Forum Players

Dear All,

As organiser of the proposed 2018 Summer Festival, I would like to keep everybody up-to-date to make sure everybody has the same information. We will meet as a group on 5th, 12th (in the Small Hall) and also 14th March (in the Target Room), to have a look at some potential plays.

Last Monday we had an initial meeting which was attended by Leigh, Jill H., Kerry, Emily, Fiona and Rebecca, Sally, Sue, Karin and myself. As Sally and Sue are relatively new to the club, I improvised a little speech to introduce the Summer Festival and what we did in the past, which I would like to share with everybody.

The Summer Festival was a series of evenings in which the club split into little teams in order to perform short plays lasting half an hour, taking advantage of the local library, which is an ideal space for informal theatre. This was organised by myself, Linda Perry (the “Crocodile’s” mum) and Karin (aka Mrs. Darling). I was Chairman at the time, and the rest of the club collaborated. The purpose was to provide an opportunity for all club members, actors, set decorators, stage managers, young and old, mixed ability, to gather in a different environment and experiment with theatre. It was great for me as a set designer to be able to perform alongside Roger and Wendy in Chekhov’s famous “Proposal”, and our audiences loved the “Deckchairs” series, about two women friends in seemingly familiar situations with an unexpected twist. We even had a local theatre pro, Jenny Quille, direct one of the farces and read poetry. The energy created was fantastic; the buzz of a new theatre festival in Bourne End, people meeting in each others houses to rehearse, and bringing in audiences between 30 to 60 people who enjoyed the evenings. Despite being informal, there was some publicity, we had a simply A4 programme with a synopsis of the play, biographies of the actors, etc. etc. The space, although small, still was sufficient as a changing room for the actors. A typical evening consisted of either two short plays with an interval, or a poetry reading and a short play. One evening we had a monologue (“Roller Coaster”) in the first half. There is lots of room for ideas!

The festival ran for 4 years. Many of the members at the time have left the club, and so this may be a good time to revive the spirit of a festival, with the new members, and providing an opportunity to bring friends, and promote the club. Looking forward to see everybody at the next meetings!

Kind regards,

Rick

I just wanted to update everyone on the club meeting from the 19th February.

Rick has kindly offered to lead the summer festival for the club and the plan is to put on 3 evenings over the summer with 2 shows for our adult cast and 1 for our youth members.

The plan is to meet again on the 5th and the 12th March so please come along if you are interested.

If you cannot attend but are interested then please let me know

thanks

Ros Bartlett

Sylvia Deane was mum of Shirley Roberts.

Sylvia Deane lived in Orchard House, Bourne End for many years before moving to an Assisted Living Home in Hazlemere. Sylvia was involved in making costumes for Forum Players, Brownies when Bourne End had a carnival and was a volunteer for the Red Cross locally. Sylvia was healthy and doing very well until she broke her hip in September, had a perforated gall bladder in October but managed to recover enough to get home 2 days before her 95th birthday party. Then a week before christmas she fell and broke her wrist. Sylvia died peacefully in her sleep in her home.

We will always remember her for her baseball caps, walking frame picking up money which had been dropped, and giving it to charity.

Sylvia’s Celebration of Life is to be held 16th January 1.15pm at Chiltern Crematorium, all welcome.

Regards and thanks

Pat Jones – daughter

I hope you are getting into the festive spirit.

This is just a note say the Forum Players AGM will be on Monday 28th January at 8pm in the small hall.

During this meeting we will electing the committee members, if you would like to stand or make a nomination please contact Leigh Robinson for a form.

Merry Xmas
Ros Bartlett

Last call for help on our sewing day this coming Sunday, 26th November. Target Room (next to the Community Centre) between 10am and 4pm with lunch provided. Doesn’t matter if you aren’t a proficient sewer (although those are very welcome, too!), there’s lots to do. Please let me know if you haven’t already if you can help so we can make sure we have correct numbers for catering. Thanks!

As you may know we have been increasing our use of social media as part of our wider advertising push and this has really been paying off.

Now rehearsals for Peter Pan are well under way you can help us by sharing our posts and tweets and making your own. We really need to create a buzz around the production to attract as many people as possible. Follow us on Twitter @ForumPlayers and retweet us and where you tweet yourself about the panto please include our handle so we will see it and can reply/retweet.

In all social media posts please can you use our hashtag #BEPeterPan. This is on all official PR and again the aim is to create a buzz around it and have lots of results if someone searches online against it. We will also be encouraging audience members to use it before and after the production, for example by having our own version of a photo booth at Claytons School Christmas fair and Bourne End’s fun night.