BP News

Artistic Director's Column

The One-Act Playwriting Competition week went off wonderfully well. If you didn’t come along you missed a treat, four wonderful new plays and four directors showcasing their talents. Malcolm Singer, the Arts Editor of Three Counties Radio, presented the awards to the playwrights and Brian Stewart to the new directors who are now able to take on major productions in the Theatre. My hearty thanks too to all the experienced performers who worked so hard supporting the project: Ken Torbett, Elliott Lawrence, Anna and Peter Carter-Brown, Greta Johnson, David Hillelson, Charles Plester and James Kirwan. It really is heartening to know how supportive people can be and Keith Crook, Chris Lane and Dan Writer also gave up a lot of time to make this new venture a fabulous success. Marvellous!

Next year we are looking for more actors. I am planning a new musical play extravaganza for the 2008 Arts Week so watch this space for more details next month (and control yourselves until then).

Its been wonderful to see the buzz in the theatre lately – often there are two or three plays rehearsing at once and I have been awash with people asking if they can direct, work on productions and act. One example: it was lovely to see Barry Thompson at the QMT recently watching Ovo’s The Merchant of Venice with some students. Barry is well known to older members of the Society as he played an unforgettable lead in Jesus Christ Superstar as well as being charismatic in my last version of Little Shop circa 1991. Barry’s now a consultant drama tutor to Beds County Council and a very experienced director. He hadn’t been back for a while and thought the theatre looked fantastic with its new bar area and so on and asked if he would be welcomed back. Of course mate. Definitely. And that’s just one instance – I will make sure all these talented people are back in the loop as soon as possible!

One way to get Barry et al back into the swing may be the director-pairing project that’s about to start. The idea is that all directors have another director on their team. Now a production can only have one director – that’s obvious – but if someone who is also a director takes on a role within the Production team such as stage manager or Production assistant, they can learn but also add to the work of the director in charge of the show. For instance, the very gifted director, Nicki Pope is working alongside me as SM in Little Shop and her observations have been fantastic in helping me shape the show. Along with Dan Writer, also a director, who is our Production Manager, I feel so well supported that no problem is insurmountable. What a great team!

Finally my thanks to Richard Whitmore for his beautifully crafted and delivered show, Chasing Ghosts which he presented at he Theatre recently. It was about the Hitchin eccentric, Reginald Hine, and contained some pretty controversial stuff too. It was also a masterclass on how such presentations should be done with plenty of illustrations and anecdotes. Perfect!