Bride seeks erotic screen!

by Site Admin on Monday, October 13, 2008
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Newspapers, Personal, Production, STAC productions

Angela Lanyon’s new play, A Bride In The Hand, was premiered in Australia earlier this year. This November STAC bring Bride to the UK, to be directed by the writer herself.

Some of the action centres round an erotic Indian screen, but the production team are still looking for something ornate enough. Lanyon says “It should have three or four ‘leaves’ - preferably plain on one side and with a carved top.”

If anyone can help with the search this would be greatly appreciated.

For this produciton, many of the cast are new or fairly new to STAC. Angela continues:

Rehearsals are going well and it should be a load of laughs. Marcus and Verity are both new members and are fitting in well and good to work with. Gilliam Charles is newish, he was in Memory of Water and Children’s Theatre. Ann Lancaster is a member of Rachel le Sauvage’s Chance to Act group.

We could still do with a helping hand for the lighting.

If you’re not a STAC member and therefore don’t receive complimentary tickets, look out for an upcoming competition in the Worcester News!

The Importance of Being Photographed

by Site Admin on Wednesday, October 8, 2008
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Newspapers, Publicity, STAC productions

Sophie, Kathryn and Frank enjoying afternoon tea (Are the “Importance of being…” puns wearing thin yet?)

Photos from the dress are now up on the dedicated page for The Importance of Being Earnest. The show began its run last night and is being well-received.

Many thanks to Howerd for taking them and getting them to stac-worcester.com so quickly!

Also, here’s something which didn’t find it’s way to the website so promptly…!

The Birmingham Mail anticipated our Wildean production back on September 19th, focusing on the much-talked-about “handbag” line of Lady Bracknell. See “Patricia bags star role in Wilde classic” by John Slim.

STAC to perform “ever-popular masterpiece”

by Site Admin on Monday, September 29, 2008
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Newspapers, Publicity, STAC productions

The Worcester News anticipates next week’s STAC production of The Importance of Being Earnest.

With the caution that Charley’s Aunt was actually a 2006 production, not 2007, the text of the article follows below.

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Worcester Standard anticipates “a powerful and funny play”

by Site Admin on Saturday, August 9, 2008
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Newspapers, Publicity, STAC productions, Worcester Live

This week’s Worcester Standard, out yesterday, looks forward to STAC’s Worcester Festival production, The Memory of Water by Shelagh Stephenson.

The article is online: “Sister act at the Swan”. The Standard calls the play “powerful and funny”.

You can read more about The Memory of Water here on the play’s dedicated page, or at the Worcester Festival website’s event page.

Birmingham Mail: actors “acquit themselves with distinction”

by Site Admin on Friday, May 2, 2008
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Newspapers, Reviews, STAC productions

A third review for The Blue Room comes from the Birmingham Mail. John Slim anticipated the play early last month in the Birmingham Post, calling it a “heroic” choice. His review in the Mail shows no sign of disappointment. “Emily Portsmouth - making her first appearance with the company - and Bob Churchill acquit themselves with distinction in each of their various roles.”

The full text of the article follows below.

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Reviews of The Blue Room

by Site Admin on Friday, May 2, 2008
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Newspapers, Reviews, STAC productions

Both the Worcester News and the Worcester Standard have reviewed The Blue Room this week.

John Philpott writing in the former, appears to understand the themes, has his ideas about “the essential truth” of the play, and is congratulatory over Chris Jaeger’s “masterly brushstrokes” as director. But it would all be for nothing “without the right materials, and his [Jaeger's] artist’s palette must surely overflow with the talents of Emily Portsmouth and Bob Churchill”.

Catherine Phillips writing in the latter, however, is less effusive. She appreciates the “convincing” changes between different roles, but her dislike of the play itself and her opinions of the morals displayed by the characters appear to be a hang-up. She also discusses the amount of sex at the Swan (is it really so much, or does it just appear that way if sex is particularly salient to someone as they flick through the programming brochure?)

The text of both reviews follows below.

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Worcester News awaits The Blue Room

by Site Admin on Friday, May 2, 2008
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Newspapers, Publicity, STAC productions, Worcester Live

The Worcester News anticipated this week’s STAC production, The Blue Room, with another article (we covered the first here). And the show’s director Chris Jaeger, in role as Worcester Live boss, discussed the play in his Centre Stage column.

The text of both articles follows below.

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The Theatre of War

by Site Admin on Tuesday, April 8, 2008
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National, Newspapers, Online

Michael Kustow, widely experienced man of theatre, writes in the Guardian’s “Comment is free” today, arguing the case for “a radical shake-up” of war as portrayed in theatre.

Aeschylus, Euripides and Aristophanes wrote plays about war while the body bags were still coming home from the war with Sparta that finally sank Athens. They pushed the forms of Greek drama - epic cycle, impassioned debate and convulsive comedy - to breaking point to grapple with war and all its fallouts. In their form as much as their content, plays like The Oresteia, The Trojan Women and Lysistrata broke the mould of theatre. For these dramatists, war was too dehumanising to be left to the chroniclers and historians. Alarms had to be sounded for all citizens through the artifice of theatre.

Today, in the fifth year of the Iraq war and its seemingly endless aftermath, playwrights are beginning to create drama up to the measure of our wartime wasteland.

The whole article continues at Comment is free.

“Witty play about love and betrayal”

by Site Admin on Friday, March 7, 2008
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Newspapers, Publicity, STAC productions

Next week’s production of Closer by the STAC appears in today’s Worcester News.

The article refers to the linked themes of our two upcoming plays, and looks forward to “Marber’s multi-award winning play about passion and betrayal.”

The text of the article follows below.

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