​Well, the tour of Three Musketeers is under way (for all the upcoming venues between now and January see https://www.southdevonplayers.com/box-office.html )
As director, I love getting these "candid" sidestage photos of my incredible cast and crew in action. There is a truth to them, performing in the space, in mid-action, which you can never replicate with posed photos and pretty backdrops . Plus, with our more ambitious projects that sometimes we have people assuming we will never achieve, it is great to show the work in action.
This is a great team - theres an age range of about 50 years in the cast and crew, and a huge range of experience from people who have performed professionally for decades, through to people taking their very first step on stage over the last weekend. That is how we roll
It is impossible to choose just a couple of pictures of this team; so here is a gallery of sidestage photos taken at Brixham Theatre.
Our tour now goes on to Knowle Village Hall near #BudleighSalterton, Lipson Co-operative Academy's Muse Theatre in #plymouth, Stokenham Village Hall near #kingsbridge, Exeter Northcott's Barnfield Theatre in #exeter, Unleashed Theatre Company's Royal Lyceum Theatre in #torquay and Kingskerswell Village Hall near #newtonabbot.
- Laura (Director)

​World Mental Health Day
So as we all know, in theatre we all have to be open, relaxed, and able to display a huge range of emotions and feelings as our characters. We often have to share communal changing areas, That’s quite a vulnerable place to be.
It is ultra important that theatre and performance is a safe space, that does not compromise its ground rules for reliability, professionalism and quality as well as looking after the creatives involved in the work and making sure each one, regardless of experience, disability, ethnicity, gender, etc feel safe, accommodated and heard.
Occasionally you do sadly get people who are looking for something else; ego-trips, opportunities to bully, abuse or scam, or to put down others. Or who attack others for being different (in terms of age/ gender/ disability/ health/ ethnicity etc ) . And that will wreak havoc in such a delicately balanced atmosphere and can put people in serious mental health crisis.
It is up to everyone to look out for one another, be professional and pleasant, but also understanding and respectful of one another.
Lots of pages and sites are posting links to helplines which can be useful but what is even more important is addressing problems at the root cause so that they don’t grow to be an issue, and all organisations, workplaces, community groups etc can be a part of that by ensuring that their space is safe , respectful, and good.
And above all- don’t let this vanish into words and lip service. Practice what you preach.

​Last Friday we were one of three Torbay organisations pitching at Local Spark: Torbay Community Supported Enterprise’s Dragons Den event - with Lisa Highton, Laura Jury and Rich Sandford, for help with new portable lights , marketing & outreach with our shows and education work, networking, touring transport etc.
Many many thanks to all those who offered consultancy, introductions to places & people who may be able to help us grow, and all sorts of useful help. They will all get followed up with alacrity over the next two or three weeks.
Also a huge thank you to Helen Ambler, Community Builder for Brixham for the photo of Laura pitching - and to everyone there for making it a truly excellent, positive, supportive space. 
Thank you again to everyone

We are currently embarking on our next theatre production, a dramatisation of the Anglo-saxon epic poem, Beowulf, which will be performed around the South Devon area and Torbay in November/ December 2022. 
We always create educational materials around each of our productions, and would like very much to hear from any schools or homeschoolers teaching this poem as to what materials they might especially find at use - created for free or "at -cost" which we can make available online. 
We would also very much like to hear from any schools in the area, or homeschooling groups who would be interested in arranging either a trip to one of our performances in November/ December, or to recieve the theatre show streamed online (available from the end of November). 
Please do get in touch at any time to discuss, we would love to hear from you. Our direct email is [email protected]


Our education side is led by our founder Laura Jury, who has a masters degree in education, focussing on the teaching of theatre, from the University of Exeter
The South Devon Players offers a new approach to theatre-making of world-class standard. Involving people of all levels of experience, from beginners to seasoned professionals, we create full scale dramatic productions primarily focusing on historical events, literature, and classical texts. 

We perform in our home-town of Brixham then tour around the Devon area, as well as streaming our shows online to global audiences. 

We were founded during the winter of 2005/6 to create inclusive opportunities for people in the Torbay area (and some from the wider Devon area) to get involved in creating high-quality theatre and thereby develop / further professional skills, careers and portfolios towards, and as part of, professionally working in the entertainment industry, led by three volunteer company directors.

People starting out with us have also gone on to work in large scale film & TV productions, to further training inclusive of RADA and Bristol Old Vic, working with us helps them obtain the credits needed for professional registration with the professional actors Spotlight directory, and Equity (the actors and entertainment creatives trade union) which in turns allows them to be able to apply to register with larger actors agencies. We also attract established professional actors seeking to expand and grow their portfolios. 

Audience feedback is also very positive from our shows and projects, frequently likening the quality of our shows to rival that of the Globe, and other famous theatre production companies. 

Our work, over the past few years, has won several awards including on a national and international scale; we are the All-England winner of the "Epic Award" 2017 (now rebranded as the Creative Lives Award) and the Theatre Partner Award in the Long Island Theatre Awards 2019 (New York), putting theatre from Brixham squarely on a national and international map.
You can read more about us at www.southdevonplayers.com, or www.facebook.com/sdevonplayers
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Part of our show education packs for students traditionally, is a video showing ten words from the show in BSL (British Sign Language.)
Sarah Gregori has kindly created this video for our Ben Hur education pack, and also added in the full alphabet in BSL as well.
This video is subtitled as well.
Feel free to share to anyone who may find it useful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9URt2-OlrE