Secretary – Trowbridge Players

9th March 20189th March 2018

Scenery store work

We are required to leave our current scenery store at Holt by the end of March. We are hoping to move our scenery into something like a shipping container which we can keep on the same site, at least temporarily.

We have already been working at sorting out the scenery store, but we need another push at this. So, please come and help at 10am on Saturday 17th March 2018 at the store. We have quite a lot of furniture and props which you may be able to help us dispose of, or keep in a garage, perhaps.

6th February 2018

Special meeting to consider scenery store

If you are on our mailing list, you will have already seen that we are holding a special meeting of the society to consider what we can do about our scenery store.

We have been given very short notice to quit our current premises in Holt by the end of March 2018. We knew that there was going to be redevelopment of the site in the future, but we had been led to believe that we were safe here for at least the next year (and we have recently paid another six months rent).

If you can come to the meeting, please do. (It’s at Trowbridge Town Hall on Thursday 8th February at 7.30pm.) If you can’t come and have ideas of places or people to contact (or radical ideas about what to do with the scenery!), please get in touch with us to let us know your thinking.

Thanks.

6th February 2018

“The Accrington Pals” has been cast!

We are pleased to announce that our play for the end of April, “The Accrington Pals” has been cast, and rehearsals are just starting.

This is a moving and human play about important social consequences of the First World War, which ended 100 years ago this coming November.

Please put the dates (Wednesday 25th to Saturday 28th April 2018) in your diary and come and see the show!

20th December 201719th April 2018

Read-through for next play “The Accrington Pals”

We have decided to produce “The Accrington Pals” as our Spring production, running from 25th to 28th April 2018.

The read through will be at Tesco Community Space, Trowbridge, on Monday 15th January 2018 at 7.30pm. (The community space is found down the left side of the outside of the store.)

The play is about the experiences of a group of young people in Lancashire when the men answer the call to volunteer and join up to fight in the First World War (which ended 100 years ago next year).

The cast is as follows (the ages listed are playing ages rather than actual ages and some flexibility will be possible):

MAY, (a stallholder) late twenties to mid thirties.
TOM, (an apprentice) eighteen to twenty
RALPH, (a clerk) eighteen to twenty
EVA, (a mill girl) about the same age as RALPH
SARAH, (a married mill worker) mid twenties
BERTHA, (a mill girl) eighteen to twenty
ANNIE , (a housewife) late thirties
ARTHUR, (her husband) of similar age
REGGIE, (her son,) about thirteen or fourteen
C.S.M. RIVERS (a regular soldier) thirties/forties

The ‘Accrington Pals’ battalion actually existed and is well known, so it is essential that cast members attempt a north country accent (excepting C.S.M Rivers who can have any home-grown accent).

Please do come along if you are interested in getting involved, and pass this information on to anybody you know who might be interested and not have seen it.

15th September 201718th September 2017

Reading and auditions for “Snow White”, our next pantomime

Time rushes swiftly on, and we are getting geared up for the pantomime in January 2018! We’re doing “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” in a version specially written for us.

The performance dates will be Thursday 11th January to Sunday 14th January 2018, and Thursday 18th January to Sunday 21st January 2018. Performances on Thursdays are at 6.30pm, on Fridays and Saturdays at 7.30pm. In addition, there are matinee performances on Saturday and Sunday at 2.30pm.

The immediate thing is to have a reading. We read through Act 1 last night, and we are reading through Act 2 on Monday 18th September at 19:15 (7.15 pm) at The Arc.

Following that, we are holding auditions (again at The Arc) on Sunday 24th September, at 14:00 (2 pm) for children auditioning as dwarves, and 15:30 (3.30 pm) for adults.

[Please note that the day and times for the auditions changed after the first version of this post.]

The cast list is:

Snow White
Prince
Nurse Nora
Odd Job Bob (comedy part)
Evil Queen
Herman the Hench-man
Magic Mirror
Lord Chamberlain
The Seven Dwarfs
Woodland Creatures
Adult Ensemble

There’s a lot of fun to be had at a pantomime, and possibly even more performing one. Do come along and join in if you can.

3rd March 2017

Juggling productions and other stuff

We’ve cast our play (“Cash on Delivery”) and rehearsals are under way, with lots of laughs. We’d really like to hear form anybody who can help out with all those other essentials of a successful production, like stage management, prompting, set building and painting, costume and prop assembly or construction… All necessary and much appreciated by the cast (and of course the audience!), so if you can help, please do get in touch.

We are also aware that it’s a bit of a let-down if you want to get involved with the Players but don’t find that sitting through a lot of rehearsals by other people is very appealing. So we thought we’d get some regular club nights going. We had a couple of gatherings at The Lamb last year, with mixed success. We’ll probably re-institute those if there’s strong demand, as it’s a convivial place to socialise. However, we thought a more ‘dramatic’ focus might be better received, and that the Tesco Community Space is a good place for that–so we are having a first club night on Monday 7th March 2017, primarily to explore what things people would most like.

Do come along!

13th February 2017

Our Spring production

We have decided on “Cash on Delivery” by Michael Cooney as our next production. We will be performing it at The Arc theatre at Wiltshire College, Trowbridge from Wednesday 26th to Saturday 29th April 2017. We are pleased to welcome Jamie Wright and Tirion Cowell from Trowbridge College and The Arc as directors. They are keen to get involved with working with Trowbridge Players.

We’ve had a few readings of the play at the Tesco Community Space, and I think the general view is that it is very funny, with some good lines and some very ridiculous situations. It was written in the 1990s, and we’ll probably set it then — but that decision is obviously up to the directors.

We will be holding auditions for the parts (6 men and 5 women, ages mostly indeterminate) at The Arc from 19:30 on Friday 17th February and Monday 20th February 2017. We look forward to seeing lots of people there, and lots of people getting involved in putting on the production!