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RED HOT AND COLE is a participant in Amateur Theatre Week
BUT WHAT IS THIS WEEK ALL ABOUT?
The following article appeared in The Stage in September and explains fully.
All on board
The forthcoming Amateur Theatre Week will see performances taking place in all corners of Britain by an array of groups. Susan Elkin looks at what this celebration means for amateurs and the profession.
Next month's Amateur Theatre Week- October 23-30 is an ideal opportunity to make it clear to those who act for money that they have absolutely no excuse or reason to be sniffy about the 468,700 volunteers who fit in 30,000 `spare time' performances a year.
Amateur Theatre Week will mean some fine versions of Oliver! - the most popular musical show of all - followed by Me and My Girl, Oklahoma! and My Fair lady on the most frequently performed list. Not to forget Gilbert and Sullivan, which is the backbone of many a group. Straight plays by Alan Ayckbourn, John Godber and Ray Cooney all work well, as do classics such as Sheridan's School for Scandal and The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde.
Many groups would welcome new, repertoire-widening work if only casts were larger and performing rights less fiercely protected. The only Lloyd Webber show available to amateurs for example, is Jesus Christ Superstar.
The national Operatic and Dramatic Association, coordinator of Amateur Theatre Week, proudly boasts that Catherine Zeta Jones, Robbie Williams and Dave Willetts
- among others - all trod amateur boards before going professional. Actually, every professional actor must have taken part in amateur productions at some point in childhood, even if it was as far back as the infant school nativity play. Everyone has to start somewhere and that is what feeds the profession.
It is never too late to make the transfer either. Take the late Buster Merryfield, who played Uncle Albert in Only Fools and Horses. He fell in love with acting during the Second World War but, as a family man, had to content himself with amateur work for 40 years alongside a less risky career in banking. He didn't take the professional plunge until 1984, by which time he was 57 years old. How successful he was and what fun his `retirement' must have been. For him, amateur theatre was, evidently, a fine training ground.
"Twenty-nine per cent of our societies' members are under 21," says NODA's chief executive Mark Pemberton. "Many are typical starstruck youngsters, who go on to drama school and then into the profession. In many cases, amateur groups provide young people with their first taste of theatre, which is as important in creating audiences as it is in creating artists."
Pemberton cites NODA's society in Shetland, which attracts audiences of up to a quarter of the local population - a proportion no professional company comes close to. Across Britain, nearly eight million people attend amateur performances every year. It is often their only local source of live theatre.
Amateur companies affiliated to NODA and the Little Theatre Guild of Great Britain - which between them turn over £38.5 million a year and raise £2.3 million for charity - are also an important source of employment for the profession.
Many amateur groups hire professional directors, musicians, lighting technicians and other experts - £12 million a year is spent in this way. In an industry in which work and funding are often elusive, amateur theatre is an economic force to be reckoned with.
"The reason we object to the term
am-dram'," says Pemberton, "is that it generates images of wobbly scenery and wooden acting. But the reality is very different. There is a lot of talent out there but not everyone has the nerve to risk the insecurity of a professional career. Amateur theatre is the only art form in which the word `amateur' is used as a pejorative. Nobody questions
amateur music-making, sports or visual artists. To transcend this, we are increasingly referring to ourselves as `community theatre', the term used is the US."
In England - Scotland and Wales do better - amateur drama is also the only art form to receive no Arts Council money. Only if they perform in publicly funded venues can amateur theatre groups benefit from subsidies. Amateur Theatre Week is a new idea designed to raise the awareness of the strength of nonprofessional, community and youth work. During the last week in October 39,000 people are scheduled to give their time to create live theatre for their local communities.
Matthew Kelly, who won this year's Laurence Olivier Award for best Actor, is president of Manchester's Urmston Musical Theatre, one of the many groups involved in Amateur Theatre Week. Kelly played in The King and I at Urmston in 1963.
"I am delighted to support this new initiative," he says. "Amateur theatre provided my first introduction to acting and I am proud of my continued association with this virtually important part of both the nation's cultural provision and the local community."
Further information from NODA
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