I haven’t posted so much recently because, as “David Copperfield” at The Archway Theatre Horley gets closer our rehearsal schedule intensifies. Last Sunday we did our first run through the two acts (previously we just rehearsed each act separately) and all this week we have a succession of dress rehearsals culminating with the final dress rehearsal next Sunday which will also be recorded on video for sale as a DVD – then we open on the evening of Tuesday March 23rd. We do ten performances, Tuesday to Saturday, over two weeks then strike set on the final Sunday – and that is it!!
We are all amateurs so we do it for love but we will probably fill our small auditorium (95 seats) to capacity for almost every performance. We do ten shows a year plus a pantomime and attendance rarely dips below 90% making us probably one of the most successful amateur theatres in the country.
Gary Andrews, one of our members, regularly writes and directs a big cast blockbuster based on the classics every 2/3 years (Henry V/VI, Les Miserables, A Christmas Carol). The dialogue is always true to the original but obviously stripped down to tell the story on stage over 150 minutes – a tall order but he hits the spot every time. I certainly would recommend his scripts to any group willing to undertake something a little more ambitious.
I became involved in amateur theatre almost by accident early in the 1980s. My wife had joined a group attached to the local church (to help backstage) but when she suggested I might like to get involved I wasn’t too keen. I had this image of amdram being full of frustrated “luvvies” thinking they were west end material and being very pretentious and bitchy. A few weeks before their first show, however, an actor dropped out so I said I would do a one off just to get them out of a hole – the result? I was absolutely hooked – and it did me good….I had just been appointed to a senior post in a London school, things weren’t going too well (students were fine but many of the staff were neanderthal) and I was getting obsessed – amdram gave me an outlet from difficult times at work – and also brought my wife and I close together in a shared, and very sociable hobby.
We are both very much involved at The Archway, both onstage and helping with the less glamorous but vital administration and it helps to keep us busy in retirement. As teachers we also appreciate mixing with all age groups from nine to ninety – retirement can so often mean you’re surrounded by a bunch of greyheads forever moaning about how wonderful it was in the “old days”…never liked that when I was young and hate it even more in the evening of life!!!!
So, for the next three weeks or so I shall be Barkis, carrying young Copperfield to and from school in his cart and falling in love with Peggotty and always being willin’…………
