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And here is the weekly update!
First of all, we hope you're all keeping well and safe! So, behind the scenes we have been battling away, looking at new ways of develoing our work. 1) The VE day film shot just before lockdown, is into post-production with a lovely contact of ours in Ohio, USA, and will be released in the early summer, although the VE Day commemoration events are, of course, cancelled. 2) We hope to have the first of the children's audio-books available online by the end of the week. This is a project where our actors collaborate with Southwest authors, on producing readings of thier books. The first book will be a wonderful short childrens story by our very own Alicja Bagier. 3) We are currently setting the dates and planning for online readings of both A Midsummer Night's Dream and Macbeth, which will go ahead at the end of May/ Beginning of June, subject to peoples availibility and equipment. 4) The open auditions in July for Jack The Ripper will take place, using online media if lockdown is still in place or people still need to self-isolate; so that date is unchanged, though the format of the auditions will be adjusted to the needs of the times. 5) We are in the process of moving the show dates for A Midsummer Night's Dream to late August/ Early September,. Obviously venues are struggling as much as we are to try to second guess when times will be better, so it is taking a while to get things all worked out. The Jack the Ripper dates seem to all be fine at this point. 6) Although funding streams of course are also hugely affected by the Covid-19 outbreak, we are still working hard behind the scenes on trying to locate funding streams which will be able to lead to our actors and crew gaining full wages for prductions, as an upgrade from the current profit-share situation. As always, we are online every day, so if you have any questions, etc, please get in touch! Laura
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So, other than the last albums of photos, paying the cast & crew, etc, Macbeth is over. What an incredible close to our tour of Macbeth, and 14 months of hard work. To everyone who joined us on the journey, you were incredible. From the lows of struggling to keep going to the highs of winning a theatre award in New York, this has been an incredible run, finishing with a public performance and a schools-only performance at Brixham Theatre, in our home town, where the first run of shows began last winter. The audience feedback has been brilliant, and it has been a completely brilliant experience. We are now working on a local history production; The Great Gale of Brixham 1866, and then the next Shakespeare show is already looming on the horizon: A Midsummer Nights Dream. There will be a few more Macbeth updates, as other photos and show videos come in, and as we get further news, reviews and messages about the show. :) Photos in this post by @Angela Harper of www.instagram.com/angeharperphoto/          In fantastic news we are back at our main rehearsal venue of Chestnut Community Centre tonight! After the building flooded with the boiler upstairs that burst, we have been rehearsing at Brixham Theatre who very kindly saved us from some major problems, by allowing us to rehearse at the theatre instead, to keep our tour of Macbeth running (without finding somewhere for the final dress/ tech rehearsals, we could not have run the major part of our tour). A HUGE thank you to Brixham Theatre. Tonight, the centre walls are still in need of repainting, but the building is now dry. clean and safe (including the electrics) so we are very excited to be returning to our home tonight for our first rehearsal of The Great Gale of Brixham 1866.   Absolutely wonderful day working with this brilliant team yesterday at The Loco Klub in #Bristol, performing #Macbeth. A wonderful team of people, in a wonderful location- a theatre, arts venue and nightclub built into old underground railway tunnels at Temple Meads. Thank you to all our cast, crew, and audience! Photos by Agne Stra Photography  Another great show at Ivybridge, and a lovely visit from Ann Laity the Mayor. The Watermark at Brixham is a fantastic space for performing, with a lot of versatility in the space. We had a great night, with a fantastic cast- it was a bit too busy an evening to get lots of photographs but we are planning a big photoshoot at Bristol. A huge thank you to the venue and the lovely audience at the Watermark. :)
Despite being flooded out at our home rehearsal venue due to a boiler fault, and having to move to another venue in town, in our final dress/techs for Macbeth (arrrrggghh!!) we had a cracking rehearsal with most of the cast yesterday, even though we were down to bare bones on tech and gear. Cant wait to get on tour at the end of the week. (we will also be back at our home rehearsal venue in a few days, as the building and electrics have been checked and are all OK. For anyone coming to our next auditions on Sept 15, they will still be as moved to the emergency temporary venue for clarity to new people joining us, instead of moving venues across town again ) REHEARSAL & AUDITION VENUE EMERGENCY CHANGE Very important message. (feel free to share as needed). Yesterday two of our team arrivinig to prepare for rehearsals, discovered a huge flood at our usual rehearsal base at Chestnut Community Centre. (we are talking several inches of water on the floor and water pouring through the ceiling) . After alerting the Centre committee, and moving our costumes and tech equipment to safety (we think most of our gear is unscathed or repairable other than two lights. Wet costumes are being dried.), we can now report that the Centre is structurally okay but cannot be used for activities for some time while the building is dried with industrial dehumidifiers and the building electrics checked/ repaired as needed. Therefore, for the interim, all our rehearsals, and auditions will take place at the The Edge Bolton St, Brixham TQ5 9DH Please note that the timings will remain the same (wednesdays 6.30pm for 7 start to 9.30pm; Sundays 12pm for 1pm start to 4/ 5pm) We are in the upstairs room and this will be signposted from the front gate. Please note: The room has toilet and kitchenette similar to Chestnut but no storage, so things will have to be lugged up and down each rehearsal. It is up stairs, sadly there is no wheelchair access. We could not obtain a venue that has the kind of accessibility we can offer at Chestnut. Also unlike Chestnut, we have no parking at the Edge. The nearest bus is the Number 12 coming into Brixham town centre about 5 mins away (or the 18 has a stop right outside the door) . The nearest long stay carpark is at Freshwater Cove, about 10 mins walk away, or with pre-planning Laura Jury one of our admins can offer a parking place outside her house about 10 mins walk up the hill from the Edge. We will of course be returning to our home at Chestnut Community Centre absolutely as soon it is feasible, and we will be assisting with the redecoration there as well. This could be in a fortnight, or a month, or longer. For the sake of simplicity, the auditions for The Great Gale of Brixham, that we are holding on Sept 15th, will move to the Edge. We would also like to thank two awesome people for making it possible to be able to afford to move to the Edge, and to the Edge for being able to host us. while it is going to be a very "hand to mouth" time to keep rehearsal space funded, as it does cost more than Chestnut, we are safe for a couple of weeks, while our team work on raising enough to keep us going. For anyone needing to find us and not knowing what the Edge looks like, here it is. :   The start of August was incredibly busy. We had a lot of catching up to do with rehearsals, alongside our Macbeth having an entire week free for rehearsals, and a couple of cast who needed extra help - so we took advantage of it! Rehearsing daily all week, sometimes at the community centre where we normally meet, and sometimes taking advantage of the beautiful summer weather at the beach combining rehearsal with beach party, with whichever cast members were available, we perfected the fight scenes, helped the cast who needed extra help, and fine-tuned our own performances.
We are back to our usual schedule of Wednesday evenings and Sunday afternoons now, with things really on track to be absolutely incredible, with a team who are second to none! We are just checking in to update you on the shows. Tickets are now on sale for our performaces in Brixham, Ivybridge, Bristol and Exeter - and we would llove to see you there. We are working on booking more venues around the UK, so there may be more to come. You can find the booking links at https://www.southdevonplayers.com/box-office.htmlwww.southdevonplayers.com/box-office.html    
Christophe Lombardi, a friend of the Players, took up the mantle, learning the role and arriving from Ireland, in Devon for the final two rehearsals, to star alongside Ryanna-Mae Lloyd as Lady Macbeth and a team of dedicated local actors. The show, performed at Brixham Theatre, the South Devon Players home performance venue, and then at Torquay Museum, attracted record positive feedback from audience and critics, with feedback such as that it surpassed productions by the Globe in London, and the RSC. Hot on the heels of this success, came requests for a second larger show tour, including from Ireland and the USA, and a request from the Long Island Theatre Awards to enter the production for their 2019 awards. They were happy to accept a video submission of the show filmed at Brixham Theatre. Months later came the news, that the Players were among the award nominees, and a request from the Theatre Awards administrators to send a representative to New York. The Players were by this time working hard on their scheduled production of Les Miserables, with the plans underway for an autumn tour reprising Macbeth. Laura Jury, the South Devon Players founder and director of both Macbeth and Les Miserables, was unable to attend, but Christophe once more took up the mantle and travelled to New York, collecting the award on behalf of the Players, which will be brought back to Devon during the next week or so, as he travels back from the USA. Brixham Theatre was saved from closure in 2018 by a team of local volunteers, and it provides a critical base for local creativity, without which, successes like this, would not be possible for local people in their hometown. The Players owe this success to the continued existence of Brixham Theatre. The Players are now also beginning rehearsals for the second tour of Macbeth; keeping most of the original cast, including Ryanna-Mae Lloyd and Christophe Lombardi as the Macbeths; although also excited to welcome new performers as well. The tour is currently booked into Brixham, Ivybridge, Exeter and Bristol, with discussions underway to bring the show to London, and further venues, during the autumn of 2019. While plans for touring abroad had to be put on hold due to being unable to find funding to do so, this has no way dampened the team's desire to bring the show to regular and new venues here in the UK, and to revisit attempts to tour abroad in the future. Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's best known dramas, alongside King Lear, Othello, Hamlet, and Romeo & Juliet. It tells the tale of a Scottish war hero, who, tempted by ambition, power, and supernatural whisperings, begins a series of murders, to take and hold the throne. Returning home from war, Macbeth encounters three mysterious women, whose prophecy of kingship, sets in motion his ambition, and ultimately his fall into madness and blood... The Players perform the original, uncut Shakespearian text, set in the dark aftermath of a nuclear WW3, in a post-apocalyptic design, with the exotic of the supernatural, and immersive soundscapes, to create Macbeths world in a new vision of the drama. The South Devon Players, founded in 2005/6 on the proceeds of a carboot sale, and still funded in much the same way, are winners of the national Epic Award 2017 for England, a national arts award celebrating creativity and innovation in grassroots arts, and international nominations for past productions. Based in Brixham, the Players primarily specialise in researched historical theatre productions and old “Classics”.              |
This is our new format news page. To read all our news between 2010 and Jan 2015, please see our old format news page HERE The South Devon Players Theatre & Film Company, is the trading name of The South Devon Players Limited;
Registered at Companies House: Company number 11569166 
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