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Once ag ain, the time for our annual June production at the Princess Theatre is upon us once more. Last June’s production here at the Princess was “Me and My Girl”. This hilarious and popular show played to large houses, and we were pleased to make a small profit, despite production costs of £43, 000. Something of a rarity these days. Director Richard Clark ensured that the comedy was brought out to its best advantage, and the theatre resounded to the roar of the audience’s laughter night after night. Richard gave us his usual highly professional and polished production, aided and abetted by Wendy Jackson’s wonderful choreography and John Amery’s slick musical direction.
TOADS is never a society to rest for long and just 5 days after “Me  and My Girl” closed, we started all over again, with the start of rehearsals for “A Chorus Line”, our October 2005 production at the Little Theatre. This show was a real challenge, and is rarely performed by amateurs. However, TOADS is made of strong stuff and the Director Sarah O’Connor worked very hard on the production to ensure the talented cast gave of their best. Choreographer Elaine Johnson had her work cut out for her as so much of the show is danced, but the end result was another wonderful production that was a real credit to the Society. John Amery gave us his usual first rate orchestra, and full houses for most performances ensured that another production profit was the result. Two in one year ... now that IS unusual.
The musi cals are not the be all and end all of the Society year and the society has a very active social life. With production profits a rarity, other ways of boosting funds have to be found and to that end, lots of fund raising events are held throughout the year. Just prior to “A Chorus Line”, 8 members held a sponsored Ghost Line at the Little Theatre, spending the night there. The building is reputedly haunted, although nothing is reported to have happened that night. However a nice sum was raised for the society.
The annual Christmas Party was held as usual at the home of one of our members, along with a Christmas Dinner at a local Hotel and various trips were organised. In February this year a very successful quiz was organised by the Social Committee and last month, the main event of the social year was our Ball at the Grand Hotel. Attended by 140 members and friends, the huge event was a great success and raised well over £1000 for society funds. Ball organisers Elaine Gard, Amanda Jenkins, Julie Hale and Cheryl Merrikin (aka Balls R Us) are to be congratulated on a great evening.
In April 2005 27 members and friends went on a Caribbe an Cruise, flying to Barbados, joining P&O’s Oceana and travelling back to Southampton over 14 fun packed days. Now this year, organiser Elaine Gard is arranging two cruises. On August 4th, 8 members set sail on Aurora from Southampton for 16 nights in the Med through to Venice and back. Then in mid October another 12 members set sail on Oriana for a Med cruise. Elaine is now starting to arrange another cruise for Feb 2008 in the Caribbean and Panama. Over 50 members and friends are interested. She is certainly a glutton for punishment.
The 2006 AGM was held in February, with over 50 members present, showing a high level of  interest in the affairs of the society. We bade farewell to Jean Macer who retired as Chairman and from the Committee. We also bade farewell to Chris Hawes and to Jane Stewart. Jane has since left the area and we all miss her loads. We were delighted to welcome Miles Opie as chairman and also welcome Julie Hale, Jonathan Hunt and Alan Wagstaff onto the committee, to join the “old hands”. The Golden Toad Award was won by Lydia Dockray, a very popular member who is also our props mistress and who makes some fabulous props for our shows. The society remains a keen supporter of NODA (National Operatic and Dramatic Association) and society secretary Iain Douglas maintains the long links with NODA, by being the NODA rep for this area.
 15 members attended the SW NODA Weekend at Bicton College, where various workshops and social events are held in a very convivial atmosphere. There is ample opportunity to network with many like-minded people from societies across the South West.
On more personal issues we were saddened to hear of the death of society friend Ian Williams, who always  did so much towards our social events and was always so supportive of our Treasurer Elaine Gard. We were delighted that our good friend and one of our VPs, Nick Bye was the first elected Mayor of Torbay. He has had plenty of knocks since then from a rather unsympathetic element of the public and the council. Come on folks ... give him a chance; no one else could have done any better and TOADS are proud that he is one of us! We were delighted that members Kevin Scarbrough and Lisa-Maria Taylor announced their engagement and in 2 weeks time on July 16th Amanda Read gets married and we wish her well. Her mum can be found arranging our front of house affairs for us.
And now to “Summer Holiday”. The cast have been working very hard indeed on this lively s how. Director Iain Douglas, who also happens to be the Society Secretary, is delighted to be at the helm for this production. He has appeared in every production since 1979 and knows he will miss being on stage this June, but has enjoyed the challenge of his first direction job here at the Princess. Iain is well known as director of the last 10 Paignton Pantomimes and the last 2 musicals at Newton Abbot. He has found it strange directing his society friends but the challenge of making a lot more of the big scenes, to accommodate the large chorus in TOADS has been rewarding. The society is fortunate in that it has enough young talented young male performers to be able to stage this show, and all looks set fair for the run. |
