Hi, I am Jon Laws and am delighted to have been elected as chairman of the Gage at the March AGM. I have been a member of The Gage Players since 2003, when I was a “portly gentleman” in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, directed by the late Margaret Hunter.
For your records, here are my contact details should you need to be in touch with me: 20 Lyndhurst Avenue, Surbiton, Surrey KT5 9LL. Mobile 07565 962 453, Skype jontlaws and email jon@cctvwithtlc.co.uk
My first task as chairman is to say a great big thank you to Franki Gray for all her work and for leaving The Gage Players in a great situation.
The highlights of Franki’s year in charge were Murder in Play by Simon Brett and Teahouse of the August Moon by John Patrick, based on the novel by Vern Sneider. We also made three appearances at The Duke’s Head as a pub quiz team. These have been enjoyable and have even netted £10 in prize money, which went to the Gage fund. We have another date planned for Wednesday 11th May. Please do see if you can come along to join the fun (especially if you are an expert at pop music) and have a meal there before we start. I have booked a table for us for 19.15 (the quiz starts at 20.00), so if you are interested, please let me know and I shall book you in.
Bedroom Farce by Alan Ayckbourn was a success and we had good audiences, but the Saturday audience was exceptionally warm with their response. We managed to start to take down the set on the Saturday evening and with all the people that turned up on the Sunday, we were completely finished by 11.00, an almost record time. Many thanks to all of you who were involved in any way and especially those who helped with the “get-out”. We were also happy to welcome some new faces with our front of house and backstage crew as well as one of the cast, we hope to see you all again for the next production (details below)
For the summer, the committee has been thinking of not proposing a barbeque this year, but to try a “get together” for a Sunday lunch at The Blue Anchor, Dorking Road, Tadworth, KT20 5SL on Sunday 26th June. If you would like to join in for this and get to know people in the Gage, please contact me as soon as possible (jon@cctvwithtlc.co.uk ) so that we can gauge numbers for a group booking.
We shall also be staging a rehearsed reading with supper in September at The Riddell Hall – the arrangement is not to have a ticket price, but just charge the cost of food (and bring your own drinks). Please let me know if you would like to come along to think – either as a possible actor (no learning of lines for this!) or as a member of our audience.
The play chosen for the autumn (24th, 25th and 26th November) is Over My Dead Body by Derek Benfield, and it will be directed by Debbie Nichols with auditions in July – more details in the next newsletter and on our web site.
Don’t forget that we now have an agreement with the Manager of the Blue Ball, for anyone who books a meal on a show night who is coming to see the show can get a 15% discount on food, that night
In the meantime, we look forward to seeing you at the Dukes Head for the Quiz Night.
