Armidale Playhouse Prompt - August 2006

Auditions: Chapter Two

Our next big show will be Neil Simon’s Chapter Two to be directed by Jean Freer. This is a nice four hander for two men and two women aged 30s+. A man’s wife dies, he starts dating someone else and then the memory of his wife starts to come between the new lovers. You can imagine what Neil Simon does with this scenario! Performances will be in mid November at the Showground Pavilion. Auditions will be at the showground on Sunday August 20 at 10am and Wednesday August 23 at 7:30pm. For more information contact either Jean Freer (6772 8831) or Betty Hall (6775 1145).

Playhouse Future

At the special general meeting held on 30 July it was decided that the playhouse does need to find a new home and we are actively pursuing several options. For the time being we have decided to make the showground pavilion our main venue. While the old playhouse has a strong sentimental value to many of our members it really has passed its use by date. We have done some amazing things in the old playhouse: the incredible reversible Noises Off set perhaps being the highlight of getting the most out of the space. There have also been some fantastic performances over the years. On the other hand some of us won’t regret leaving the crises like the flooded toilets half an hour before curtain and the power failures in the middle of performances behind. Theatre has been a major part of Armidale’s cultural life, and the playhouse has been an significant part of it, but we should now look forward to a hopefully brighter future.

Future Programs

At present we are only working on Chapter Two for the end of the year. A short season of something else before then is still possible. Barbara Albury has been co-ordinating our plans for next year and the present program looks like this:

March 2007: A Poetzinc collaboration directed by Benjamin Thorn.
May 2007: Favourite shorts, various directors to be confirmed, if you’re interested contact Barbara.
August 2007: Vincent in Brixton, a play about the early life of Vincent van Gogh.
November 2007: Sweeney Todd directed by Jean Freer with Bruce Menzies as Musical Director.

Next Meeting

The next meeting of the committee to which everyone is welcome will be on Monday 4 September at the Playhouse at 7:30pm. Meetings are normally on the first Monday of each month.