A Double Bill

The next show at Progress is two for the price of one. Two one act plays WASP by Steve Martin (yes that Steve Martin) and The Long Road by Shelagh Stephenson.

The two plays are very different and have very different settings but need to share the same basic set. The Long Road is set in modern Britain in a family home and a prison cell while WASP is set in a 1950s American home. One half of the shared set is a basic kitchen based around a stainless steal sink that was a bargain purchase from E-bay for £5.

 While the kitchen set will be the same for both plays it will be the detailed set dressing that will signpost for the audience '50s America' or 'modern Britain'.

I did ask if the sink unit was plumbed in but Keven Copping who is directing WASP said that he had learnt on a set building course that things build for the theatre only needed to be good enough for the stage not good enough for home. (So no!)

Kevin was assistant director for Henry IV part one in Caversham Court Gardens last summer. He has also  directed Cinderella at Shehnai in Reading and the Mikardo at the Nuffield Theatre in Southampton when he was a student there. This is his first small scale play and he has found it a very different experience. With large cast plays you often don't mange the logistics of getting the full cast together until very late on.  With only six actors it is much easier. The biggest challenge he is facing with this play is sourcing a 1950s style bicycle.

 

 

Kevin contemplating how to change  a prison cell into a subarban bedroom
 

 

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Last auditions for Macbeth, the Summer Shakespeare production, all parts except for Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, Sunday 10th March 2.30pm, Progress Theatre

Auditions for Blithe Spirit by Noël Coward Thursday 14th March at 7.30 or Saturday 16th March 4pm, Progress theatre
 

Progress Youth Theatre presents The School of Night by Peter Whelan. Monday 18^th and Tuesday 19^th March 2013 at 7:45pm, Wycliffe Baptist Church, 233 Kings Rd Reading RG1 4LS

Double Bill, The Long Road by Shelagh Stephenson and WASP by Steve Martin, Monday 18th to Saturday 23rd March 2013, 7.45 Progress Theatre

 

Little Shop of Horrors, music by Alan Menken, libretto by Howard Ashman,Thursday 18th to Saturday 27th April 2013, 7.45 Progress Theatre