However a third and final audition for the show has been arranged for Wednesday 29th October.  Please see the new audition notice.

Unusually for the Swan Theatre Amateur Company, the play will not be performed at the Swan Theatre, because it will be closed! Instead we are de-camping to the Norbury Theatre, Droitwich for the performances (though rehearsals will still be in Worcester).

Also unusual is that Maria contains songs, so some of the fairly large cast need to be able to sing!

Auditioning Wed 29th October — 7.30pm
at the Swan Studio, Worcester

Showing 25th — 28th February 2009
at the Norbury Theatre, Droitwich

Note the performance venue!  Maria Marten will be performed at the Norbury Theatre, Droitwich, because the Swan Theatre will be closed for repairs.  Rehearsals will be in Worcester as usual on dates  and venus to be arranged when the play is cast. These will commence in November with a short break for Christmas.

This version will be presented as if by a band of strolling players with a minimum of staging and furniture.  It is a fun show: a melodrama with music!

Cast: 5 female, 3 male (all ages are flexible)
Plus ENSEMBLE: 6 female, 2 male.

Maria Marten (18-30, a village girl, 3 solos + chorus)
William Corder (the Squire’s son, a villain, 30 - 40, 3 solos)
Thomas Marten (an honest rustic in the vale of years, 1 duet)
Mrs Marten (his wife, also old, 1  duet)
Tim Bobbin (a simple rustic  comedy role, 20-30, 1 solo, 2 duets)
Anne Marten (Tim’s girlfriend, 20-30, 2 duets)
Nell Hatfiled (a gypsy lady, middle age, no songs)
Meg Bobbim (Tim’s sister, 20s, Choruses only)

The members of the ensemble will be active throughout the show  as chorus, playing minor roles (gypsies,  country folk, an officer of the law, a housemaid  etc, re-setting the simple furniture - even playing a small drum etc for sound effects!)

Backstage crew may also be required.

IF YOU ARE  INTERESTED BUT UNABLE TO ATTEND THE AUDITION PLEASE CONTACT BRIAN on 01527 821 564.

Links:

• See Who are STAC? for company information and a map to the theatre
• Google map of Bygones Antique shop, Worcester from where scripts and CDs of the music for the simple songs can be borrowed
• Please make contact via the STAC website if you have any other queries

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!

Although seemingly neither overly impressed nor phased by the traditional, “straight forward” production, Rogers reserves especial praise for the younger actresses who “impressed the most”: Kathryn Bellamy as Gwendolen and Sophie McLellan as Cecily.  Simon Atkins (Jack) and Chris Broadfield (Algernon) are “well suited” to their roles, John Horton and Pauline Lowe are “a divine pairing” as Rev Chasuble and Miss Prism, and — while Patricia Hobday’s crocodile-smile interpretation of Lady Bracknell does not quite seem to strike home for the reviewer — Hobday is nevertheless “certainly talented and spat many of wicked aristocrat’s lines out with pleasurable spite”.

The show closes Saturday night.

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.

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

Ever-popular masterpiece set to return to city stage

CUCUMBER sandwiches, a lost handbag, and high society – it must be The Importance of Being Earnest.

Worcester-based Swan Theatre Amateur Company (STAC) will don period costume and stiff upper lips for their production of Oscar Wilde’s ever popular masterpiece.

Set in the elegant world of Mayfair and an English country manor, it follows friends John Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff as they woo loved ones while pretending to be who they are not, all under the disdainful watch of the redoubtable Lady Bracknell.

Directed by Tim Crow, who was responsible for 2007’s farce Charley’s Aunt, The Importance of Being Earnest runs at the Swan Theatre from Tuesday, October 7 to Saturday, October 11.

For tickets, priced between £5 and £9.50, call the box office number on 01905 611427 or visit worcesterlive.co.uk.

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.

Happily, this is not strictly the case in STAC’s upcoming production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. With director Timothy Crow at the helm, the cast have had a thoroughly enjoyable few months rehearsing for what is possibly one of the most famous plays in English literature (if you don’t count Shakespeare).

The lines, as it happens, are coming along well, as is the pace, comic-timing and often problematic blocking (made problematic by the huge amount of eating that goes on on-stage!) of this much-loved play. In fact, our biggest obstacle (or advantage, depending on how you look at it) is just that: everyone loves this play. GCSE students study it, pensioners quote it and even the most reluctant theatre-goer can usually be persuaded to sit through this beautifully written comedy. But it is this very popularity which makes it both an exciting and daunting project to undertake. For a notorious “paraphraser” like myself (i.e. someone who never gets her lines quite right but gets somewhere near enough) the thought of every audience member knowing my lines better than I do is more terrifying than a thousand Lady Bracknells.

Therefore, the accuracy of the lines is vital. An English teacher once described the play to me as “as perfect and as neat a play as any I have ever read.” She is, incidentally, coming to watch me in the play next week. So, no pressure, then. Whether any play can be described as in any way “perfect” is obviously open to debate but Importance is certainly neat, and it is only fitting that the crispness and clarity of Wilde’s writing be done justice by all those who undertake it. Indeed, who are we Paraphasers to think that we can casually erode Wilde’s genius?!

Lady Bracknell, on this occasion, has been bombastically undertaken by the insatiable Pat Hobday who has, I’m assured, been having restless nights over the notorious ‘handbag’ line and the crucial delivery of those immortal words. These nightmares are sure to have doubled when a jovial Simon Atkins (who is having a bash at the title role) regaled us during a break in rehearsals with the story of how, once, the legendary Judi Dench forgot her lines and subsequently skipped the infamous ‘handbag’ scene when playing Lady B on the West End; she later received a fretful letter from a furious audience member claiming that Dench had “ruined her Christmas”, a complaint which was mollified by a signed photo and sincere letter of apology from the great lady herself.

Now, while we do have a stack of signed photos of Pat standing-by, hopefully we will suffer no such complaints. Our lines are certainly getting there and, whether we are word-perfect or not, it promises to be a thoroughly exciting production. As the 7th of October approaches, tensions are high and pulses are racing but all in a largely pleasant way. The cast are jostling along together and have become remarkably candid and matey for ten people who barely knew each other two months ago. In fact, we’re all having far too much fun for our own good which is, after all, what am dram in all about. While it could certainly be argued that this is the most stressful time of any performance, it can also be the best part; very few things, after all, can beat good old-fashioned nervous anticipation.

You can see the new style gallery on the play’s dedicated page at www.stac-worcester.com/memory-of-water/. The play was a great success, even though director Derek Chaplain had to step up to play one of the parts. He new the lines well enough to go on without a script. That’s a dedicated director!

And speaking of dedicated directors, STAC’s attention now switches to The Importance of Being Earnest directed by Tim Crow, last seen directing Charley’s Aunt in 2006. You can currently see the impressive poster art at the top of the site, also available both for now and for posterity on the dedicated page at www.stac-worcester.com/importance-of-being-earnest/. There you can also find more details of cast, crew and - as if you didn’t know the plot already - a blurb for the play.

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.

(This option was made available by an upgrade to the content management system behind the scenes, and may be useful for users with lower resolutions, without Flash, or with slower connections.)

Humble Boy is the first play whose dedicated page sports a gallery in the new, simplified format, and somewhat belatedly the performance photos are now up!