I suppose it isn’t really surprising – after all, 2026 is HHTC’s Centenary Year – and a month and a bit since Christmas; but an awful lot has to happen in terms of budgeting, licence acquiring, set designing, script buying, technical team gathering, publicity, introductory evenings and auditions before you are finally able to start rehearsing anything.
But we are there now, with rehearsals in full swing for the comedy Bedroom Farce by Alan Ayckbourn, which will be on-stage from Wednesday March 26 to Saturday, March 29; and the musical Sister Act – hugely popular since the Whoopi Goldberg film hit the screens – which will be at The Boxmoor Playhouse from Tuesday, June 24 to Saturday, June 28.
Bedroom Farce involves four couples and is set in the bedrooms of three of them, where any attempt at tranquility is disrupted by the marital problems of the fourth couple. The set involves the creation of three separate rooms containing double beds – an interesting challenge for set designer/builder John Eames, since the stage at the Playhouse could not be described as vast! Come to see it to find out how this space issue is resolved!
Sister Act, with its large chorus of singing nuns presents a different challenge: everyone was warned by choreographer Gisele Yoh Fowles that although there might not be too much moving around (because choirs tend to stay in one place ) the amount of energetic action in each number would: “amount to a workout at every rehearsal”!
“We had some excellent but very long auditions, followed by two hours of deliberation,” said director Iain Fowles, “and we have a first-rate cast of over 20, all of a very high calibre.” In the leading role of Deloris, the nightclub singer forced to hide in a convent from her gangster ex-boyfriend, is Sarah Winter, very well-known on the local amateur stage with a string of leading roles from musicals ranging from Cabaret, to Into the Woods.
Clearly, there’s plenty to keep everyone busy for the next few months, without even mentioning our week-long youth summer school, a musical revue planned for the autumn and then – guess what? – Christmas panto.
After all, a Centenary Year only happens every hundred years!
