Acting Masterclass

The Date is Sunday February 25^th and the venue Chester Gateway Theatre. The masterclass will be taken by Russ Tunney – Head of Education at the Gateway. More details are on the booking form. The fee for the day is our usual £5 and this will be heavily subsidised by the Cheshire Theatre Guild to make the course accessible financially.

It is aimed at the more experienced actors and actresses and is our response to those who have requested an acting course that is more stretching than the usual.

Josef Weinberger Plays

This is the new source for plays previously found in the Warner Chappell catalogue. They will shortly be publishing a new catalogue and can be contacted on 0207 580 2827. The address is 12 to 14 Mortimer Street London W1T 3JJ.  See our web site for further contact details including web site addresses.

Star’s Model Career

When former TV soap star Peter Baldwin, who played Coronation Street’s Derek Wilton for 21 years, is not acting on the stage he is selling model theatres for a living. With his brother Christopher he own Benjamin Pollock’s Toy Shop in London’s Covent Garden. They took over the premises 12 years ago and the shop is named after a trader who sold toy theatres in the East End from the late 1880’s. Peter Baldwin has a life long interest in toy theatres and has published a book on the subject – on sale, of course, in the shop.

Keep Cheshire Theatre Guild Informed

I received a Christmas card from Angie Orme (Davenham and Sandiway Players) who is now a rep with Airtours in Mallorca. There was a cryptic comment that mail for Davenham and Sandiway Players was still being sent to her home address in Cheshire. Unfortunately we do not have the physical powers of Madame Arcati and the CTG newsletters etc can only be sent to the person in our records. Don’t forget if you have a change of Secretary or Chairman WE NEED TO KNOW and a handbook corrected page can be issued. By the way Davenham and Sandiway Players have not yet appointed a new secretary to my knowledge. Come in Davenham and Sandiway.

Handbooks

There are a limited number of spare copies – if you can make use of one please contact me on the usual numbers 01606 832299 day and 01606 833645 evening.

At present less than half of the member societies have returned their handbook forms, so if you havn’t please send it in as soon as possible, you could be losing valuable publicity, don’t forget all details are published on the internet unless otherwise requested. Some societies have reported requests for tickets and memberships from the entries on our web site, The what’s on and members list are cross indexed with the Cheshire County Council web site so anyone asking for theatres in Cheshire will be directed to contact the ones on our web site.

A Handbook Correction

 The address for Amateur Stage is now Platform Publications Ltd, Hampden House, 2 Weymouth Street, London, W1N 3FD.  Tel 0207 636 4343  Fax 0207 636 2323  Email cvtheatre@aol.com

You may also like to make use of the new Diary format for Amateur Stage.

From January 2001 they will also include a telephone number of a contact for tickets with the play dates, name of group, venue and title of the play. This service is free but information is required by the 12^th of the month prior to publication on the first. This opportunity is hardly used by CTG members, I wonder why?

Welcome to New Members Tudor Players

The “original” Tudor Players were formed in 1951 by Ron Arscott and Jack Blackburn, and presented their first production – “A New Way to Pay Old Debts” - in 1953. Two things have happened since ; firstly, we’ve run out of Tudor plays to present and secondly, we’ve cut down rehearsal time from 18 months to about six weeks.

Tudors have always been involved in competitive drama, be it  - in the old days – in the Manchester Drama Federation festival (in the days when we used to play in the Green Room Theatre off Deansgate) or around the country – the Isle of Man, Felixtowe, Colwyn Bay, Clitheroe, Llandrindod Wells, Skegness (and who knows how many other places) in the golden days of full length festivals.

With the loss of our “home base” in the mid 1970’s  (the last production I recall was “Butterflies sre Free” in 1976) many of the old company moved on, and Tudors, for the next 10 years or so, only existed for the presentation of the one festival play per year (which never saw the light of day in our home area). Indeed the company was referred to as an “honorary” society, and was kept going by friends, family, sisters, cousins and aunts. We still went to the Isle of Man (nearly) every year, and we still managed to do well there; in their 49 festivals, we’ve won 9 times (including 4 of the last 5 times we’ve played!), and we’ve also won the British All-Winners Festival twice.

Eventually in 1987 we stopped competing and the society, for practical purposes ceased to exist; it continued only in the memories of “the few” (and by now there really were only a few).

In 1997 for old time’s sake, Shirley and I went back to the Isle of Man to watch the festival. While we were there, we got news that Ron Arscott – one of the truly great amateur actors of his time - had died. The best tribute we could offer him, we felt, was to re-form “his” company, and to enter the festival again. We did, in 1998, and we won (“Hindle Wakes” – see John Powell’s article in the newsletter of that summer). It was a true fit-up company; old friends and family; 11 rehearsals; no DR; no “run”, to hone the show (against 6 other teams who’d all played at their home venues); only two of the cast who had ever done that kind of festival before (you go into an empty theatre at 9.00am, erect your set, decorate it, go round begging / stealing furniture and props, dress it, light it, run your sound cues, play at 7.30pm, and rip the whole lot down when you’ve done!); it was “theatre of adrenalin”, but a powerful “buzz” for all concerned.

And that, as they say, was it. We were all hooked (again); we went back in 1999 (2^nd) and again in 2000 (1^st again, with “The Curious Savage”), plus various other trophies each time as well.

End of story. Well, nearly …..

By Easter 200, Tudor Players had presented three public performances in 14 years, each on the Gaiety stage, and each on the Thursday after Easter. Then in 2000 our good friends at Sale Nomads (with whom we share some members) offered us a date in their theatre at the end of May. We played for four nights (“The Curious Savage”). It went well, dramatically and financially, so we repeated the exercise in November (Ayckbourn’s “Time of my Life”), and we’re booked in again for next Whit (make a note; tickets available!). Meantime we’re back to the Isle of Man at Easter, and look like having the honour of being the first team to compete at the brand new Wakefield Festival in May. Strange how things happen……..

We still have some connections with the “original” company; Jack Blackburn, despite his 82 years is our (very active) President (how many fire exits are there, Jack?) Shirley and I can go back 30 years with the Tudors. Our future – we trust – looks secure, given the number and the talent of the members of the company we now have.

More come backs than Sinatra ? Maybe not; but were glad we did it …..

And we did it our way ……

And Finally

From Davis Suchet, “If I had a prayer that I would pray every single night for myself, as an actor, it would be: ‘Please give me more and more everyday, courage, courage, courage to enter into and display the truth’”.