Yes, it’s true. At last. We will be treading those boards once again and welcoming our audiences to live local theatre. So many people have been stopping members to ask – when is the next play? Well we have the answers – read on.
Recently the membership gathered together at The Forum for the first time since March 2020 for our much delayed Annual / Extraordinary General Meeting. One thing was clear – everyone was keen to get back to the stage. The sensible approach would be to wait until after Christmas and the New Year before embarking on a renewed schedule of meetings and rehearsals for a play.
Back at The Forum again
We also agreed that the most sensible choice of play to kick off our return would be Alan Ayckbourn’s FlatSpin. This was the play that was originally scheduled for April 2020, one which we had already been rehearsing and preparing for. It would be a good way of easing our way back in and, having been semi-rehearsed already, more able to cope with any unforeseen circumstances that this winter might still throw at us.
With some necessary casting changes agreed, a renewed performance licence obtained and dates booked at the Elloughton-Brough Village Hall we find ourselves in the position of having at last a plan for our return.
Make sure you have the dates 28th, 29th, 30th April marked in your calendars as tickets are sure to be in demand when we open the box office (probably in the New Year).
Ensure you are subscribed to this website or to our Facebook page for more updates. We look forward to seeing you all in 2022.
Traditionally, the end of October would have been the final performance of our current play. Two years ago at this time we were celebrating a successful run of Passing Strangers while unknown to us all a devastating virus was about to flourish. (Our next play, Say It With Flowers, would be performed in the following January oblivious to the lockdowns that would be in place only weeks later. )
Passing Strangers October 2019
None of us realised that, two years later in October 2021, we would still be inactive with no plays scheduled.
Many of you have been enquiring when we might resume, some assuming we are already in rehearsal, and it is rewarding to note the interest and desire to see us back on the stage to make you laugh, or cry or simply enjoy an evening of live theatre.
Plans for 2022
It is premature to make any announcements but the entire society is gathering in mid-November to discuss our return to the stage in 2022 and formulate our plans. You can be assured that we will keep you informed after the meeting and we hope that in a few weeks time we will be able to ask you to reserve dates in your calendar.
Have a scroll through the posters below as a reminder of our heritage of wonderful plays in the last few years. Looking at them brings back memories that make us all smile and be proud and act as inspiration for the future.
In the meantime, hang on, we are all waiting in the wings and eager to resume.
Brutus: A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March…
[Act 1 Scene 2 Julius Caesar. William Shakespeare]
Julius Caesar isn’t the only one who had a bad day at the Forum on the 15th of March, known to the Romans as ‘The Ides of March’. We at Petuaria Players did too because it was exactly one year ago today that we met as a group for the last time. (Well, the 16th actually but it was a Monday and even Bill Shakespeare stretched a few truths.)
The Forum – not in Rome but in Petuaria
We were at the books-down stage in rehearsals for Alan Ayckbourn’s FlatSpin and whilst the first time without scripts in hand is always stressful we were all looking forward to putting on this play, not least new girl Sally who had been preparing for her first stage performance with a mixture of excitement and nervousness.
Sally’s wait to get on stage is rather longer than she expected.
Of course, it was not to be. That was the night that it had become clear that a performance at the end of April would be impossible and we made the decision that had been hovering over us for a few days to postpone the play.
Early stages of rehearsal for FlatSpin
At the time we wondered if we may be able to reschedule it later as our October 2020 play. Who knew then that even October 2021 would be shrouded with a mixture of optimistic promise and uncertainty. We shall see…..
Our last production – January 2020 – we look forward to our next, whenever that will be.
“Is there no play, To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?”
[William Shakespeare. A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Act V, sc I]
It is somewhat stunning to realise that we have not posted anything on here so far this year. It is a measure of this longest stretch of lockdown that time has lost its meaning, and apathy and lethargy has become equally pandemic. It is also a measure of the fact that as a group we in the Petuaria Players still have no real news to impart. The recent awful peaks of infection and the changing roadmaps made it clear very quickly that a resumption of performances and audiences was still a long way off. On the other hand, the vaccine programme and this depressingly strict but very necessary lockdown is turning the tide fast.
Talking of tides, and stretching the metaphor into the regions of hyperbole, perhaps the situation can be summed up in a more frivolous and tongue-in-cheek way……
In this longest and darkest of nights, as the good ship ‘HMS Britain’ sails on through the turbulent seas of the pandemic, weathering many storms, its crew confined to quarters, our hatches battened down, amidst mutinous mutterings from those below decks, the ship’s surgeon struggling with an overflowing sick bay, drifting aimlessly at times in the doldrums, despatches from the Admiralty in London at last suggest that a gentle glow of light has appeared on the horizon. It may be a false dawn, it may be the promise of sunshine and smiles. And yet that light is at present a distant one, shining on a land still beyond the horizon, an as yet unknown and uncharted territory. Until we hear ‘Land Ho!’ shouted from the crows nest of Downing Street we cannot visualise the landscape and the peoples of this terra-firma onto which we all desperately wish to set our weary feet.
Cmdr. Hancock, the ship’s surgeon is distributing the lime juice of our vaccines to fight the scurvy of Covid. We have our protective masks as we venture out and climb the rigging to set the sails towards this New World. When will we enter port and hoist our ensign, our village hall banner, once again? When will we be able to act out our trade with the indigenous population? Will we be so encrusted with the weary barnacles of this long voyage that we must enter dry dock to restore our skills and enthusiasm?
As long as all the ships in the fleet continue to sail in the same direction we will surely arrive at our destination and begin our new adventures in a new world.
Hmm. So we remain in uncertainty. There is such a lack of clarity that positive plans for the future cannot yet be made but rest assured, at some point we will be back, even if changes have to be made to our traditional production formats.
Meanwhile the group continues to Zoom regularly with our online play readings and weekly quiz nights.
Still Zooming along
And on here you can expect some more throwback posts to remind us of the enjoyable productions of the past.
Meanwhile, if you are forgetting our visages then I enclose a reminder – I do not vouch, however, for their accuracy or representation of our current appearances……
Until then, stay safe, and be optimistic about that sunny horizon.
Our traditional actors….. And not forgetting future ones…….
