Latest news from CADS
August 2021 newsletter
(August 25, 2021)Strangers at a Festival
We've already announced our entry for this year's 52nd Cambridge Festival of Drama at the ADC Theatre in Park Street, Cambridge - Stephen Wyatt's Strangers on a Film, adapted by Roy Maddox will at last be performed for the very first time on stage on Thursday 16 September at about 7.50 p.m. You'll recall that the play deals with the increasingly acrimonious relationship between Alfred Hitchcock and Raymond Chandler in 1950, when Hitch was trying to find a screenwriter for his latest movie project, Strangers on a Train. Details of the Festival, including how to buy tickets, are available on the festival website at https://www.camdramfest.org.uk. Please come along and support us!
As well as performing the play at Cambridge, we'll also be putting it on at this year's Royston Arts Festival on Friday 24 and Saturday 25 September, though our plans for that performance have changed a little since the last newsletter. We had hoped to couple it with another one-act play but in the event we've opted for a show that combines drama and film. Strangers on a Film will form the first half of the evening, and we'll then be screening the whole of Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train as the second half.
The evening will start slightly earlier than usual to accommodate the screening - doors open at 6.30 p.m. for a 7.00 p.m. start and the whole show is expected to finish at around 9.45 p.m. We'll be performing at King James Academy Royston, Senior Site (formerly Meridian School) - please bring your own refreshments and find a table. Tickets are £10 and are only available on the door; we're sorry that we can't take card payments, so please bring cash or a chequebook.
We're really looking forward to presenting the play to a local audience, and we think that the combination of play and film will make this a unique and entertaining evening, so do please come along and enjoy some live theatre once again!
Meet the group
Now that we're all able to meet up again in person, we thought it would be nice if we all got together for an informal social event, just to meet old friends (or make new ones). So we've arranged an evening at the Old Bull Inn on Tuesday 14 September starting at 7.30 p.m. when we can all come together, have a drink and a chat and generally catch up with what's happening in CADS. There's no need to book for this - just turn up and find us in the bar. You might never have contacted us before, but don't let that put you off - we're a friendly bunch! We'd love to see as many of you there as possible.
Panto 2022
As you know, we've been discussing the viability of a pantomime for January 2022 and you'll have seen our recent e-mail soliciting your views. We've had a large number of very positive responses to this and as a consequence we're starting to make plans to revive the traditional Royston Town Panto next year, though at the moment we're still dealing with logistics and holding discussions with key providers. However, as we'll need to start work on this pretty soon, it's likely that auditions will be held in early October, so please watch out for announcements on the website and on social media.
If we do go ahead, we'll be making a few changes for 2022. Principal among these is that, as previously reported, we plan to alter the times of some performances so that we can present an extra matinee show. We''ll be announcing more definite details shortly, including performance dates, but we think we can say with reasonable confidence that the show will go on in 2022!
Oh, and if you haven't already done so, please contact us if you'd like to get involved in any capacity, whether that's on stage, backstage, or with things such as costumes, props, lighting and sound.
Evening meetings
We held the first of our "live" evening meetings in July, with a play reading of Alan Ayckbourn's Absent Friends, hosted by Brenda Cottis, and the excellent turn-out suggested that people are once again happy to attend such meetings in person. We have no definite dates in mind as yet for future meetings, as we've all been busy preparing for the festivals mentioned above, but we can say that they will include another in our popular series of quizzes and (probably) a further play reading, this time of a brand new full-length comedy by local author Roy Maddox.
Meetings are hosted by a different person each time, and take place usually at the Coombes Community Centre in Royston between 7.30 p.m. and 9.00 p.m. unless otherwise stated. For the immediate future, we'll be making provision for anyone to join them via Zoom if they prefer to do so. There's no need to book for any of our meetings if you're attending in person - just turn up on the night - and they're completely FREE! If you're lucky, we might even manage to provide some refreshments...
Committee
Our next meeting is on 20 September so if there's anything you'd like us to consider or discuss, please feel free to contact any of us at any time via the Contact page of this website!