About the Players

Main Productions

We perform two major productions each year in the autumn and the following summer. We try to give our audiences and ourselves a good balance of plays over a two or three year period. We have several members who direct for us and they offer plays to the committee who decide which to accept.

Drama Festivals

In April we usually enter the Maidenhead Drama Festival of one-act plays. This is a competitive festival attracting about twenty entries from the area, which are assessed by an experienced, qualified adjudicator (a different one each year). We use the festival as an experimental working ground for new, unusual or particularly challenging plays, often directed by an inexperienced director. The honest and practical criticism of the adjudicator is very helpful in improving our overall standards and the extra edge of competition ensures that we look in detail at every aspect of our play. This discipline is then hopefully carried over to our main productions. The Players have been outright winners of the festival no less than seventeen times, far more than any other company. We have also been lucky enough to win many other special awards in the festival over the years. 

Open Air Theatre

In recent years we have been invited to perform at a Drama festival at Cliveden. Initially we were invited to perform Shakespeare's works. ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ was staged in 1997 in damp and cool conditions, which were easily surpassed by the mud and torrential rain during the following year’s ‘Merry Wives’. Vowing never to return we instantly accepted the National Trust’s invitation to take on the seasonal monsoons in 1999 with The ‘Dream’. However, the weather smiled on us and we played to the largest audience (about three and a half thousand people) in the twenty years of the Cliveden festival. Other plays we have produced there include Twelfth Night, and As you like it. In 2003 we were commissioned to produce something a little different and staged the bawdy romp "Tom Jones". In 2004, the final year of the festival, we used the marvelous Alan Bennett's script for "Wind in the willows". 

Auditions

Plays are cast following an open audition. Sometimes there is an informal reading of the play some time before which helps to familiarise everyone with the script. The director invites a group of three or four other experienced members (who are not themselves up for a part) to assist in the decision making and they eventually agree on a cast, following auditions which give as many people as possible the opportunity to try for a part. The play is cast with the strongest possible actors. Clearly, the director will have particular views as to whom he or she wants but the other casting committee members are there to suggest alternatives or possible combinations of actors the director might not have considered. Thus, responsibility is to an extent shared and personal upsets are hopefully avoided. Parts will always be given to the best person possible, but clearly if there is nothing to choose between two actors, the one who has been working hardest to support other productions in recent months is more likely to be cast.

Rehearsals

We rehearse up to three times a week, usually on weeknights, with the occasional Sunday afternoon as the performance week approaches. A major production will normally rehearse for between six and eight weeks. On the final Sunday before show week we rehearse all Sunday afternoon. This is often the last opportunity to check costumes and props before it is too late.

Set Building

We build and paint our own sets, which are designed by one of our members. We work at weekends - either Saturday or Sunday depending on the current arrangements. We expect as many members as possible to help with building and painting the set - not just the cast but everyone. The more who turn up, the quicker it is built. Skill is not required; there are always relatively simple jobs to be done which then release those more experienced to get on faster. 

Show Week

Sunday is spent rigging set and lights and building the set. On Monday, those who are able to take the day off work continue with set dressing and focussing lights in preparation for the technical rehearsal on Monday evening. Tuesday is the dress rehearsal, which in theory runs exactly as a performance. Performances are from Wednesday to Saturday with a de-rig and get-out following the performance. The party begins at someone’s house when all the work is done and goes on very, very late!

Membership

We currently have about 20 active members but are constantly looking for more. Some have been with the company for many years, others drop in and out from time to time and some have only recently joined. We are unusual in amateur companies in having approximately as many male members as female. Currently, the age range spans from early twenties to retirement age with a slight concentration of thirty-somethings. We do accept members in their teens but do not offer specific activities for young people. They pitch in with everybody else and soon learn the ropes. 'The Players' is, however, an excellent training ground for young people keen on the theatre and over the years several have been with us for a number of years and then gone on to join the profession. Others have gone away to university or college and then returned to become active members whilst being occupied in another profession. Several of our members travel from towns and villages some distance away, from as far away as Reading in the west to London in the east whilst about half live in Maidenhead itself. The backgrounds of our members vary – they include businessmen and women, teachers, solicitors, sales personnel, and people working in TV and local government. Many close friendships have built up over the years. Putting on a play is a very good way of getting to know people well and whilst we are not a ‘social club’, the Players is an excellent way of meeting new people and getting to know them (and yourself!) very well. New members may feel a little daunted at first – many of us have known each other for years and the banter and leg-pulling can give the impression that new people are not particularly welcome. Nothing could be further from the truth!

Second Tuesday

The Players are aware that once a play has been cast the group is in danger of splitting into two for the next few weeks – those in the play and those not. We encourage all members to come to rehearsals occasionally to watch and comment.  Second Tuesday - the second Tuesday of each month - is club night, when we invite all members along to see a some of the rehearsal, have a chat over coffee and stage a workshop or play reading.

Local churches

The Players originated as a religious drama group. However, back in the sixties the supply of well-written Christian plays was soon exhausted and a broader remit was adopted of presenting plays which challenge modern-day values or which raise moral issues. There was also a place for the occasional comedy simply designed to entertain. This policy has never really been changed although there is no longer a conscious effort to fulfil these requirements. Similarly, in the seventies we started attracting members who were not church-goers and over the past two decades or more the proportion of Players who are church members has become very much in the minority. We use the premises of the United Reformed church for rehearsing and many of the members of this and the Methodist churches in Maidenhead come to see our plays. In short, whilst no longer a ‘religious’ drama group we are more than happy to retain our links with local churches and clearly would never deliberately present a play that might be considered blasphemous or cause offence to the church members.

'Our Theatre'

September 2000 saw the opening of Norden Farm Centre for the Arts. For about 20 years we have been actively supporting the attempts to get an arts centre with a theatre built in Maidenhead and now the long wait is over. Norden Farm contains two theatres – the main house is a 225-seat 'courtyard' design able to be used for theatre in the round, thrust stage or end stage. Technically its second to none and has enabled us to build on our reputation for sophisticated sets, lighting and sound. Pins will be heard dropping in every play since the acoustics are being designed by the country’s leading consultants.  The studio is a simple square room with various seating and staging options and seats about 80 in a typical studio theatre mode. It is nevertheless equipped with excellent lighting and sound facilities and will be just as exciting and interesting a venue as the main house.