Abstract
This chapter argues that the significance and cultural value of amateur theatre stretches far beyond what is produced on stage by exploring how making amateur theatre contributes to shaping subjectivities and building communities. It makes the case for amateur theatre as a craft practice and by describing and analysing rehearsals for a production of Communicating Doors by Alan Ayckbourn, it brings the skills, craft and practical processes particular to amateur theatre into view. The chapter also addresses the demographics of amateur theatre companies and looks particularly at how it reflects wider social issues with access, inclusion and diversity through a discussion of the controversial practice of ‘black face’ and progressive attempts to attract and reflect a diverse constituency.
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15 February 2019
The book was inadvertently published without the names of the chapter authors in the table of contents and the chapter opening pages. This has now been updated.
Notes
- 1.
Interview of John Beglin with Cara Gray, Evocative Objects workshop, Questors Theatre, 16 June 2015. All quotations taken from this interview.
- 2.
Interview Emma Thomas with Nadine Holdsworth, HMS Excellent, Whale Island, Portsmouth, 17 July 2015.
- 3.
Interview Robin Sheppard and Lucy Sheppard with Nadine Holdsworth, Southsea, 5 December 2014. When Robin Sheppard was not playing the dame, he directed the pantomime in 2008 and 2011.
- 4.
Tweet, 3 August 2017. Fin Kennedy swiftly apologised for this tweet when challenged.
- 5.
See https://www.contemporarytheatrereview.org/2017/molly-flynn-rsc-open-stages/ and RSC report. Accessed 31 Dec 2017.
- 6.
http://www.huntingdondramaclub.org.uk/wordpress/rsc-big-backstage-weekend/. Accessed 21 Oct 2017.
- 7.
Conversation Ian Wainwright with Molly Flynn, Nadine Holdsworth and Helen Nicholson, The Other Place, Stratford, 5 October 2016.
- 8.
Interview Rob Sloane with Molly Flynn, Rugby Theatre, 3 March 2016.
- 9.
Cited in programme for A Midsummer Night’s Dream: A Play for the Nation, RSC.
- 10.
Interview Kevin Fraser with Nadine Holdsworth, Titchfield Festival Theatre, 27th September 2016.
- 11.
This aspect of amateur creativity is discussed in depth by Cara Gray, in her unpublished thesis, Amateur Theatre: Making and Making Do (2017).
- 12.
http://www.earlsdonfestival.co.uk/. Accessed 27 Dec 2017.
- 13.
https://www.criteriontheatre.co.uk/about. Accessed 27 Dec 2017.
- 14.
Interview Anne-marie Greene with Nadine Holdsworth, The Criterion Theatre, Coventry, 26th September 2016. All other quotations from Anne-marie Greene are taken from this interview.
- 15.
John Ruscoe in conversation with Nadine Holdsworth, Zafiri’s Coffee Shop, Earlsdon, 1 June 2017.
- 16.
Karen Evans in conversation with Nadine Holdsworth, The Criterion Theatre Bar, 11 June 2017.
- 17.
Dave Cornish in conversation with Nadine Holdsworth, The Criterion Theatre, 21 June 2017.
- 18.
Alan Fenn in conversation with Nadine Holdsworth, The Criterion Theatre Bar, 16 June 2017.
- 19.
Interview Joe Allan with Nadine Holdsworth, HMS Collingwood, 3 February 2014 and Dorothy Lawson interviewed by Maurice Newberry at an Evocative Objects workshop held at The Questors Theatre in Ealing, 16 June 2015.
- 20.
NODA factsheet ‘It Isn’t Always Black and White’ http://www.NODA.org.uk/writeable/editor_uploads/files/NODAfacts/It%20isn’t%20always%20black%20and%20white%20V4%20July%202013.pdf. Accessed 16 May 2017. All other quotations are taken from this source.
- 21.
Stephen Briggs ‘Row after man ‘blacked up’ for show’, Peterborough Telegraph, 25 April 2016.
- 22.
- 23.
- 24.
NODA factsheet ‘It Isn’t Always Black and White’ http://www.NODA.org.uk/writeable/editor_uploads/files/NODAfacts/It%20isn’t%20always%20black%20and%20white%20V4%20July%202013.pdf. Accessed 16 May 2017.
- 25.
https://www.shropshire.gov.uk/census-2011/census-2011-shropshires-profile/. Accessed 28 Dec 2017.
- 26.
Interview of Alex Hinton with Nadine Holdsworth, Severn Theatre, Shrewsbury, 17 November 2016. All other quotations from Alex Hinton are taken from this interview.
- 27.
- 28.
We are grateful to Sherwin Mapanoo for alerting me to the work of PTUK whilst undertaking the MA in International Performance Research at the University of Warwick.
- 29.
See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGg7kQeQO0w, accessed 24 August 2017.
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Holdsworth, N., Milling, J., Nicholson, H. (2018). Making Amateur Theatre. In: The Ecologies of Amateur Theatre. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50810-2_6
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