Newsletter June 2024
Hi,
Long days & “some” sun, it must mean it’s time for our open-air Production!
Chiltern Shakespeare Company - Comedy of Errors - June 2024
We’ve moved into Hall Barn and set building has commenced! Final rehearsals are taking place and marquees and seating are being delivered this week. It’s very exciting!
We hope you’ve got your tickets booked! Some nights have already sold out, which is amazing.
So purchase a picnic, or bring your own and enjoy the stunning surroundings of Hall Barn before watching The Comedy of Errors. Your seats are undercover in case of inclement weather. A full bar and refreshments will be available.
Look forward to seeing you there!
Fourways Theatre Company - Blue Stockings - October 2024.
We are delighted to announce that Roger Saper will be directing Blue Stockings in October 2024 at Wycombe Abbey School.
We are incredibly excited to follow up Fourways huge success with Nell Gwynn two years ago, with Jessica Swale’s first play which was originally performed professionally on 23rd August 2013 and won her the Most Promising Playwright in the Evening standard awards in 2013.
The play is about the fight by a group of young ladies to gain educational recognition, similar to their male counterparts. In 1869 the first residential college for women was set up at Hitchin (some 20 miles from Cambridge i.e. considered a safe distance) and moved to Girton in 1896, 2 miles from Cambridge.
Although this play is ostensibly about that fight for recognition over an academic year, where the girls studied exactly the same syllabus as their male counterparts and then came home empty handed, whilst the men received degrees, it is about so much more. Women were no longer wanting to be confined to their Victorian corsets or follow in the footsteps of their demure mothers but were moving rapidly into the 20th Century.
The play begins with Girton’s new Mistress Elizabeth Welsh alongside her staff and students deciding to begin the campaign to win the girls right to graduate. This has become a very important part of social history and is now part of the GCSE syllabus.
Oh, by the way, Wycombe Abbey’s founder and first Head mistress was one of the original 9 Girton Girls. That’s amazing and we are going to tell you an unforgettable story.
We’re very busy working on our 2025 programme, so watch out for exciting new updates!
Very best wishes,
Carolyn
Carolyn Kendall
Chairman Fourways Theatre Company/Chiltern Shakespeare Company
