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!

Guest post: The Importance of Being Word Perfect

by Site Admin on Tuesday, September 23, 2008
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Personal, Production, STAC productions

A guest post from Kathryn Bellamy, playing Gwendolen Fairfax in the upcoming STAC production, The Importance of Being Earnest.

They say the most nerve-racking part of any production is the moment before you go on stage. I beg to differ; the most nerve-racking time in a production in this (very) amateur thesp’s opinion is two weeks before hand when you realise that you are the only member of a dedicated cast who is still fluffing her lines. Worse still, when you have several scenes which involve just you and one other person who is relying on you to give the correct cue in order to remember their own lines. This feeling of mounting panic alone can be enough to induce even the most confident of performers into sleeping with a copy of the script under their pillow.

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Closer is getting closer for Math

by Site Admin on Friday, March 7, 2008
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Personal, STAC productions

Patrick Marber’s Closer is a popular modern play chronicling the interrelated love affairs of two men and two women, plying a dark twist on the unknowability of lovers and the vagaries of emotional entanglement. Marber’s renowned drama has the kind of black humour that can only arise from truly penetrating insights into the jealousy and desires at the core of sexual romances.

Math Jones has acted extensively with STAC, and has previous directorial experience, but this the first play he has directed at the Swan.

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Horton steps into the part that Coward wrote for himself

by Site Admin on Friday, February 1, 2008
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Newspapers, Personal, Publicity, STAC productions

Lauren Rogers from the Worcester News covers STAC’s next production, Private Lives today, with a focus on John Horton in the role of Elyot.

The show opens Thursday after next on Valentines Day and will be a perfect treat for a romantic night out … or perhaps to meet someone over a glass of bubbly!

The text of the article follows below.

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This week STAC provokes your little grey cells, and your appetite

by Site Admin on Monday, December 3, 2007
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Personal, STAC productions

The puzzle-solving, Christmas-food-muching murder mystery, Dig In For Murder, written and directed by Angela Lanyon (see earlier post) starts tonight with a special preview.

Sally Metcalfe, who has done a variety of work for STAC both on stage and behind the scenes, is playing Tricia Knowells in this week’s production.

How do you think the rehearsals are going?

Things are coming together at last - rehearsing 4 nights in a row this week has helped. It has been fun and the best bit has been when a rehearsal goes well with the cast all working together and reacting to each other.

Are you looking forward to performance week?

I am looking forward to the performances but I’ll be nervous too. It should be good fun giving the audience clues/red herrings and keeping them guessing.

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Digging it! Angela’s play is selling quickly

by Site Admin on Friday, November 16, 2007
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Personal, STAC productions

Tickets for STAC’s fifth annual murder mystery, Dig In For Murder by Angela Lanyon, have already sold out for the Saturday night performance.

As well as penning various STAC productions, including many staples of the Children’s Theatre repertoire, Dig In For Murder’s writer/director Angela Lanyon also writes articles for magazines and has had work broadcast on Radio 4. She worked in professional theatre management for twenty years, including the Chichester Festival Theatre.

My last job was at the Theatre Royal in Plymouth where amongst other things I directed Out In The Midday Sun, a narrative of Noel Coward the traveller in the Studio Theatre. I also wrote and administered Theatre to Schools when I was working in Essex.

On her motivation for writing, Lanyon jokingly quotes Samuel Johnson — “No one but a fool ever wrote for anything other than money”. But she adds:

I do like to see people having a good time, a laugh and set them a puzzle. So far they have always been solved but usually only one person has come up with the right answer per performance. Will this year be different?

Dig In For Murder is showing from Tuesday 4th to Saturday 8th December at 7.30pm in the Swan Studio, with a special preview on Monday 3rd at 7.30pm, and a matinee on Saturday 8th at 2.30pm.

The New Skell

by Site Admin on Friday, October 12, 2007
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Newspapers, Other local arts, Personal, STAC news, Worcester Live

The Standard reports on a familiar face today.

Jared Thomas joined the Swan Theatre Amateur Company last year, first playing a love-sick Jack in Charley’s Aunt (alongside Keith Thompson and Bob Churchill who are both currently playing in Relatively Speaking) and then playing the lecherous best friend in Babysitting Calvin earlier this year. He has since played one of the “rude mechanicals” in the Invitation Company’s Midsummer Night’s Dream this summer.

And now… he is the new Skell, leading Worcester Live’s ghostbusting tours for children around the city.

The Standard article can be found online: “Ghostwalk starts up for new series of fright nights”. Also see the Worcester Live Children’s Ghostwalk page.

Worcester amdram stalwart dies in Portugal

by Site Admin on Thursday, August 23, 2007
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Newspapers, Other local arts, Personal, STAC news

Liz Brownridge, a former member of STAC and various other Worcester groups since 1972, has died while on holiday in Portugal, aged 59.

From the Worcester News, Monday:

Holiday death of amateur dramatic’s star

A STAR of Worcestershire’s theatre scene has died suddenly while on holiday.

Liz Brownridge, aged 59, was in Algarve, Portugal, with her husband David when she suffered a heart attack on Thursday, August 16.

A member of Worcester Operatic and Dramatic Society (WODS) for 35 years, Mrs Brownridge will be remembered for her dedication to and passion for local amateur dramatics.

Bruce Wyatt, current secretary of WODS said, “She had contributed so much to maintaining the highest possible standards of performance with her enthusiasm on and off stage - there will be a huge gulf that will be impossible to fill.

“She will be sadly and greatly missed by many and our prayers and thoughts go out to David and her two step-daughters Vickie and Helen.”

Born in Hull, Yorkshire, Mrs Brownridge trained as a dancer from a young age. By the time she was 17 she had joined a local dance troupe and was involved with three operatic societies.

When she moved to Worcester in 1972 to work in the pathology laboratory of the former Royal Infirmary in Castle Street, she joined WODS, Kays Theatre Group and the Swan Theatre Amateur Company.

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Chris Isaac asks the big questions

by Site Admin on Wednesday, July 4, 2007
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Personal, STAC news

Chris Isaac, who played Bruce Delamitri in last week’s Popcorn, has written to the STAC blog in an attempt to raise some debate. Since it’s everyone’s company, his questions are reproduced below. Please feel free to leave comments on this entry in response.

Chris writes:

I would ask all theatre-goers, membership and those who are curious about the S.T.A.C.and what it does to write here.

What you would like to see performed?

What you want from theatre in the 21st century?

Do you think you would like to take part, acting, lighting, props making, scenery, stage-management etc, etc?

Do you think that theatre is too stuck up?

Is it relevant to your every day life?

Do you just want to be entertained or are you up for something more demanding?

Please tell us (STAC). We are your local theatre company and we are here for you, the community.

Director Liz Whitehouse on STAC’s Festival play 2007

by Site Admin on Monday, July 2, 2007
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Personal, Production, STAC productions

The dedicated page for STAC’s next production is here: One for the Road.

Willy Russell — the playwright who also wrote Educating Rita, Blood Brothers and Shirley Valentine — penned One for the Road in 1979, but the humour, and the characters’ entrapment in a bland “phase two” suburban housing estate, are thoroughly recognisable in the twenty-first century.

Liz Whitehouse is directing the show in the Swan Studio. She grew up in Harrow, North West London, trained for librarianship in Birmingham, and later worked in the Gambia, stocking and organising school libraries and training staff and pupils how to run them. But even surrounded by books in the Gambia, her theatrical leanings were evident. “While there I was able to learn Scottish dancing, have my first taste of performing in operetta (Merry England), and take up theatricals again, oh! and travel around west Africa,” she says.

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