10.75", not the 8" we were told); that's OK, except that the rostra edgings - log roll and patio frontage - were pre-constructed to be 8" high; I didn't know that my brother-in-law knew so many swear words!

Thank heavens everybody knows what needs to be done; the men - cast included - erect and secure the rostra, "lay" the patio and the grass, construct the back of the house ( 15' run, including a 7' 9" French window flat, built on top of the rostra), tape it, paint it, black out the tops of the flats (now well over 17' up in the flies), assemble and secure the fencing, the rose arbour and the bee hive; the ladies assemble a huge amount of dressing and props - I've never seen so many artificial flowers and foliage - construct all the tubs, hanging baskets, floral displays and so on, and join in painting, holding, hammering and designing with a will; layout of the plants - the live ones from the Parks Dept and the artificial ones we brought - is a collective of ideas, opinions and design. Who kept making tea and coffee all day I haven't a clue, but it kept on coming ("For this caffeine, much thanks" …..)

Technical staff are from the theatre, but they know us, and know we know what we’re doing. We're there as defending champions ("The Prisoner of Second Avenue"), which adds to the pressures. A couple of 2.30a.m. bedtimes don't help, either.

As by magic, it all comes together; to alarums, no tantrums. At 7.30, up we go; it's pacy, subtly acted, getting laughs; one minor lighting hiccup - "they'll not have seen that" - and six lovely performances later, it's over. The Adjudicator - Scott Marshall, one of the senior GODA members - liked it; some minor ideas; no real criticisms.

We played Thursday, so have Friday off; it rains. It NEVER rains on our day off. Final night, final play, awards presentation. We come First; we win Best Director; Best Supporting Actress; the Adjudicator's Award (for what he described as "the complete set"); the Comedy Cup and the Drama Cup.

How do you win comedy and drama cups in the same production? Pass, but we did; they were given for the best moment of comedy and drama, and no one bettered Mercy's scene where she adds the condiments to the soup, or Felix's scene where he finally scatters his late father's ashes. I won't spoil the play by telling you more. All credit to a fantastic cast, and to a fantastic team.

Next year's mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find another play and do it all again. Nobody's ever won there three years in a row. Now there's a thought.

Anybody need a beehive?"
Jeff Brailsford - Tudor Players

Reproduced from the Nantwich Players Newsletter with the permission of the editor John Brough

'How would you like to take part in my new play for the Fringe?" the voice on the phone asked Players member and Cheshire Theatre Guild Treasurer Margaret Boschi

"Yes, I would love to - 1 enjoyed my visit to Edinburgh."

"No," said writer / producer Karlton Parris, of Skint Productions, "I am talking about the New York Fringe."

And that is how Margaret and two other members of the Players - Helen Gresty and Virginia Bryan - found themselves booked in for a Broadway theatre date in August. After a successful production of his play "Guts" at the Edinburgh Fringe festival in 2003, Sandbach man Karlton, set his sights on the American competition this year.

His new play, "A Family of Women," was accepted for the competition in New York.

Said Margaret: "You have to apply to take part and anyone can enter. There will be 200 groups taking part, after 1 ,000 groups from 10 nations applied. There are the usual awards to be won - Best Actor, Best Writer, etc.

"We don't know which theatre we will be playing in yet, but we will be performing five times, either evenings or matinees, which will leave us time to see other plays as well as New York. I have been to America before but not New York."

The cast will be staying in the Colonial House Inn not far from the theatres during their week's visit to The Big Apple.

Margaret - who played a grandmother in "Guts" - will be playing a wheelchair-bound mother in the new play, while Helen and Virginia play two of her four daughters. The play is set in Bethnal Green in the 1950s and deals with the post-war problems faced by the family. This will require a London accent -although not Cockney.

Before the show goes to America, there will be a performance at The Zion Arts Centre in Hulme, Manchester -where "Guts" was previewed - on Friday, August 5 at 8pm.

Virginia said: "I am delighted we are going to New York. I have never been to America and New York is the one place I want to go to. It is very exciting to think we are going to be in the Fringe.

"It would be lovely if something came of it. I like to do things that are different."

It is also Helen's first trip to America. She said: "This is a chance that cannot be missed. It is so exciting.

"The chance to be on Broadway is wonderful and going to New York is doubly wonderful.

"I'm looking forward to seeing other shows and the sights of New York."

On February 11^th, a BBC radio headline proclaimed Death of a Playwright in the expectation that thousands of listeners would make the key connection between Arthur Miller, the playwright, and his work, most famously Death of a Salesman. He died at 89 having made his name with plays that exposed the emptiness of the American dream - and he married Marilyn Monroe! How good a playwright was he and will his plays stand the test of time? There is certainly much to suggest he is up there with the greatest. Only Shakespeare has had more works performed at the Royal National Theatre. In 1998, a survey by the RNT of more than 800 playwrights, actors, directors and arts critics named him playwright of the century. In 2003, a theatregoers' poll named him as the greatest living playwright.

Of course, he had his critics. Some recoiled at his didacticism, his impeccable liberal conscience and claimed his dialogue was less the voice of authentic human beings and little more than the playwright's message. Some fellow Americans claimed that he was more popular in England than in his own country because the English love his cynicism about American culture and politics! But many theatre practitioners dispute that and say that he is admired here because he made theatre matter and that he writes with heat and heart. Richard Eyre claims Miller's work was felt in Britain like a fire that did much to ignite British writers and they found in Miller an appeal to the senses beyond rational thought and an ambition to deal with big subjects.

So, what of his marriage to Marilyn Monroe? The question then and now is this: why would the world's most attractive woman want to go out with a writer? Richard Eyre was a long-time associate and friend and he put forward four reasons:

By 1956, when he married Monroe, Miller had written four of the best plays in the English language:

All My Sons, A View from the Bridge, Death of a Salesman and The Crucible.

He was a figure of great moral and intellectual stature, famous for opinions on political issues.

He was wonderful company - a great, glorious raconteur. He was a very attractive man: tall, broad-shouldered, square-jawed with the most beautiful large, strong but tender hands. There was nothing evasive or small-minded about him.

Their marriage lasted five years but ended in 1961 on the set of The Misfits, the film that Miller wrote for her. True to character, he marked the event by writing After the Fall and quite recently he wrote Finishing the Picture, seen as a further exploration of the relationship.

Miller’s writing drew extensively on his own life and that of experiences and observations he wrote pieces that spoke volumes about American morale and the pursuit of happiness. Certainly, his first striking experience was watching his family's middle-class wealth drain with the onset of The Great Depression in the 1930's and much of his best work is linked to the importance and downfall of the American Dream. Perhaps his marriage to Marilyn Monroe was an American dream in itself (to thousands of men anyway!) - exciting in its promise but doomed to failure!

Miller described himself as "an impatient moralist". He wrote not merely to entertain but to reform and radicalise his audience. He excelled at presenting moral and psychological breakdown in dramatic terms. His plays are about the difficulty and the possibility of people - usually men - on a moral - journey to taking control of their own lives His heroes – salesmen, dockers, policemen, farmers - all seek a form of salvation in asserting their "name" and reconciling their individuals that moment of desperation they redeem their dignity, even if it's by suicide (as in three of the four great plays!). It all sounds a bit grim but Miller's plays are a gripping, emotional, poetic experience not to be missed or forgotten.

There are many other good Miller plays that rarely hit the headlines. Perhaps one day we will have a go at producing one. His plays will certainly go on being produced all over the world inspiring, informing and educating. The BBC said "A man of the highest integrity both in his work and in his personal life,

Arthur Miller was an old-fashioned liberal, who never accepted the American Dream at face value". Miller, himself, once remarked "a character is defined by the kind of challenge he cannot walk away from". Could be the man himself! Thank you, Arthur Miller.

Harry Lowe - Chairman Wilmslow Guild Players

PS I finally intended to write a piece myself following the death of Arthur Miller – I was saved the job when this article appeared in the Wilmslow Guild Players excellent newsletter. Thank you Harry for allowing me to use this in the Cheshire Theatre Guild Newsletter.

… a tale of toil and trouble over “The Scottish Play” that is shrouded in superstition.

First performance, 1606, Shakespeare himself had to play Lady Macbeth when Hal Berridge, the boy designated to play the part, became inexplicably feverish and died.

Amsterdam, 1672, The actor playing Macbeth substituted a real dagger for the blunted stage one and killed Duncan with it in full view of the audience.

1775 Sarah Siddons, as Lady Macbeth, was nearly ravaged by a disapproving audience.

New York, 1849, a riot broke out in which 31 people were trampled to death.

1926, Sybil Thorndike was almost strangled by a burly actor.

1934, British actor Malcolm Keen turned mute onstage and his replacement, Alistair Sim, like Hal Berridge before him, developed a fever. He was rushed to hospital.

1937, Laurence Olivier played Macbeth. A 25 pound stage weight crashed within an inch of him, and his sword broke onstage, flew into the audience and hit a man who later suffered a heart attack.

1942, John G|eilgud was Macbeth. Three actors – Duncan and two witches – died, and the costume and set designers committed suicide.

1949, Diana Wynyard sleepwalked off the rostrum, falling 15 feet.

1953, Bermuda. The indestructible Charlton Heston, in an outdoor production, suffered severe burns in his groin and leg area from tights that were accidentally soaked in kerosene.

A bad week for the theatre with the news that live advertisements are to be featured on the London stage for the first time.

The cast of “Saturday Night Fever” will act out commercials for Heinz, Kelloggs and McDonalds during breaks in the March 1^st performance.

John R Powell
Chairman