Just a reminder that the Calendar Girls auditions are on Thursday 10th May at 7.30 pm and on Saturday 12th May from 1 to 5pm.
Members may download the audition notes from the Members Area.
How far do you have to travel to watch some of the world’s most talented dancers perform a truly sumptuous ballet? Not as far as you might think. On 5th May, Stanislav Tchassov, former Principal Dancer at the Bolshoi Ballet, will bring his finest dancers to the Cotswold Playhouse, Stroud’s bijou theatre perched at the top of Parliament Street.
The Sleeping Beauty, accompanied by Tchaikovsky’s famously magical music tells the story of Aurora, a princess who, at her christening, is given the gifts of honesty, grace, prosperity, song and generosity. But jealous and malevolent Fairy Carabosse, furious at being deliberately missed off the guest list, takes revenge by cursing the baby princess: on her 16th birthday, she will prick her finger and die. It’s a classic fairy tale where we long to see the evil villain brought down as the forces of goodness gather momentum. As love – in the shape of a handsome prince, naturally – and goodness triumph, evil is destroyed, peace and harmony are restored and everyone lives happily ever after. The Act III wedding scene, with its delectable waltzes and guests drawn from the Brothers Grimms’ collection of fables is amusing, uplifting and enchanting.
European Ballet originated in Russia, attracting dancers initially from the Bolshoi Ballet and then from the UK – including the Royal Ballet’s Deborah Bull. As their reputation spread, they were joined by internationally acclaimed dancers from France, Italy and Spain. With first class dancing, clever artistry and a magnificent score, it’s perfect for little girls who dream of being princesses – and also for grown-ups who’ve never quite given up hope of being awoken from a very long sleep by a fairy tale suitor.
A scene from Act II
In the forest - Act II
For some while now the Committee have been considering on-line ticket booking. It is something that most theatres are now doing and many people say they would prefer to book their tickets this way as they find it more convenient and enjoy the freedom to choose their own seats. Those booking on-line will need to print out their own e-ticket which lists all the seats for that particular booking; this is the evidence of seat purchase and you will need to bring this with you to the theatre as it includes a bar code that will be scanned as you enter the auditorium.
There will still be a priority booking period for Members and Friends who will continue to be able to book their tickets by post in the usual way. However, for those who prefer to pick your own seats on-line, details of the on-line booking will also be detailed on the priority booking form, together with the booking code which will entitle them to their priority discount.
Regrettably, the systems at the Tourist Information Centre in Stroud do not allow them to offer us on-line booking so following the introduction of this system, tickets will no longer be available from there.
With the new system, tickets may also be purchased by phone in which case the e-ticket will be sent by post. Telephone bookings will incur a small booking fee but internet bookings will not.
The web address for on-line booking is cotswoldplayhouse.ticketsource.co.uk and the telephone booking number is 0844 8700 887
The first event to utilise the new system will be ‘Cold Comfort Farm’ on 29th June.
Changes of this magnitude will inevitably have a few teething problems but we will do our best to keep them to a minimum.
The first night got off to an energetic start, thanks in part to a lively audience, who from the volume of belly laughter we could hear backstage, certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves. Inspired by the buzz of a nearly full house, former BBC journalist and loyal supporter of the Playhouse, Tracy Spiers, sent us this review:
“There’s nothing better than a well-acted piece of fast-moving farcical theatre. Throw a bit of leg kicking, garter showing and slapstick humour in the mix and you’re guaranteed great entertainment and an energetic facial muscle workout. The Cotswold Players, who incidentally will be appearing at the Royal Shakespeare Company on March 25th with their centenary production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the RSC’s Open Stages Showcase, know how to put on a great programme, engage their audiences, make them laugh and send them home with a giggle. Their latest production The Girl from the Moulin Rouge is a must if you need cheering up. Jonathan Vickers’ modern translation and adaptation of Feydeau’s comical play works well; the timing is perfect, the lines delivered with conviction and it’s obvious cast members relish in the mischief on stage. Rosebowl award-winner Joy-Amy Wigman carries the part of Lulu, a sharp-witted showgirl with such ease that those watching can easily fall under her charm as she woos those around her – even getting them to slap their thighs and kick a high leg. So I join them in thanking all those on stage with an “Ooh La La and how’s your father?!”
- Baguette – played by Celia Stringellow
- Claire Greenwood as Gabrielle and Gerard Moore as Lieutenant Hornpipe of the 12th Dragoons
- The Girl from the Moulin Rouge showing off her frilly bits – Joy Amy Wigman as Lulu
- Judy Couch as Madame de Ville and Huvin Thompson as The General
The Girl from the Moulin Rouge runs from 21st – 23rd March. Tickets available from the Tourist Information Centre, Stroud Subscription Rooms 01453 760960
…at the Playhouse last October, there’s another chance to see us performing the enchanting “Ill met by moonlight…” scene at the Courtyard Theatre, Stratford upon Avon on March 25th. Sadly, we won’t be able to recreate the mystical fairy kingdom – for which we’ve just received the National Operatic & Dramatic Association’s regional award for visual excellence – but we will be stepping once more into our fairy slippers and showing off Jenny Earle’s beautiful handmade costumes. We’ll be joined by eleven other groups, including our neighbours from The Cotswold Arcadians. Extracts from Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew, Coriolanus, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Winter’s Tale and others will be performed. If you’d like to see, as the RSC suggests, “Ordinary People – Extraordinary Performances”, you can buy tickets from the RSC box office.
Practically as we speak, we’re giving a final spritz and polish to the set and the cast of The Girl from the Moulin Rouge. If you happen to find yourself in Stroud this Saturday morning (10th March), you may spot some of the cast handing out fliers and enticing you to come and see the show. Friday and Saturday performances are filling up fast, so why not avoid the crowds and have a jolly good evening on Thursday instead? We’re performing on 16th-17th and 21st-23rd March. Tickets are available from Stroud Tourist Information Centre, 01453 760960.
It’s true. Ask any gelotologist and they’ll tell you that laughing sends feel-good hormones surging through your body, relaxes your muscles, keeps your blood flowing and gives you a marvellous sense of well-being. According to scientist William Fry, laughing 100 times burns as many calories as 10 minutes on a rowing machine or 15 minutes on an exercise bike. And did you know that babies laugh about 400 times a day, but by the time we’re adults, we’re only doing it 14 times a day…if we’re lucky?
Frenchman Georges Feydeau knew all about it. He’d entice audiences into Parisian theatres and have them giggling and guffawing at his often rather louche tales of mistaken identity. His elaborately constructed plots sneaked up on unsuspecting theatre-goers, skilfully convincing them to believe in the absurd events unfolding on stage. What they didn’t realise – or if they did, they didn’t protest – was that they were laughing at people very much like themselves.
With painstaking precision, Jonathan Vickers has translated and adapted one of Feydeau’s most popular farces; tickling, teasing and cajoling it into a production that zips along, whilst poking fun at French culture in general and at men in particular. He’s chopped out some of the outdated comedy which simply wouldn’t make a 21st century Playhouse audience even raise a smile and added extra scenes plus some witty new dialogue.
Joy-Amy Wigman, who won a prestigious Rosebowl award for her performance as LV in Little Voice plays Lulu, a sharp-witted Parisian showgirl with an eye for wealthy men and an irresistible urge to cause mischief wherever she can. Inject a doctor, his wife, his uncle, his friend and a lover plus a couple of roguish old dears and you’ve got The Girl from the Moulin Rouge.
16th – 17th and 21st – 23rd March. Tickets £11, available from Stroud Tourist Information Centre, Subscription Rooms, Stroud 01453 760960
One hundred and forty three people are fully paid up members of the Cotswold Players, yet you’ll probably only see a handful of them doing their thing on stage, or greeting you in the bar.
But every now and then, if you look closely, you might spot one of the others; dressed from head to foot in black – soundless other than the occasional whisper into a radio headset – poised and on full alert; ready to glide in and move tin baths and hat stands, swing the walls of a house around, shimmy up a ladder and drop a stuffed pigeon into the crowd, whip the mask off an old beggar woman or make a fairy king magically appear through the earth in a cloud of dry ice.
Straight after the Playing Up Theatre Company had packed up their old kitbags and headed back to Bath, the set builders arrived. They silently filed in, clutching canvas bags resembling mini hardware stores, enormous plastic boxes encasing hefty power tools and almost certainly with a knife-sharpened stub of a pencil tucked in their pockets. They’re not actors – the idea of performing on stage would make most of them start shivering uncontrollably – but they can’t hide their understated delight at the thought of constructing a brand new set, fathoming out how to make lumps of four-be-two look like the terrace of an 18th century French chateau and cracking the illusion of actors seemingly disappearing downstairs – without the misfortune of actually breaking any legs on the way.
Our backstage team are people of few words – spoken softly – but if you give them a technical challenge, an unusual specification or a request which makes them scratch their heads, you’ll see a glint gradually forming in their eyes. For Beauty and the Beast, for example, they created Maurice’s “contraption”: a smoke and bubble-blowing little furnace complete with twizzling antennae and inventorish paraphernalia. So when we told them that for our next play, The Girl from the Moulin Rouge, we needed an Ecstaseat – a chair which instantly creates a sensation of ecstasy in whoever sits in it – we weren’t surprised to see the excited glint return. Accompanied perhaps by a little grin that may well have been the early signs of ecstasy creeping in.
If the thought of a chair can make a set builder ecstatic, just imagine what it will do for the actors…
Somehow or other, the First World War seems to have lodged itself in our DNA. We’re alternately horrified, fascinated or silenced by stories of barely human existences in the trenches; we find the death toll incomprehensible no matter how many times we hear it and each year, hundreds of thousands visit the battlefields in an attempt to connect with the soldiers who fought and were obliterated there.
Perhaps it’s because we all love a good story, particularly where courage, romance and pathos are central to the plot – and World War I certainly retains a rich seam of story-telling material. Maybe it’s a personal quest to discover more about the way our relatives lived and died in circumstances tougher than we can imagine. Possibly it’s the way that countless writers have chosen to portray this captivating period in our history.
One small Lancashire town’s story triggered the imagination of playwright Peter Whelan. He wrote The Accrington Pals, a moving, yet unsentimental exploration of life on the home front, woven with tales from the trenches. It was performed by the Cotswold Players in 1997 and won Patrick Howell a Gloucestershire Drama Association award for “Best Actor” as Company Sergeant Major Rivers and a “Best Young Actor under 18” award for Nathan King’s extremely sensitive performance as Tom.
So this week, we’ve got two reasons to be delighted to welcome back the Playing Up Theatre Company. Playhouse audiences gave such an enthusiastic response to their rendition of The Tamworth Two last year that they couldn’t resist the chance to return, this time with The Accrington Pals. This Bath-based company has a reputation for superb acting and technical excellence. They’ll only produce performances that they know to be occasionally thought provoking, often challenging and always enjoyable. See for yourself on Saturday 18th February – tickets will be available on the door unless it’s a sell out – which is quite possible!
Rehearsing a scene from the Accrington Pals
The fairies at the Cotswold Playhouse are stretching their shimmery wings and re-stocking their pockets with magic dust after hearing that they’ve been invited to perform an excerpt from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Theatre in Stratford upon Avon.
The production was the highlight of the Cotswold Players’ centenary celebrations last year and was one of 52 regional entries in the RSC’s Open Stages project – a scheme to encourage the very best of professional theatre to share skills with the very best of amateur theatre. Only 14 productions have made it through to the final stage – winning a chance to be coached by top RSC drama tutors, followed by a performance on a stage normally reserved for the UK’s finest actors – including Sir Ian McKellen, who officially opened the newly rebuilt Playhouse just over two years ago.
The Players have been praised for their extremely accomplished performance by the Gloucestershire Drama Association and the National Operatic & Dramatic Association. They’ve already received two award nominations; one for visual excellence and another for best drama. The adjudicator noted that, “…these were no ordinary shy retiring Shakespearean fairies – they were feisty, mischievous and downright naughty at times.” One member of the audience felt moved enough to write, “Last evening I left the Playhouse with a hankie damp from wiping away tears of laughter – and admiration.”
Backstage, Jenny Earle is delighted to have been recognised by the RSC for her expertly designed and hand-crafted costumes, all inspired by the individual characters of the fairies – from a magisterial Oberon to a gutsy, singing Cobweb, reminiscent of Amy Winehouse in her trademark black beehive and sparkling silver shift.
But perhaps the biggest accolade of all goes to 17 year-old Nic Sims, who has been given the honour of ending the evening’s showcase by performing Puck’s closing speech from the play. His performance, described as “outstanding” by a number of critics, has caught the interest of Guildford School of Acting, winning him a place to study for a BA in Acting. Nic’s dream is to spend the rest of his life in the theatre, whether in Shakespeare, serious drama or musicals (audiences may well remember him as love-struck geek Seymour in The Little Shop of Horrors last year) but a lack of sponsorship may mean that he won’t be able to go. Either way, his talent and that of his fellow fairy band will surely enthral the audience at the RSC, even if just for one magical night.
And here’s a glimpse:http://vimeo.com/30481027
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