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Lapworth: A Warwickshire VillageThe Lapworth Players |
The Archive. Gillian and Arthur Lockwood, the talented artists who have designed many of our sets, posters and programme covers, have given some of the original sketches to the Players' archive and have agreed to their publication here. You can see a slide show of some of their superb pictures here.
The Lapworth Players, an amateur dramatic society, is now over 40 years old. We put on at least two plays a year at the village hall. Use the menu to see some photos from our productions:
Friends & Neighbours by Austin Steele was the Lapworth Players first full length production. It was produced by Pat Cheetham in 1968 and there was a cast of nine. Reviews in the local press were mostly favourable, although Alan Poole wrote in the Leamington Courier that the play only "woke up" in the second act after a "dismal" start. (This seemed to be a comment about the script).
Is this the oldest picture of the Lapworth Players?
New members are always very welcome, particularly people in their twenties and thirties as we find it hard to cast plays with parts in this age range. Even if you don't feel that being on stage is for you, there is a wide range of backstage, technical and support activities which are fun to do and essential for the production of plays. We also need people prepared to produce plays. New producers receive a lot of help from an experienced team of back-stagers.and support from those who have suffered the agonies of producing previous plays.
If you like the sound of this, and would like to know more about it or visit one of our rehearsals contact our membership secretary, Jill Morris for more details. email: morrisjillian@aol.com
The shows usually follow a pattern:
One show a year is designed to appeal to all ages and is often, though
not always traditional pantomime either professionally written, or
written by talented members of the community. The run lasts for five
performances and generally attracts an audience of 600 in total, it is
usually greatly enjoyed by cast, stage crew and audience. There is
often opportunity for children to take part in this production.
Our spring show usually has a smaller cast giving opportunity for
members to have a go at some character parts. It is often produced "in
the round" and generally plays to an audience of 300 over the three or
four night run.
The members evening in the autumn is usually a shorter production,
often a one act play, that gives new producers and actors a chance to
develop their skills. There is usually a dinner too which makes it a
fine social evening.
Every production is a substantial organisational excercise that needs people to fullfill a variety of roles, on and off stage. Here is a list of some of those roles. You can follow the links to see a list of the duties involved in them. They are .pdf files that you can view, print or download as required. (You will need .pdf viewer such as Adobe Acrobat)