Worcester News: “Ann promises a night of laughter”

by Site Admin on Friday, September 28, 2007
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Newspapers, Publicity, STAC productions

The Worcester News covers STAC’s fast-approaching October production of Relatively Speaking today. Talking about the play, director Ann Moore refers to the playwright Alan Ayckbourn: “we all need light relief and that’s what we get with him”.

The text of the article follows below.

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Old Time Music Hall this weekend

by Site Admin on Thursday, September 27, 2007
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Other local arts

Numerous and varied acts, accompanied by a live orchestra, will take to the stage this coming Friday and Saturday, as the Friends of the Swan Theatre once again stage the annual Old Time Music Hall show.

STAC’s own Frank Wellbourne is amongst the cast, pictured here (right) in a fetching Victorian swimming costume.

The Old Time Musical Hall is showing this Friday, 28th September at 7.30 pm and Saturday, 29th at 2.30 pm and 7.30 pm. Tickets from Worcester Live box office as usual (01905 611427), adult tickets £10, children £8.

Profits from the show go back to Worcester Live via donations from the Friends.

(Also see: Worcester News.)

Noel Coward’s lost play

by Site Admin on Monday, September 17, 2007
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National, Newspapers

With auditions only just undertaken for STAC’s February 2008 production of Private Lives, another of Noel Coward’s comedies of manners and morals has surfaced in a dusty archive at the British Library.

The playwright’s estate has confirmed that the script is probably the sole surviving copy of The Better Half, a play only previously mentioned in one list of performances for a London theatre. The only copy is complete with annotations by the theatrical censor. (The censor objected to hints that the female characters may have actually had their own sex drives. Shocking, of course.)

The full text The Better Half will be published in November.

See “Coward’s long-lost satire was almost too ‘daring’ about women” from the Guardian.

Two ancient Greek plays in modern Edinburgh

by Site Admin on Monday, September 10, 2007
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National, Newspapers

The Guardian has had two interesting articles by directors in the last few days, both giving the director’s view on interpreting Greek plays for modern audiences at Edinburgh this year.

Euripides’ The Bacchae, directed by David Grieg, sees a lusty cross-dressing Alan Cumming in the role of sublime Dionysus, the sexually charged god of wine, dance, music, “otherness” and “release”. And Aristophanes’ Lysistrata — in which women of different ethnicities stormed the Acropolis and withheld sex from the male husbands and lovers — is updated as Lisa’s Sex Strike by Blake Morrison.

Audition Notice: Private Lives

by Site Admin on Saturday, September 1, 2007
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Auditions, STAC productions

Auditions for Private Lives
by Noel Coward
to be directed by Brian J. Burton

Auditioning Sun 2nd September 2007 — 2pm
at the Swan Theatre Studio, Worcester
and
Fri 7th September 2007 — 7.30pm
at the Swan Theatre (Sama Room), Worcester

Showing Thu 14th — Sat 23rd February 2008
at the Swan Theatre, Worcester

Cast (3 female, 2 male):

• Amanda Prynne (30s to 40s, 1930s accepted “cut glass” accent, one simple song)
• Victor Prynne (30s to 40s, a stiff upper-lip “bore”)
• Sybil Chase (30s, vapid, doll-like trophy wife)
• Elyot Chase (30s to 40s, rather clipped 1930s accent, one duet)
• Louise (any age, a maid in Act 3 only, French speaking)

Backstage crew will also be required.

Links:

• Dedicated page for more information and future updates
• See Who are STAC? for company information and a map to the theatre
• Google map of Bygones Antique shop, Worcester from where scripts can be borrowed
• Please make contact via the STAC website if you have any queries