We must apologise for the quietness over the last few weeks - lots of things have been happening! 

Taming of the Shrew news
First of all, we must apologise for the cancellation of The Taming of the Shrew. Due to illness in the team, it was impossible to continue to the deadline. (for the record those affected are recovering well!). The team behind that project plan to resurrect it in the future, timing to be decided in that team. 

Sir Walter's Women
On the plus side, the performance of Sir Walter's Women went very well, with great feedback from the author - we certainly hope to work with Rachel again, especially when shows come back to the live stage in the future. It is wonderful to find a playwright who, like us, loves researched historical plays. 

​BSL Christmas stories
We are currently working on a pair of children's Christmas stories, both spoken as recordings and recorded in BSL (British Sign Language), which will be available for free via this website, in the next few days. (The signing for the second story is being done as we speak). This project has been very kindly funded by Western Power Distribution. It is the first time we have worked with getting BSL signing (the first of many projects, and increasing the accessibility of our productions) .

Welcoming new stage crew
​We are delighted to be welcomeing new stage crew, Sophie on tech and set design, Rebekah who is a trainee ASM and filmmaker, Pete assisting with research and digital shows, and Jean on costuming. We are still looking for a stage lighting/ sound tech to join the crew - please check our Crewing page if you would like to be considered to join our upcoming team. 

Next castings coming up:
We have our next open casting announcements coming up. With show dates for both virtual projects and "live" shows in discussion (we have provisional live show dates booked for later in 2021, but of course physical rehearsals and shows are dependant on covid safety, and venues being able to re-open to audience numbers which makes a show tour viable in terms of ticket sales for our actors.). 
Please keep an eye on our newsfeed for the latest castings - we hope to announce during either December 2020 or Jan 2021. 

Housekeeping
We are currently in the final stages of updating the company documents and governance documents. As a lot of these are the policies and procedures by which we run, we ask that all actors, crew and anyone else who works with us, pops over to the Policies page to check up on them. As always it is all just really about checking the latest best practice, and making sure that our paperwork reflects what we do anyway. We find that it is best to keep things open and clear. 

Next shows coming up:

Coming up next, we have two virtual shows already planned, Lost Girl and Jack The Ripper, rehearsals for both are well underway, and the tickets are on sale on our box office page 

Well, it has been a hugely busy autumn for us, and there are dozens of projects, discussions and plannings in the works. 

Halloween and a video project. 
For Hallloween, supported by Arts Council funding via Torbay Culture, we created Spooky Tales of Brixham, a series of short stories, told in the first person by actors playing Brixham ghosts, based on local folklore. It has gone remarkably well, with fantastic audience feedback. 

This side of Christmas, we have two more historical dramas, coming digitally, to our season of online productions  - tickets all on sale now: pop over to our box office page to book now. 

And in addition... 
We are also working with Ivybridge Community Arts on a local history production that they have created, 
planning ahead for further online theatre productions in the New Year (and as long as Covid nessecitates that we work online. Some very exciting projects are in various stages of planning, from castiing to being written, behind the scenes! 

Castings and auditions
We have had a number of casting enquiries recently. We currently have open castings for specific roles within our production of DH Lawrence's The Lost Girl, to complete the compliment of actors. Anyone wishing to audition for those roles, please visit our "auditions" page as we are accepting auditions for the next ten days or so for those roles. 

During December/January, the next big show auditions will be made live on the same site, and announced here in the news page as well as on our official company social media. 

We have recieved a number of enquiries this autumn seeking auditions and "have a go" acting roles in our shows, specifically for children. As announced back in the summer, and as stated on our website in the audtions page, we were forced to close our doors to accepting new child actors, for the time being, for a number of reasons, including repeated concerns that children working with us were not being correctly chaperoned by their parents, and a deluge of very bizarre social media requests (reported to the authorities) requesting us to illegally traffic children from a number of countries, to the UK. In the interests of everyones well-being, safety and legality, we ended up with no choice to close the doors to new child actors.  As always we reiterate;  we are not a childrens theatre company, although the majority of our shows are suitable viewing for all ages, and we do only cast child roles, where a child is specifically required for a role, which is not the case in every show. 

At the moment, with Covid, all auditions take place using self-tapes. We have found that email systems can be very sporadic in filing submitted auditions sent via file-transfer systems to different folders, including the spam folder. While we do our utmost to be vigilant and pick up the auditions, we are still concerned that some may slip through the net, which is not fair on everyones hard work, and therefore we are working on finding an accessible, easy system which allows for easier submission and more efficient casting director access. If you have sent a tape, but not had a response, please always check in with us. 

Leaving aside the current second lockdown; a question that we are commonly asked, usually two or three times a week, is why we have not returned to live "on-stage" theatre, when techincally, (outside of the lockdown) the government allow for it. 

Ticket sales.  - As a professional company, we rely on ticket and programme sales to pay our actor and crew. If, due to social distancing, audiences are cut to 20-30, there is no way that we can even hope to break even on the show, much less pay anyone. The only way in which this could be done, is to charge extortinate amounts per ticket - which would be unlikely to fill seats anyway. 

Distancing for cast and crew - The current advice that we have recieved from our Equity contact, is that actors have to be fully socially distanced from one another on stage, which means in turn that we cannot have a natural dramatic dynamic on stage. Furthermore, every actor has to have thier own dressing room (most venues cannot accomodate this), and live in a "bubble" of a hired hotel before, during and after the show - there is no way to afford this. (Also what about families, other work/ committments, etc?) 

Venues - Many venues are closed, due to the lack of viability in being open under these circumstances.

And while we are all looking forward to a safe return to the live stage, it needs to be safe for the actors, crews, audiences and venue staff alike; and viable. 

​Until then, all our work will take place online. 

The Friends of the South Devon Players

And we have a message to the Friends of The South Devon Players, a fundraising arm run by volunteers who support our work. 
​
This year did not launch things as planned - while we were planning for social events, and all sorts of "perks" for the membership, Covid, and our scramble to keep the company ticking over, knocked that on the head. 

We are however now looking at creatiing "zoom socials" where you will be able to join, socialise, chat, and meet some of the cast and crew. None of these are mandatory for anyone, but will be an option to remain in contact. 

We will also be looking at various other "digital" perks, until we can get back into the live spaces, and the original plans, with an emailed announcement soon. 

If you would like to support our company's  groundbreaking theatre work, and join the Friends, it is only £10 per year, and please pop over to the Supporters Trust .  Every penny raised goes into creating new theatre work; costumes, equipment, publicity materialls, venue hire - and when we get to that stage, union-pay-rates for our actors and crew. 

There is a lot of news for a short period of time, that affects most of our shows. 

First of all, we are delighted to announce that our first ever Arts Council funded project, True Tales of Spooky Brixham, is now live for public ticket sales. We had a great session with most of the recording work last week, and are doing the final pickups tomorrow. This project will be fundraising for Brixham Theatre, our nearest local theatre, where we always perform for each show tour. 

Secondly, theres Jack The Ripper. The live theatre shows were originally planned for the end of January (at Brixham Theatre) but with the governments expectation that Coovid restrictions will go on for another six months, and Brixham Theatre not reopening until May 1st 2021, we will be running a virtual performance in early Feb 2021 (tickets on sale soon), prior to the rebooked tour dates in May for the live performances of Jack the Ripper as originally planned. All venues originally booked will be contacted by the end of the week to rebook. 

With this schedule in place, we can also announce that in, the early New Year , we will be castings for our second "live" post-covid show, Shakespeare's Henry V. The dates for this show run will be dictated by our inclusion with Bristol Shakespeare Festival, ideally live, or otherwise as an online show. 

With our virtual season, there have been some date changes. The Lost Girl (script by Germaine Shames, based on the novel by DH Lawrence) is being rescheduled for mid January 2021. Between some internal live broadcast logistics, and a delay caused by struggling to cast the older roles, (a new casting advert will go out shortly for those roles) we have postponed the project so that it can be done to best effect and quality.. 
The other autumn virtual shows, Sir Walter's Women, and The Taming of the Shrew, are unaffected. 

Our non-exclusive casting agency also remains open. While our books are closed to actors who have not worked with us (we work on being able to provide personal reccomendations from having ourselves worked with people),  our actors are largely available for remote/ home-taped/ virtual/ voice over work, or castings on known Covid-secure sets. Please note that if seeking actors through us, these are all experienced professionals, and must be paid as such.  
We have some new work coming in through the agency at the moment, and suitable team members will be approached over the next week or so for the work, which will all be done over Zoom. 

We are also in the process of developing a welcome book for those who join our teams for one or more productions. For those newer to working professionally, or who are unsure what to expect, this outlines how things work and organisation expectations, aiming to answer frequently asked questions, and be an easy to access guide. This will be finished by Christmas. 

And that's all for the moment. Stay safe, keep battling along, and never stop revelling in creativity!

and Hello everyone! 
This is our big update on our projects and what we are doing while this Covid situation continues around the world. Please read on to find out the latest on our online shows, offline shows, and other activities. 

As things stand, the UK goverment have just brought in what is commonly known as the Rule of Six (meaning that only six people can meet up in a space), as infections nationally are on the rise. 

--- Returning to live shows
For now, our first returning shows are being booked for Jan/ Feb 2021, with our production of Jack The Ripper. That is, hoping that it will be safe for theatres to reopen by then. If there are delays on this, we will postpone. In the meantime, our cast are busily rehearsing and fine-tuning the show. We are currently rehearsing soley on Zoom. As things stand, physical rehearsals are not viable. We would need to be 2metres apart at all times, facing forward away from one another, which is impossible to create a natural show between different characters. While we will return once it is safe to do so (and viable to rehearse in a suitable way), at the moment it is all over Zoom. 

Shows for 2021 (or, once we can reasonably safely return to viable theatre where we can sell enough tickets to be able to pay cast and crew) include Jack The Ripper, Henry V, we hope a reboot of our show A Midsummer Night's Dream; from 2020, and an action drama set in ancient Rome which is currently being researched and written. 

---Online shows
We have a great autumn season of four shows, Tickets on sale via our box office HERE for all of the shows, with synopses, and breakdowns, with brilliant transatlantic casts. Every penny from ticket sales will be shared equally among the cast and crew of the show - after all, this is all about creating work for actors and creatives during these tough times. 

Should the covid crisis run into the New Year, any delays in returning to the physical stage, will lead to a winter/ spring Online Season. 

---The Spooky Tales of Brixham
With Arts Council funding, from Torbay Culture, our team are creating a video of local spooky ghost stories. With a Halloween broadcast, tickets will be on sale from the beginning of October, and all funds raised will go to our friends at Brixham Theatre. 

---Professional actors available
We have a fantastic team of actors who are available for (paid) voiceover work, home-recording for zoom projects. If you have a casting call, please email us on southdevonplayers@gmail.com. We are committed to doing our best to create work for our actors and crew. 

--Other activities
We are using the time as usefully as possible. Studying and developing new trends in marketing theatre, creating new technology for our live shows, developing new resources to assist new actors and crew joining the company especially those without much experience; and generally sorting and fine tuning as much as we can. 

Hello all! 
This is just an update with news all in one place! 

Overall, the news on theatres reopening remains the same. While some theatres are able to put on subsidised performances, it is impossible for most of us, sadly as outlined in our update on the subject, to return to distanced physical shows, for us and very many theatre companies. Most of the UK theatre industry is awaiting the announcements due in November from the UK government's Culture Secretary, Oliver Dowden, as to when theatres can re-open. With vastly reduced audiences due to (the very sensible!) distancing, it is impossible to run shows viably, and make enough from sales to pay for a venue and also to pay cast/ crew. 

Jack the Ripper
We are now rehearsing over Zoom each Sunday afternoon for this show, with plans for an online performance if the physical shows end up delayed. Jack The Ripper will return to the physical stage as soon as theatres are able to reopen (all being well, our bookings are for the end of January and early Febuary, with ticket sales going live once we know more from Mr Dowdens announcements in September. 
The production team are really pleased with how the rehearsals are progressing, with this Sunday being a characterisation workshop session. Our return to the physical stage, in 2021, will also mean that at least one performance of each show run, will be livestreamed to audiences who either are unable to access the venue, or who may still not wish to attend theatre in person after the pandemic. 

Shakespeare in 2021
Our 2021 Shakespeare show will be Henry V, as is already being booked for summer 2021. We are also hoping to finally get to tour our production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which was postponed due to the pandemic, subject to cast and venue availibility, as it now appears highly unlikely that we will be able to tour the show this year. 

Virtual Season
Casting announcements will go out within a few days for the first of our Virtual Season, the dark adaptation of Snow White, by Ashley Griffin. There have been a few delays while the cast are being selected, but we will have that sorted out by the end of this coming weekend. Tickets have already begun to sell, and as soon as the casting announcement goes live, we will be able to send out press releases, distribute posters and online events listiings to really push for the ticket sales.  The ensuing plays, The Lost Girl and Sir Walter's Women, will be cast during the later part of September. 

Spooky Tales of Brixham
This project telling of our local town's folklore, is well on track, with a release date of Halloween. 
We have acquired a wonderful collection of Victorian images of Brixham, for some backdrops and intro cards, and are currently in talks with local filming locations. All filming will be socially distanced, and outdoors in a Covid-secure envriroment. 

This evening launches the first of our projects to try to generate remote online work for at least some of our wonderful self-employed actors and creatives, who have lost their usual work in theatre, film, and TV during the corona-virus crisis. 
We are a nationally, and internationally, awardwinning team, now making our expertise available to help those who are now studying from home. Our members who have current DBS clearance, are available to teach both adults and children, while the rest of us are available to teach adults. This can be done via Zoom, Skype, Messenger or email. 
There is a fee for this service, because this is an attempt to generate work for actors and creatives who, as self-employed, have lost part or all of their incomes but not been eligible for some of the government bailouts for those who have been in regular employment.
EVERY PENNY they earn is directly forwarded to them - this is helping real, dedicated people pay their bills and buy food at these times. 

We have a wide variety of subjects, from basic to degree level: 
- Drama/ theatre
- Media
- English (including English as a foreign language)
- French
- Physics
- Teaching (teacher training - may be of use to homeschooling parents) 
- Mathematics
- Expressive arts
- History

We may take on some more tutors with additonal subjects/ agegroups  - if seeking a tutor for a subject/ level that is not listed on our Online Tutoring Service, please contact us and enquire.
southdevonplayers@gmail.com southdevonplayers@gmail.com

DISCOVER OUR ONLINE TUTORING SERVICE HERE

So, the last few days have been spent at Brixham theatre, setting up for, and performing, our production about the 1866 Great Gale of Brixham with an amazing cast. We now break for Christmas, although we are back in January for another performance at Ivybridge! (Box office details here)   Our retiring collection raised approximately £95 for Brixham Fishermans Mission. 

Show photos by Laura Jury and Gemma Burford. 

These wonderful cast appear as the team on stage in our production of The Great Gale of Brixham 1866.