Category: News

‘LABOUR OF LOVE’ The Reason for the Postponement:

I remember being at an early meeting between the RSC and several Amateur Drama Groups, where their spokesperson was explaining why they had reached out to Am Dram. It was, he said, that they simply could not understand how Am Dram groups managed to stage plays by only rehearsing in the evenings and weekends against a backdrop of work and family life. He went on, in not complete seriousness, to consider the financial impact it would have on the RSC to only finance that amount of rehearsal. What he was really getting at was wanting to tap into the Am Drama commitment to staging plays not only with limited resources and time but also against the intrusion of all those outside realities.

Of course changes in circumstances affect the professional world as well but in their case that rarely results in postponement, but the promotion of an understudy. In the world of Am Dram that is a luxury we do not have.

In a lifetime of involvement with amateur drama I have never had to postpone a production that was weeks away from performance, except of course for our Minack production of ‘Sisterly Feelings’ but that was due to a worldwide pandemic so can hardly be considered normal.

The concept of pulling through, the show must go on and pure determination usually does the trick but I have never met a series of obstacles which dogged this production from it’s launch /audition.

Days after casting the show the actor given the role of David had to quit as our performance dates clashed when he had to be in Geneva involved in humanitarian assistance to the war in Ukraine.

I finally found a replacement, but rehearsal time was lost. Our replacement was also committed to work and another show, which although he worked hard did not help us catch up missed time.

The play requires that for one scene you must cast a Chinese businessman eventually we found our Mr Shen. A sigh of relief all round.

Then a month from performance in quite a short sequence we were faced with three very different events. My having to go to hospital for a bypass operation. Not in itself a calamity we arranged a new rehearsal schedule and for the assistant director to take over rehearsals.

At the same time our leading man, announced that his application to go on ‘Pointless’ had been successful, and he had to go to London for a week for filming.

If that was hilarious it was followed by the seriousness of a sudden illness to the child of our leading lady and assistant director, who was diagnosed with possible epilepsy and was having to spend time in and out of hospital with no certainty of any immediate solution.

Faced with a choice of going ahead knowing that apart from having two crucial members of the team having to cope with the worry of looking after their child, but that in all reality they would not be available for the performance. There was little option but to cancel or postpone.

As a cast and a production team we had loved this play from the beginning, finding it both challenging and extremely funny, none of us wanted to abandon the production. The decision was taken to postpone ‘Labour of Love’ until 24^th – 27^th July 2024, which was endorsed by the Drama Group.

The story of this production has been a labour of love mixed with unique events some funny and some very serious. Let’s hope for just the normal complications when we resume for the performance in July, please join us then.

We are very sorry to announce that due to unforeseen circumstances we have taken the very difficult decision to postpone our production of “Labour of Love”.

This is a fabulous play and our wonderful cast have been having so much fun rehearsing, so we will be announcing the new dates for this play very soon.

Carnon Downs Drama Group have secured four nominations for the 2022/23 season:

Best Costumes in a Musical Karnon Kidz Wizard of Oz (many congratulations to Janet, Linda and everyone who helped)

Best Pantomime Sword in the Stone (many congratulations to Nick and Zoe, who I’ve copied in)

Best Costumes in a Play Oedipus at Colonus (many congratulations to Vron, who I’ve copied in)

Best Director of a Play David Ivall for Oedipus at Colonus (that was a surprise)

All the competition looks very strong, but we might win something, you never know. Full details of all nominations and the awards evening on Sat 21 October are on the CDA website, https://cornwalldrama.co.uk/theatre-festival-2023-nominations/

Booking is through Eventbrite, but make payment direct to CDA. If you do book, and put CDDG as your group to sit with, then please use ‘Ivall’ as the reference when paying so that they can tie payments to tickets (sounds like a recipe for confusion to me).

Well done to cast and crew of all three productions!

If you haven’t managed to reserve your tickets for our shows in advance, then we are now able to accept card payments as well as cash payments on the door.

So whether you have a ticket or not, please do come down to see our shows.

It was in February this year that, thanks to John Frankland, we launched this competition, but little did we know how big and global an entry it would draw! – 294!!!

It has been a mammoth task reading all the entries but we can now publish the Shortlist of 14.

‘Offsteady’ by Darrel Draper

‘BIO’ by Fergal O’Byrne

‘Revelation 18.8’ by Rhys Clarke

‘The Incident at Wembley Stadium’ by Louis Kingman

‘Lobsters’ by Seb Flatau

‘Burnout’ by Maisy Beth Crunden

‘Flat Earth’ by Stephen Doran

‘Two Point OH’ by Jeff Dunne

‘This is Just This’ by Barbara Lindsay

‘Byron’s Voice’ by J J Steinfeld

‘Touch the Moon’ by Arianna Rose

‘Seven Small Deaths’ by Emily Hageman

‘The Notice’ by Lucy Charleston

‘Greatest Britain’ by Harry Cowper

N.B. List is in order plays were submitted (earliest first).

Total number of submissions 294.

We thank all the writers who entered. The shortlisted plays will now be judged by a panel of experts and as soon as we have their decision we will publish the result.