Armidale Playhouse Prompt - May 2006

Love Letters

Love Letters was a beautiful show with three very different couples each of whom did some great things. Some people came back three times to see each cast and enjoyed it each time! Highlights for me included: Neil Horton’s boyish enthusiasm, Anita Brown’s amazing mental disintegration, Barbara Albury’s preppy teenager, Chris Ross-Smiths poignant heartbreak at the end when he realised what he had lost. Jean and her casts should be congratulated for giving us a great show.

Playhouse Future

Gordon has been negotiating with the Showground Trust about how a future relationship might work. Things are looking interesting at this stage. Meanwhile Judy Lamb and Chris Ross-Smith are investigating the financial and other implications of several alternative options for the Playhouse’s future.

This Year’s Program

This year’s program is still very much up in the air. The venue issue is one aspect of this since the showground will be difficult for winter performances without some substantial heating! We are looking at the possibility of doing Into the Woods at the end of the year. Other suggestions and proposals are welcome! Being them to the next meeting on 5 June.

Next Year’s Program

Barbara Albury has agreed to co-ordinate a full year’s program for next year. The idea being that we can promote a season and really know what we are doing. We want to try and finalise the program by September. Possibilities at this stage include: a Poetzinc collaboration in March; A Voyage Round My Father in May, A Room of One’s Own in July, Farndale Ladies do Macbeth in September and Sweeney Todd in November. Anyone with other suggestions should come to the next meeting on 5 June.

AGM

The next meeting 5 June will also be the Annual General Meeting of the Playhouse, when a new committee is elected. We’d love some new people to get involved so come along and participate.

South Pacific

The Armidale and District Musical Society’s annual production will be South Pacific. Everyone knows some of the songs and it should be a lot of fun. The season runs from 26 May to 10 June at the Arts Theatre UNE and tickets are available at Dymocks.

New England Bach Festival

This coming weekend is an extravaganza of baroque music in the New England Bach Festival. Some great performers from around Australia and overseas will make it an event not to be missed. Tickets are available from the New England Credit Union and there are a couple of free events: the Coffee Cantata in Hanna’s Arcade on Saturday morning (10:30am) and the Festival Evensong in St Peter’s Cathedral 5pm Sunday which features a cantata Bach wrote for teat very Sunday in the church year.

Next Meeting

The next meeting of the committee to which everyone is welcome will be on Monday 5 June after the AGM at the Playhouse at 7:30pm. Meetings are normally on the first Monday of each month.