Monday 17 September 2012

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - Reprising a Double Act


Calendar Girls is still running until next Saturday although it is almost sold out. A batch of tickets has been released for Thursday 20th September and they are available from the Reading Arts website or by phoning the Hexagon box office on 0118 9606060. If you haven't got a ticket and want to come on another night it may be worth turning up at the theatre on the night of the performance to see if there are any returns. You can also join the Progress Theatre group on facebook as people with spare tickets sometimes post them there.

The next show is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard. The lead roles of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are played by Chris Hoult and Craig Daniels who were last seen together on the Progress stage in 39 Steps where they played dozens of different characters. Chris and Craig first appeared on stage together in Hook in the Hook Players production of Murder to Death in 2010.
Chris and Craig as they appear on the flyers for the production
 
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are minor characters from Shakespeare's Hamlet and during this play various characters from Hamlet appear and interact with them. The characters are all played by a small troupe of players and to help with switching between characters director Glynn Oram has bought a selection of interesting masks.







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Coming up -

Calendar Girls by Tim Firth, 13th - 22nd September 2012, Progress Theatre
(Woodley Theatre's production runs 24th - 29th September)

Auditions for Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett Thursday 27th September at 7.30pm and Sunday 30th September at 6pm, Progress Theatre

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead by Tom Stoppard 15th - 20th October 2012, Progress Theatre

7th Annual WriteFest 14 - 17 November 2012, Progress Theatre

Details of all our productions and auditions can be found on our website.

Monday 10 September 2012

Calendar Girls - the Big Bake-off

The casts of Calendar Girls from Progress and Woodley theatres held a WI style bake-off on Sunday. There was a huge range of cakes and visitors were asked to vote for the lightest, moistest, most tasty, best iced, most unusual and best overall. In order to be strictly fair to all the entrants it was important to sample all the offerings! Of course there was plenty of tea to wash down all that cake.


This is just half of the cakes.

In the midst of the cake eating there was also a mini badminton tournament where the actors playing the same characters were pitched against each other. I'm afraid I have to report that Woodley Theatre won by 4 games to 3.



John Goodman and Jim McGuigan who play Rod in Progress and Woodley Productions

 
The stars stayed in character for the event including two very grand Lady Cavendishes giving out the prizes. As well as being great fun and promoting the two productions the aim of the afternoon was fundraising and a total of £210 was raised for Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research

If you are interested in what goes on at Progress Theatre then sign up to this blog. Enter your email in the box under ‘about us’ and click on subscribe. New postings are made weekly so you won’t be swamped with emails.

Coming up -

Calendar Girls by Tim Firth, 13th - 22nd September 2012, Progress Theatre
(Woodley Theatre's production runs 24th - 29th September)

Auditions for 7th WriteFest, Sunday 16th September at 2.30pm, Progress Theatre

Auditions for Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett Thursday 27th September at 7.30pm and Sunday 30th September at 6pm, Progress Theatre

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead by Tom Stoppard 15th - 20th October 2012, Progress Theatre

7th Annual Write Fest 14 - 17 November 2012, Progress Theatre

Details of all our productions and auditions can be found on our website.