Play Readings & Auditions
Auditions:
Our spring 2012 production will be THE GRADUATE by Terry Johnson adapted from the novel by Charles Webb and has now been cast.
Next auditions will be for our summer 2012 Frome Festival production Brenton v Brenton by David Tristam. Details will be announced in due course.
Play Readings:
Our monthly play readings usually take place on the second Monday of the month and are held "Upstairs at The Lamb" (now renamed The Corner House) situated at the top of Bath Street, Frome. Readings start at 7.45 p.m. so arrive in good time, get a drink at the bar and head upstairs for a great evening.
12th March '12
Time for some wit which means time for some Oscar Wilde and his social satire, An Ideal Husband. Sir Robert Chiltern is a successful Government minister, well-off and with a loving wife. All this is threatened when Mrs Cheveley appears in London with damning evidence of a past misdeed. Sir Robert turns for help to his friend Lord Goring, an apparently idle philanderer and the despair of his father. Goring knows the lady of old, and, for him, takes the whole thing pretty seriously.
6th February '12
Time for a heavyweight! One of the defining plays on the last century, Arthur Miller's Death of a Saleman is about many things. It is a tragedy about the collapse of the notion that personal success is measured by one's financial prosperity. Willy Loman's tragedy is really two-fold: the need of most people to make a mark in their lives either through financial success or merely being loved by one's friends and family. In the end, Loman comes to realize his son Biff loves him; however, ironically, this realisation only propounds his material failure which in turn leads to his final attempt at 'success'.
January '12
After the festivities and over indulgence we settled down to enjoy one of the series of plays featuring the The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild by David McGillivray & Walter Zerlin Jnr.
December '11
There will be no play reading this month but we will be back in the New Year. Happy Christmas!
November '11
A great turn out for The Germans and The Kipper and the Corpse both episodes of the iconic TV series Fawlty Towers. Such were the howls of laughter that we will try to make a date with more episodes this time next year.
October '11
2011 celebrates the 100th anniversary of the birth of Terence Rattigan, one of the greatest British dramatists of the twentieth century, and it was a delight to join in those celebrations by reading his Second World War classic play, Flare Path.
September '11
To welcome us back to play reading nights we read a play which will be our spring 2012 production, The Graduate by Terry Johnson adapted from the novel by Charles Webb. It was a lovely taster for what is to come next year when we bring it to life on the Merlin stage!
August '11
We took a well earned summer break but normal service was resumed in September.
July '11
A summer bonanza! Three one act plays which are contenders for our production in next year's Frome Festival. We read Brenton versus Brenton by David Tristam, Two Fat Men by Gillian Plowman, and The Erpingham Camp by Joe Orton.
June '11
The Memory of Water by Shelagh Stephenson, winner of the Olivier Award for Best Comedy in 2000, was the play choice this month. Three sisters, whose paths in life have diverged widely, meet after the death of their difficult mother Vi. The general verdict was a delightful play.
May '11
May's choice was The Light of Heart by Emlyn Williams which tells the tragi-comic story of a once brilliant actor fallen on hard times due to alcoholism. His daughter never gives up hope and when she meets a composer who can help her father, it seems life may take a turn for the better.
April '11
This month we read Children of Ghosts written by local Frome playwright Scott Carpenter who has had four plays performed in London as well as Bath, Portsmouth and Milan/Como in Italy. This play is set in Russia on the brink of the 1917 revolution. A great read and we wish Scott great success.