The South Devon Players Theatre & Film Company
Follow us on our social networks
  • Home
  • About us
  • Box Office
  • Auditions
  • Crewing
  • Find Us
  • Latest news
  • Previous projects
  • Contact
  • Casting services
  • FAQ
  • Reviews
  • Youtube
  • Acting & tech resources
  • Policies
  • Blog: Creating An Arts Organisation
  • Family stories
  • Training Zone
  • Merchandise Shop
  • Ebay
  • Fundraising & sponsors

Auditions for William Shakespeare's Henry V announced

23/1/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
Download the audition/ project information pack here, and email us for audition sides for your choice of characters: 
southdevonplayers@gmail.com
​ 
DUE TO COVID, AUDITIONS ARE BY
​SELF-TAPE ONLY. 
sdp_henry_v_audition_pack.pdf
File Size: 644 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

Our main company auditions information page is available at AUDITIONS
The auditions for Shakespeare's Henry V are announced. 

Due to Covid, we will be commencing with a performance as part of Bristol Shakespeare Festival, which, as things stand, is highly likely to be a digital show with the actors working together over Zoom, and streaming the show. 

This show does have tentative live performance dates around Devon, however these are entirely subject to the course of the pandemic, and may be moved/delayed to ensure that cast & crew are able to perform safely, audiences attend safely, and that venue ticket sales are able to be viable. 
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 
​

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. 
0 Comments

More on D.H Lawrence's The Lost Girl - fantastic rehearsals!!

21/1/2021

0 Comments

 
We are now only a few days away from this show , being relased on Jan 30th 2021. The team continue to be absolutely incredible. From Ben (Ciccio), who has learned to sing in fluent Italian for this show, to Andrea who at the 11th hour has had to swap webcams due to PC camera problems, this team have gone above and beyond. Working from thier laptops running Zoom and using digital backdrops, this incredible team are one in a billion!

This show is definitely one, which, when we are able to return to the stage in person, will be going on tour with as many of the original cast as are available. A team this good need to go on tour when lockdown is over!

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE A TICKET TO ENJOY THIS SHOW!!

Alvina Houghton, the headstrong daughter of a widowed Midlands draper, comes of age just as her father’s business is failing. In a desperate attempt to regain his fortune and secure his daughter’s proper place in society, James Houghton buys a theatre. Among the travelling performers he employs is Ciccio, a sensual Italian who immediately captures Alvina’s attention. A celebration of freedom, however fleeting, and a testament to the power of the imagination to transform even the most mundane life.
​

The script has been vetted by international D.H. Lawrence scholar, Catherine Brown. Jessica Levinson Young, Artistic Director of Untold Theatre, writes, “I absolutely loved this script for The Lost Girl. It has incredible pace and the dialogue simply leaps off the page!" Another of Germaine Shames' D.H. Lawrence adaptations, THE VIRGIN and the GYPSY, received a reading at the 2018 Festival of New American Theatre.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
0 Comments

A look behind the scenes at DH Lawrence's The Lost Girl

19/1/2021

0 Comments

 
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.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
0 Comments

Jack the Ripper rehearsals continuing well!

10/1/2021

0 Comments

 
Today, the second rehearsal after Christmas and the New Year, took place over Zoom, for our production of Jack the Ripper. The techincal rehearsals for the broadcast began today, allowing several weeks to get the entire project running smoothly! 
And here, for your delectation, are some behind-the-scenes screenshots of some of our incredible cast!
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
0 Comments

DH Lawrence's The Lost Girl -tickets on sale now!

8/1/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
​CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE A TICKET
Alvina Houghton, the headstrong daughter of a widowed Midlands draper, comes of age just as her father’s business is failing. In a desperate attempt to regain his fortune and secure his daughter’s proper place in society, James Houghton buys a theatre. Among the travelling performers he employs is Ciccio, a sensual Italian who immediately captures Alvina’s attention. A celebration of freedom, however fleeting, and a testament to the power of the imagination to transform even the most mundane life.
The script has been vetted by international D.H. Lawrence scholar, Catherine Brown. Jessica Levinson Young, Artistic Director of Untold Theatre, writes, “I absolutely loved this script for The Lost Girl. It has incredible pace and the dialogue simply leaps off the page!" Another of Germaine Shames' D.H. Lawrence adaptations, THE VIRGIN and the GYPSY, received a reading at the 2018 Festival of New American Theatre.
A reminder that the show will remain online for 48 hours to allow people in all time-zones to access and enjoy!

Apologies if anyone was trying to obtain tickets for this show recently - we found last night that there was a glitch in the ticket link system. 
This has now been rectified and tested - tickets are on sale as normal - and accessible from the box office page. If you should find any further glitches, please report to us at southdevonplayers@gmail.com

VISIT OUR BOX OFFICE HERE

Please pop over to www.southdevonplayers.com/box-office.html for the tickets! This is looking to be a brilliant performance. 

We are thrilled to have an amazing cast and crew: 

In the cast, we have
Alvina Houghton - Sarah Hobbs
Mrs Houghton - Andrea Sandell
Mr Houghton - Duncan Hess
Miss Frost - Annie Walker
Mr May - Jay Robertson
Madame Rochard - Laura Jury
Ciccio - Ben Butler-Cole
Max - Charlie Tripp
Expectant father - Charlie Tripp

In our creative team and crew we have 
Author - Germaine Shames
Director - Laura Jury
Stage Manager - Sammy Hickman
Assistant stage manager - Rebekah Horton
Techincal assistant - Sophie Rogers


0 Comments

2021 production plans (casting calls coming soon for Henry V & Ben Hur)

31/12/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Picture
Picture
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. 
0 Comments

The next digital theatre shows - tickets available now

26/12/2020

0 Comments

 
​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
Picture
Picture
0 Comments

Early December updates - Hello again!

15/12/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
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. 



Triniman's Basin
While working on Sir Walter's Women, we also were commissioned by Ivybridge Community Arts, to produce a video about a local Ivybridge legend. The Legend of Triniman's Basin, telling the story of how a young gardener from Stowford House was murdered, and how a point in the River Erne came to be known as Trinimans Basin, after the death of the murderer there,  was recorded at almost the same time, and is now available to view online. 
​ 

​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 
Picture
Picture
0 Comments

Sir Walter's Women - coming Saturday Nov 28th (a look behind the scenes)

26/11/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Among the challenges, were quite unexpected ones. Of course all our actors and crew are working from home, so you think that it is a fairly simple affair to mail out costumes. However, with the current Covid situation in the UK, there are a number of major postal delays, and while Queen Elizabeth and Bess Throckmorton recieved their gowns as made by Dorothy Grace Laity, our poor Sir Walter Raleigh's outfit was caught up in postal delays and our stage manager hadnt recieved it, meaning that poor Sir Walter had no clothes!  After a frantic day involving emails, phonecalls, and brainstorming how to bodge a smart tudor outfit with "things around the house" like shirts, pashminas, toilet roll and wired christmas ribbon, the wonderful Amy Burton Smith came to our rescue and lent an outfit! 
We had all the usual fun - when gathering to put work together online, you have all kinds of issues - after all our actors and crew are all working with whatever computer or phone devices they have at home, and a chroma greenscreen that cost £10 on ebay - or a plain wall, to project the digital backdrops. So things like dropped internet signal, intermittant microphones which continued to resist every bit of techincal tweaking and toubleshooting, aand similar challenges, meant that we decided in order to provide a reliable performance, to pre-record this performance. 

And so, after overcoming a selection of challenges peculiar to digitally producing Tudor era theatre, we are delighted to be looking forward to the streaming of our latest digital theatre offering, Sir Walter's Women, by writer Rachel O Neill. 

As in the synopsis of our BOX OFFICE, (yes where tickets are available if you havent got one yet!) 
This is a one-act drama about the life of Sir Walter Raleigh as he manoeuvres his status as a favourite of Elizabeth I to satisfy his political ambitions. Into the Court arrives Bess Throckmorton. They fall in love and marry in secret, to the great and lasting displeasure of the Queen. The Queen dies and the envious James I comes to power and the play ends with Sir Walter's incarceration, trial and execution.

It has proven a busy and challenging week getting the production ready, but it is now all ready and our cast & crew - not to mention the author of course - cant wait for you to enjoy it over the weekend.  

As with all our shows, every penny from ticket sales is used to pay our actors and crew - each recieves an equal share. So with your ticket purchases, you are also helping keep amazing, talented, professional creatives in work, during the hardest times that the theatre industry has ever faced.  THANK YOU!!
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
The edits themselves have been kept very simple, to allow for an experience as close to a live  digital  performance as possible. In our live performances, we always use scene title cards between scenes, to allow time for the actors to change backdrops, costumes or anything else. We continued that tradition, and the only other edit was to boost and equalise the sound from one cast members microphone, which had an intermittant volume drop that no amount of system tweaks could rectify.
The scenes were then dropped together in a simple edit and rendered out. The down side is that it is not live. The plus side is that less things like dropped signals or unexpected tech malfunctions  can happen. 

Twelve months ago, we would have never thought of creating or streaming performance in this way, but with the pandemic, we were determined to keep working and keep creating. Using Zoom to create theatre and keep working was the only safe way to do this. We can't wait to get back to the physical stage, and we have some really exciting projects coming up for when we can get back to touring, but we are also keeping busy in the meantime. Thanks to an amazing bunch of people!
0 Comments

The Big Update!! Shows past & present, casting, and looking ahead.

7/11/2020

0 Comments

 
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. 
Picture
Picture
Picture
Coming up next
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. 
Picture
This is a one-act drama about the life of Sir Walter Raleigh as he manoeuvres his status as a favourite of Elizabeth I to satisfy his political ambitions. Into the Court arrives Bess Throckmorton. They fall in love and marry in secret, to the great and lasting displeasure of the Queen. The Queen dies and the envious James I comes to power and the play ends with Sir Walter's incarceration, trial and execution. ​
Picture
A project by some of our team members, this adaptation of the full, original text, creative challenge exploring 'further developing on the idea of creating digital performance and new techniques of expressing characters, with the roles being split between two actors. Through painstaking character development, innovative performance, video editing, and use of online media tools, this production is going to be one which presents a traditional comedy, in a very new, modern way.  ​
​Rehearsal screenshots:
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. 
A commonly asked question
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. 
0 Comments
<<Previous

    Updated by our founder
    ​Laura Jury

    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

    If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at
    southdevonplayers@gmail.com

    The South Devon Players Theatre & Film Company, is the trading name of The South Devon Players Limited;
    Registered at Companies House: Company number 11569166 
    ​

    Subscribe to our mailing list

    * indicates required
    Email Format
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Tweets by @sdevonplayers

    Categories

    All
    1307
    Actors
    Arts Council
    Assassins Creed
    Audio Drama
    Auditions
    Awards And Prizes
    Behind The Scenes
    Ben Hur
    Bristol
    Brixham
    Brixham Theatre
    Cabaret
    Casting Agency
    Collaboration
    Copyright
    Costume
    COVID 19
    COVID-19
    Education
    Equity
    Fanfilm
    Film
    Film Festival
    Filmmaking
    Fundraising
    Great Gale Of Brixham
    Harry Potter
    Henry V
    Inclusion & Diversity
    Jack The Ripper
    Les Miserables
    Local History
    Macbeth
    Marketing
    Midsummer Nights Dream
    Modeling
    Mordred
    Music
    Networking
    New Writing
    OnlineMidsummer
    Our Stage Productions
    Photogallery
    Photography
    Pirate
    Police
    Poster
    Press
    Publicity
    Radio
    Radio Play
    Safety
    Schools
    Shakespeare
    Show Dates
    Show Results
    Special Effects
    Steampunk
    Supporters
    Templar
    Theatre
    Theatre Festival
    The Edge
    Three Musketeers
    Titanic
    Torquay
    Training And Workshops
    Venue
    Victorian
    Video
    Vintage
    Virtual Theatre
    Voiceover
    Wellbeing
    Young People

    RSS Feed

    The South Devon Players theatre company, Brixham

    Archives

    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.