For any chance of success we need to establish a large data base of support that we can update with news and chances to participate as an audience member, or on or off stage. Our regular, irregular newsletter THE REPTILIAN will be an entertaining source of news of our opportunities, and developments across the UK Theatre Industry, bringing you offers, competitions, opinion and information on campaigning, worthwhile causes and exceptional theatre we’ve come across, that you may also want to support.
For the next stage of our journey, we wish to establish at least four regular performance sites across the South East where those on low incomes have limited access to the performing arts. During the course of each year, we would originate a new production at each site in turn, making the rehearsal period an opportunity to create a sense of shared ownership for that particular community. We would premiere the piece at that site over a long weekend of evening performances from Friday to Sunday, with a matinee on Saturday. Over the ensuing long weekends, we would take the production to each of the remaining three venues. In this way, we hope to extend the reach of each production and apply to each borough for a proportion of our annual costs.
Having successfully operated as a registered charity for 15 years, and, for convenience as a registered Community Interest Company since COVID, the time has come to recruit a fresh board of trustees to establish a brand-new registered charity STAGE OF LIFE, appropriate to our rejuvenated goals and ambition. If you'd be interested in being part of our governing body, please get in touch. We need you as soon as possible.
There can be no doubt that the amount of private and public subsidy, funding and donations necessary to operate a company of this size and ambition is formidable. However, we remain dedicated to the long-term goal of paying everyone involved a living wage. In the immediate term we are looking to find funding to bring the following projects to fruition. However, for this to succeed we first need to raise sufficient capital to support the ongoing core costs of our small office and the company’s administration all of which has been personally carried by our Artistic Director donating a full time, unpaid, working week, year-round, in order to ensure the Rep has a future. This is no longer sustainable.
The only real way to persuade first time audiences that theatre is worth fighting for is to show them what they're missing with the magic of a live performance . The challenge then becomes how to achieve this before we've raised any of the funding we're seeking to create live performances.
We're going to try!
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​THE WINTER PALACE
Late December/January 2025
Our seasonal family show for New Year weaves a story of dark Russian magic, daring and romance.
When a cruel Tzar's 's unchecked jealousy destroys his family, it takes powerful magic to melt his heart and restore harmony .
Or does it?
Freely adapted from a beloved story by William Shakespeare and played out in a beautiful immersive setting that will transport your imagination to a mythical Imperial Russia.
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BRIEF GAY ENCOUNTERS
February 2025
A poignant new tale of forbidden love set against the backdrop of the 1945 movie masterpiece.
When a young doctor finds himself treating the new railway station porter, recently released from National Service in the coal mines, it's a brief encounter that haltingly leads to many more.
But even as post war Britain is persuaded by the radical idea of an NHS other prejudices prove harder to shift. Is keeping a forbidden love secret really the only option?
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DR JEKYLL'S PLAYLIST.
March 2025
A new jukebox musical for audiences all ages.
Our version of the much loved and widely studied Jekyll and Hyde story, of a respectable doctor who parties like a monster, audaciously imagines' him with a contemporary Spotify account of favourite songs, his listening choice at each stage of his adventures brings a funny and poignant perspective to the familiar story that will delight both fans of the original and newcomers to the story.
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Our production relocates the action to a Steam Punk Victorian Kennington.
​THE JOURNEY TO AMERICA
A DICKENSIAN RECITATION OF A LOST GEM
HARD TIMES
A FULL STAGING FOR THE 250TH ANNIVERSARY
LITTLE DORRIT
A SCREENING OF THE CELEBRATED 2 PART SANDS FILM
Introducing new audiences (and readers) to the work of Charles Dickens, in especially sourced welcoming performance spaces has been one of the great pleasures of recent years
In 2025 we’re looking to establish a mini-festival in Bermondsey, the setting of some of his most dramatic scenes, where streets, pubs and housing estates are named after his characters yet the meaning of these names have been lost.
We invite our audience to enjoy the fearless theatricality of Dickensian language and storytelling, in the epic tales of everyday humanity overcoming great evil, that are part of our shared local heritage.
Celebrating the power of the written and spoken word.
Throughout our history the River Thames has been the literal backdrop to much of our outdoor summer work the accessibility of which has been a major factor in drawing new audiences to theatre. As we reconfigure what we do in response to the steep decline in UK theatre going returning to these sites is one of our priorities.
For 15 consecutive summers Phil Willmott and his team staged masterpieces from world and children's literature in free multi-award winning theatre productions to over 450,000 people.
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Since Covid an excellent festival of free summer films, events and music has continued at the Scoop, More London Riverside but theatre has been minimal. In 2025 we'd like to restore a greater theatre element to the summer festival with new productions of ALICE IN WONDERLAND for all ages and Brecht's MOTHER COURAGE for older audiences.
Immediately the Covid lockdowns lifted we took a company of actors down to the Thames Riverbank, staging HAMLET "on the beach" and drawing large crowds to a simple staging designed to draw households out of isolation.
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In 2025 we'd like to work with the Port of London Authority to identify sites where Londoners and visitors can discover the Thames foreshore by staging pop up productions of Jason and the Argonauts for families and the dark, ancient Greek legend of what happened next in Euripides' masterpiece MEDEA
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Everything you need to know about joining our fight for the future of UK Theatre
Whilst we fight for full funding we need "actorvists".
People like you who can dedicate a little of their spare time to ensure UK theatre has a future.
For everyone.
