Gatton Community Theatre is excited be hosting and inviting you to THE GAGE INVITATIONAL QUIZ 2018 for local drama groups

Saturday, 17th November at 7:30pm
St Katherine’s Church Room
Church Hill, Merstham, RH1 3BH

Please come with lots of teams – the more the merrier!

Ploughman’s supper for all those taking part and there will be a bar.
Hosted this year by GCT with Mike Fortune as quizmaster extraordinaire, the cost for this fantastically fun evening is just £10 per head, and all the profits of the evening will go to support the charity Combat Stress, the UK’s leading charity for veterans’ mental health.

Please reply to info@gattontheatre.org.uk to let us know how many teams and numbers in each group (suggested teams of 6 or 8) or special dietary requirements.

The winner of the first Gage Players’ Invitational Trophy Quiz for local drama groups in 2016 was Gatton Community Theatre, and they will be hosting the 2018 quiz.

The quiz date is Saturday, 17th November – please put this in your diaries now and please get busy rounding up a team or teams from your own drama group to take part.

The more teams the more fun, and the more we hope we can raise for Gatton’s chosen charity beneficiary, Combat Stress, the national organisation based in Leatherhead which helps veterans deal with trauma-related mental health problems. Prince Harry’s 2018 Invictus Games will have recently ended in Sydney, Australia by the time of our quiz, so we hope the need to support veterans will be very much in people’s minds.

Please get in touch with Gatton on enquiries@gattoncommunitytheatre.org.uk to book a place for your team – they will give you details of per head cost, information about the supper being laid on and details of the venue.  The timing will be 7.30pm for arrival for a 7.45 or 8.00pm start. Please notify any special dietary needs when you get in touch – teams generally bring their own nibbles and drinks.

It would be very helpful if drama groups could be in touch with Gatton before the end of October to confirm they will be coming to the quiz, and then confirm numbers by Monday, 12th November so that Gatton can plan catering and setting up the venue in good time.

We very much look forward to welcoming lots of you on 17th November – we all support each other’s productions, and this is another way of enjoying each other’s company, all in a good cause.  It could be your team taking home the trophy this year!!

Our play will be Party Piece by Richard Harris, with 4 roles for ladies, 3 for gents; it will be directed by Gill Lucas.
Auditions will take place at 8pm on Monday, 2nd and Wednesday, 4th July, 2018 at Christchurch Hall in Walton on the Hill, with rehearsals to start from 17th September, 2018.  Performance dates are 29th, 30th November and 1st December, 2018

Party Piece is a fast-paced laughathon about feuding neighbours, centred on an upwardly mobile couple throwing a fancy-dress barbecue party as a housewarmer on one side, and a dipped-in-acid widow on the other, who delights in giving her latest daughter-in-law a verbal mauling while dexterously manipulating her over-mothered son. Add to the mix a wandering zimmer frame, an igniting garden shed and some out-of control party guests, and the result is an evening of escapist fun with the chaotic action twisting and turning from beginning to end.

It is hoped that casting may be completed on 2nd July, enabling the Wednesday, 4th July meeting to be a read-through rather than another audition. Gill Lucas has copies of the play available now, so anyone wishing to read it ahead of 2nd July should contact her on the number below.

Characters:
Dr Michael Smethurst – boring, yuppy, meticulous
Roma Smehurst, his wife – nervous, timid
Mrs Hinson – dominant, acid-tongued, selfish mother
David Hinson, her son – self-made man, ex-barrow boy made good
Jenifer Hinson, his second wife – middle-class, the brunt of Mrs Hinson’s comments
*Dr Toby Hancock, anaesthetist – bachelor friend of the Smethursts, a bit of a letch
*Sandy Lloyd-Meredith – estate agent, effusive flirt
* = second act only

Rehearsals will start on Monday, 17th September at 8pm at Christchurch Hall, and every Wednesday and Monday thereafter, except that the date of 7th November has been changed to 6th November; the production will transfer to The Riddell Hall from Sunday, 25th November.
Performance dates are 29th, 30th November and 1st December, 2018 at The Lord Riddell Memorial Hall, Walton on the Hill.

For any further information please contact the director, Gill Lucas, on 01737 812 703.

Our Winter 2018 production will be
PARTY PIECE
by Richard Harris
on

29th, 30th November & 1st December

at

The Lord Riddell Memorial Hall
Walton-on-the-Hill

Auditions will take place on 2nd and 4th July 2018 at 8pm,
Christchurch Hall, Walton-on-the-Hill

It is the night of Michael’s and Roma’s fancy dress house-warming party. The evening looks set to be a lively one until a string of hilarious disasters strike, including a distinct lack of guests, a burning garden shed, a marauding Zimmer frame and the prospect of an irate husband on the prowl. Michael’s and Roma’s patience is further tried by the arrival of their neighbours, the indomitable Mrs Hinson, who brings her own brand of party entertainment in the form of the domestic squabbles of her son and daughter-in-law. This is a fast-paced and very funny play packed with action and set in the back gardens of the feuding neighbours.

On Monday, 15th and Wednesday, 17th January, 2018 we shall be holding auditions for our Spring play, Vintage Hitchcock: a live radio play by Joe Landry, directed by Lars Sawyer.  These will take place at 8pm in Christchurch Hall, in Walton on the Hill.

There are three one-act plays in this production, which takes place c. 1946 in the US metropolitan broadcasting studio of WBFR’s radio station, and which showcases the build-up of archetypal Hitchcock thrillers.

In The Lodger there are 2M and 2F main roles and 6 minor roles (plus the main role of the Announcer, who is heard in each play – this could be M or F).

In Sabotage there are 27 minor speaking parts, many of which could be doubled up.

In The 39 Steps there are 2M and 2F main roles and 22 minor speaking parts, many of which could also be doubled up – not to say tripled or quadrupled up, as in Sabotage.

One of the joys of this triple bill is that, since the action takes place in a live, authentic radio broadcasting studio, the players will have the scripts in their hands throughout!   Not having to learn the lines absolutely by heart is an advantage, but players will still be expected to know the lines, the cues and the drama, in order to give an authentic performance as a radio actor or actress.   All characters have British accents except the Announcer and the stage manager (American), and the few parts where foreign accents are specified.

Rehearsals will begin with a read-through on Monday 12th February, continuing every Wednesday and Monday thereafter until Wednesday, 18th April, all at 8pm in Christchurch Hall.  The play will then transfer to The Lord Riddell Memorial Hall for set-up and performance week.  Performances will be held on 26th, 27th and 28th April.

ALL PLAYERS PLEASE NOTE:
In addition, the Gage has been honoured with an invitation by the Banstead Art Festival Committee to present a play during the Festival week.  The evening play date will be:

Wednesday, 2nd May, 2018, when two of the above plays will be staged in Banstead Community Hall either side of an interval.  Therefore, those auditioning should be aware that they are committing to this further performance if they are offered a part or parts in Vintage Hitchcock.

On Wednesday the 9th August, we are once more venturing to The Duke’s Head in Tadworth to pit our wits against the regular teams. Please feel free to come and give us a helping hand (or brain).

Arrive by 7:30 if you would like to eat first (the food at The Duke’s Head is very good).

OPEN AUDITIONS
FOR THE WINTER 2017 PLAY

On Monday, 3^rd and Monday 10^th July 2017 we shall be holding auditions for our Winter play, Waiting for the Train, written and directed by Pip Rolls.  These will take place at 8pm in Christchurch Hall, in Walton on the Hill.

There are 7F main speaking roles for adults, 4M main speaking roles for adults, and also parts for 3 girls and 1 boy. The play opens in 1937 and finishes in 1993 – some characters will need to be able to act the age of late twenty-year-olds through to middle age.

This new play, being given its premiere by The Gage, is set on a railway platform on the rural outskirts of London.  It tells of the lives of some of the people who pass through the station, many of whom are left to fill in time there while waiting for the train.  Jeanette, a motherly soul, looks after the station café and also looks after George, who hangs around the station hoping that his wife Jane will return on the next train . . .

Tom is a musician whom we first meet worrying about an audition.  In time he becomes the conductor of a major orchestra and marries Mary, whom he met at the station when she arrived as a teacher accompanying evacuee children.  Two of the evacuees, Miranda and Peter, we watch grow into adults; after an unlikely kind of courtship, Peter proposes to Miranda during a disastrous meal at the re-vamped station café.   

The play also has its serious moments, when the repercussions of a terrorist bombing in London reach some of our characters; and again when a newspaper reporter tries to put together a scandalous obituary for another of them, but is foiled . . .

Many lifetimes pass before your eyes in Waiting for the Train.

Rehearsals will begin with a read-through on Monday 18^th September, followed by a rehearsal on Wednesday, 20^th September, and thereafter on every Monday and Wednesday, all at 8pm at Christchurch Hall, so there will be plenty of time between audition and rehearsals to start getting your lines down!

Performances will be at 8pm on Thursday, 30^th November, Friday, 1^st December and Saturday, 2^nd December, at the Riddell Hall, Walton on the Hill.

So, please come along to the audition and try out for The Gage.  The Winter production begins our 67^th anniversary year, so you’d be joining a company with a strong tradition of putting on great entertainment.  Remember: auditions on Monday, 3^rd July and 10^th at 8pm, Christchurch Hall, Walton on the Hill.  For further information contact the director, Pip Rolls, on 01372 452 105 or pip.rolls@yahoo.co.uk .