Today, the UK government released a road map of how they feel the UK will be able to emerge from lockdown and the Covid-19 pandemic. 

According to this roadmap, and if all works towards the planned dates, theatres across the UK should be able to open in May. At this point, theatres will still require social distancing and when you are using smaller venues and relying soley on the ticket sales to pay the actors and crew, we feel it would not be viable. 
Additionally, before we return to the stage, we need to rehearse in person together. 

With the governments pledge for all adults to be offered their first vaccination by the end of July 2021, and noting that the government hopes to lift all social restrictions in late June 2021, we hope that by the end of July, or early August, we should be able to safely return to our rehearsal space in full, and also to take our shows on the road again. Before then, a one-or-two person return to the rehearsal hall will take place in order to sort out our costumes and equipment which have been in storage there, and to prepare. 

Therefore, our intention is to continue creating digital work, until July 2021, when we will be able to return to physical rehearsals, and performances. Live performances will only take place after a minimum of 4 weeks live rehearsal. 
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Not all venues will open at once. As the government have said; the dates they gave for the lifting of restrictions are provisional and "at the earliest". Any further outbreaks or rises in infections may delay matters. 
We are committed to keeping the team safe and well, therefore we would rather take a cautious approach,, than risk everyones health and wellbeing. 
There may still be some additional safety/ cleanliness procedures which are either legally required, or which we keep in place voluntarily, for a while, when we do return, and, when we know for definite what the date is when we return;  we will be encouraging conversations with all cast and crew in which we discuss ways to not only keep extra safe, but also support everyone's peace of mind in a safe, positive and happy (to put it mildly!) return. 


Last but not least: 
In further exciting news, we have also been contacted by an external company which uses professional actors for corporate training. The external company is pitching for a contract supplying training in social care, diversity and child protection, and if that contract goes through, will be supplying frequent work opportunities; for which those actors who work frequently with our company will be priorotised for this work, after the lockdowns end. 


​Laura and Ric (Company directors) 

This production is working from the original text. As it is a longer play, we have made some cuts, and it tells of the events in and around King Henry V's triumph at the Battle of Agincourt. With drama, humour and a wonderful range of characters, this is going to be a fantastic project to work on. You can read the original uncut text for the play for free on Project Gutenberg HERE 
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Ages. genders, etc at a glance. 
As with all our Shakespeare projects, we tend to cast the majority of roles as gender-blind - this means that any gender can audition for the same roles. Shakespeare's plays were notoriously male-heavy, originally, but that does not always fit a 21st Century way of working. People of all ethnicities are welcome to audition for any role. We are also very flexible on ages. While we are not casting children (under 18s) in this show, we do not have strictly preconcieved notions of characters ages, other than ensuring that any family groupings reflect a relevant range of ages. What is most important is that we select the strongest actors for the roles. 

As we come ever closer to the show for this amazing script, we are now rehearsing with the digital backdrops and most of the costumes for the final performance. We thought you woulld like a look behind the scenes, showing that digital theatre, can be great fun! (oh, and if you want tickets, our box office is over at ​https://www.southdevonplayers.com/box-office.html) The show itself is online for 48 hours from first broadcast to allow people all around the world to access the show at a time convenient for them.

Coming over the next few weeks, we will be uploding the information on our main 2021 casting calls. (Please note that we expect there to also be a number of other smaller digital-only projects, especially while we continue to create digital projects during the Covid crisis. These two major shows look forward to when it is safe, and viable to return to the live stage.

We are excited to announce that the next primary casting calls will be for a production of 
William Shakespeare's Henry V, and for an all new stage adaptation of Lew Wallace's classic novel Ben Hur. 

At the time of writiing, the Covid pandemic continues unabated, with a shocking "second spike", but in positive news, two vacciences have been approved for national use, and so, there is light at the end of the tunnel. 

Some levels of lockdown do allow for theatres to open in a socially distanced way, but with rapidly changing infection rates in different regions, as well as the fact that with nessecary social distancing it is impossible to sell enough tickets to a venue to allow for the cast and crew to earn anything, and tight backstage areas where actors and crew are unable to socially distance (and that is before you even look at the mechanics of the interactions on stage!!!) 
Until we can perform viably and safely in theatres, our work will remain digital. 

Our lineup of live shows (when we can return to the stage) will be tours of 
- Jack The Ripper (currently in rehearsals, then a digital performance, which will then be held until we can return to the stage, for a live tour). 
- Henry V (subject to being able to return to the theatre during summer 2021, if not there will be a digital-only project linked with some larger national Shakespeare digital events) 
- Ben Hur (some work on visual and computer effects will begin summer 2021, requiring the two principals to be cast and contracted early, to have visual effects built around), but rehearsals etc will commence after Henry V, and the shows are hoped to be toured in winter 2021-2022. This will be our biggest and most complex show to date. 

Planning has never been so difficult - as it is not a simple case of scheduling one show after another, as in normal times;  it is also affected by the undercertainties of the pandemic. This means that dates are still highly uncertain at the moment, even to return to the rehearsal hall. 

Following the digital performances of The Lost Girl and Jack The Ripper, we will be having a week of "down time" to assess what the likely timeline is at that point. This means that we hope to start accepting auditions for Henry V, in the middle of Feb 2021. We may also schedule some short-term digital-only plays, if, at that point, it looks as if we will be remaining digtal-only into later summer. 

As always we are happy to keep a note of anyone interested in auditioning for us, in order to send a reminder when the audition packs are uploaded. 

We are working on #fundraising -yes some creative approaches- to prep for 2021 - because as soon as it is safe and viable, we will be back to the live #stage (in the meantime we will continue working on digital broadcast) Please pass to anyone willing to help!

Info on our fundraising at https://www.southdevonplayers.com/fundraising.html. 

Fundraising like this for some of the day to day core costs, allows us to support our actors and creatives as much as possible from the show ticket sales, as well as to improve equipment and costume/ prop/ set resources, to create higher quality, more creative shows, and to develop free educational resources. 

We are collecting used postage stamps to help fundraise for our theatre productions.
All used stamps (any age, or country of origin) are gratefully welcomed. 
The stamps are sorted and sold to stamp-collectors, which help raise invaluable funds for us. 

Every penny raised from this fundraising is used for
- sourcing props & costumes
-hire of rehearsal space (or Zoom subscriptions during Covid)
- printing show posters & flyers
- saving for & buying basic technical equipment
- insurances/ script copyright registrations

Please email us on southdevonplayers@gmail.com for a UK postal address to send the stamps to.
(while the covid pandemic is happening, we pop in at our usual shared rehearsal base less often, so it is 
easier to send direct to one of our team at the moment) This is an ongoing appeal with no end-time.
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#SaveUKTheatre

​New digital theatre shows coming up in January and February 2021. TICKETS ON SALE NOW. Please share this information to anyone who may be interested!
The Lost Girl, is a drama set in Edwardian England, following a young woman, who feels stifled by society's conventions, whose father takes on a theatre, as a new business venture, with unexpected consequences.
Jack the Ripper is a steampunk-styled drama based on research into the Ripper, and theories as to his identity.
All funds raised from ticket sales are used to pay the actors and production crew (in equal shares), creating some work for professional creatives during the Covid-19 crisis. #supportuktheatre
Full viewing information and how to buy tickets, is all over on our website's box office page at
https://www.southdevonplayers.com/box-office.html

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