Category: News

Happy days KDC members!

As if by magic, our Spring season ends, and like a pagan rite banishes the cold from these lands (for now). Perhaps we should do it earlier next year?

Once more a season from one of the hardest working theatre companies in London draws to a bittersweet end! Bitter for ending so soon. Sweet for being such a good splash of shows. And Summer is so close too!

It’s been a really exciting season. Zoe spearheaded our Spotlight Showcase initiative with the amazing drama, The Early Bird, Fiona and Kat continued our tradition of supporting new writing with The Player Played and Stag Nation, Trina and Kim took the reigns on the latest very cool and VERY spooky devised piece, Visited, and Chris stepped backstage to direct Richard III as only he could imagine it! And of course, how can we forget that we actually started the year with Sarah’s Cutting Edge: An interactive Fairy Tale. Blimey! It’s all go!

So, as my self-enforced tradition dictates, mine and the committees thanks go out into this blue skied ether to:

Zoe Thomas-Webb, Fiona Thomas, Kat Wootton, Trina Hasthorpe, Kim Morrison, Chris Warren, Sarah Provencal, Steph Urquhart, Helen Niland, Doug Baker, Edith Webb, Richard Williams, Juliet Colbert, Charlie Golding, Matthew Partridge, Amy Wallis, Fozia Khaliq, Prasan Modasia, Carrie Johnson, Louise Bastock, Carl Fletcher, Emma Cherry Rolf, Thom Petty, Kate Sketchley, Amy Wackett, Ulli Ackermann, Bradley Johnson, Lorenzo Mason, Yasir Senna, Ciera Rose Allen, Claire Hubbard, Valentina Petito, Jacqui Adams, Brittany Atkins, Aruna Buchanan, James Edenborough, Eddie Register, Ami Sawran, Violet Edelman, Maeve McClenaghan, Vanessa Okello, Anna Postle, Chris Stooke, Anna Tsekouras, Francis Whittaker, Thea Beyleveld, Ben Waring, Laura Hymers, Monica Ibe, Wayil Eisa, Judith Barbeler, Sarah Ratner, Lisa Bender, Nick Dastoor and “Disco” Chris Dascalopoulos

COMING UP NEXT ON KDC THEATRE!

SUMMER!

PICNICS!

THIRSTY THURSDAYS!

READING NIGHTS!

AGM!

And most importantly, our XX/XY season at the Barons Court! More details to come VERY soon!

Now you may have an ice cream.

Be seeing you!

Andy Marchant

KDC Chair

As our Spring Season of five shows rounds off this week with Christopher Warren’s adaptation of Richard III, your committee find themselves looking to the future, and specifically to our Summer Season in the Barons Court Theatre!

Our summer season will run on the weeks beginning 15 and 22 July, and we are looking for pitches of a very specific nature.

The XX/XY season

Each of our weeks will see a production with an exclusively male or female cast (but we will also consider “predominantly” male of female as an option)

What we want from our directing members are interesting and exciting pitches for shows with casts of AROUND 8 actors (and upwards).

So perhaps this is the time to dust off your copy of Glengarry Glen Ross, or Playhouse Creatures, or whatever you may have seen or read before that you love! Or go online and see what’s out there. Or tell us about your all female Julius Caesar, or your all male Top Girls (that one might not work).

BUT we need to hear from you and we need to hear from you soon.

We are able to extend (or XX/XYtend) our pitch process to Midnight on Sunday April 14^th, so if you are interested, please email artistic@kdctheatre.com and let us know your ideas and we will arrange to meet you to hear more!

To give all you lovely members more of a say in what KDC delivers to you, we’d like you to take a couple of minutes and fill in the survey. If you include your email address, you’ll enter a draw to win a pair of tickets to one of the Spring shows. We have four pairs to give away. Thanks for your feedback!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/B78FJ5R

A message from Andy, our chair:

We want you! We want you to have a great time with us, and enjoy some top quality drama, so I, your steamed Chair, am here to tell you not just what’s coming up, but what’s going to be so great about it!

Okay, so let me tell you about the first show, our first OFFICIAL Spotlight Showcase, THE EARLY BIRD.

Usually with KDC, when we look for shows, we think of what would be a fair cast size to encompass our membership as much as possible, so usually we aim for about 8 people in a show at least. Problem with that is that there are an awful lot of amazing plays that don’t get the benefit of being staged, and an awful lot of brilliant actors and directors that never get the opportunity to really fine tune a piece to the last molecule.

So Emma, our Artistic Director, and myself decided to put the word out for a “Spotlight Showcase” – a show specifically for two or three actors to work intensively together. Zoe Thomas-Webb came to us with the brilliant and dark play THE EARLY BIRD and some really cool ideas for the show. This is a really new idea for us, and it’s going to be great to see our two Spotlight Showcase Actors, Thom Petty and Kate Sketchley (both new to KDC Theatre!) in action!

This is our first show up, and I’m personally really excited about it!

Go to , or to our homepage to book tickets.

So after that, we return to one of KDC Theatre’s Strengths with a new writing double bill.

The first time I got involved with KDC was in a piece of New Writing called Madman William, where I was cast as a rather groggy and frustrated writer (which is basically me). Since then, the new writing at KDC has increased in leaps and bounds, with Eddie Coleman, and later yours truly pushing forward ideas like Round Table Readings of new plays, Rehearsed Readings and a fast and loose and fun concept called “Play in a Day”. Out new writing has also extended to an anniversary piece (The Long Run), a collaborative piece (Summers Gone) and most recently, and incredibly well received contribution to the RSC’s Open Stages project, The War Of The Waleses.

So… new writing is a big deal at KDC and something I get totally revved up about. We have two plays;

One is a fantastic piece all in rhyme, by long time member Matthew Partridge, directed by our very own Fiona Thomas called The Player Played. When we read this at one of our reading nights it really tripped off the tongue and is sure to be be a real crowd pleaser.

Back to back with this one we have Stag Nation. A bawdy, booze stinking hangover riddled play, very much about the morning after the night before. Kat Wootton, who directed the brilliant Sister Mary Ignatius last Summer has the reins on this one.

Tickets here

And last, but by no stretch of the imagination, least – Richard III. Shakespeare. Classic Text. Well know play. Female Richard…

Wait, what!? That’s right! A female Richard. Christopher Warren’s adaptation of this legend of a play stemmed from this initial idea, then took root in his brain until it burst forth from his mouth as a fully rounded pitch. The potential discovery of Richards remains is PURELY circumstantial and is in no way a publicity stunt for this show. IN. NO. WAY…

This is our Ensemble piece for the season, made Glorious Summer with new member Thea Beyleveld taking the title role.

Tickets for Richard III are at and KDC website.

But before all that, THIS THURSDAY at the HOOP AND GRAPES it all starts with one of our tried and tested Thirsty Thursday events. These are not simply your bog standard “nights in a pub” – oh no. This is us, as a community, all together, all from different shows, hanging out, talking about what’s coming up, sharing our interest and enthusiasm.

It’s a place where you can see our drunken Stags hanging out with Richard III or one of her cronies, or see the rare sight of a director buying a round.

It’s free, it’s not exclusive to people in shows, and it may well be that “way to know the company” that you were looking for.

Be seeing you! Regards, Marchie

Hello there KDC!

I hope that, unlike myself, you are well, and have no tickles in the throat, or sniffles to irritate your colleagues and loved ones!

Another year done for one of the hardest working theatre companies in London! Who would have thought that just about 12 months ago we were thanking the directors of our 2011 Winter Season, and preparing for an exciting Spring!

It’s been a great year for us, with some amazingly popular shows and some exciting stuff in general! We’ve had 11 shows (one of which performed in a total of FOUR different venues!), one new season, and two new venues! From our Shakespearean Spring of Measure for Measure, The Tamer Tamed and War of the Waleses, all three Assistant Directors went on to direct for our Summer Season of one act plays. Richard Williams brought back the ever popular Devised Piece. Sarah Heenan took War of the Waleses to Camden, Ealing and STRATFORD UPON AVON. Duncan Moore helmed our very first Halloween play in Dracula! We had some adaptations of Dickens Ghost Stories which we WON’T have seen the last of! We’ve said goodbye to some of our great committee members, Anna Marx and Sandy Nicholson, and said hello to others, Aruna Buchanan, Kim Morrison and Dave Balfour. And our amazing year finished off with the fantastically funny and appropriately seasonal productions of The Lying Kind and The Priory!

So as it tradition, my thanks go out, not just for this season, but for the year in total to YOU, our community and membership for your continued support, and ALSO, to those who’ve thrown so much in for 2012, so thank you…

Duncan Moore, Emma Knott, Dan West, Charles Golding, Steph Urquhart, Doug Baker, Sally Wilks, Lucy Hill, Fiona Thomas, Juliet Colbert, Tracie Laurinaitis, Alan Maddrell, Jimi Odell, Will Baltyn, Chris Stooke, Marcus Mollan, Mark Ewins, Anna Marx, Catherine Kolubayev, Kate Moore, Su Vigus, James Laing, Ronan Fitzgerald, Tracey Pocock, Bernard Doogan, Dawn Williams, Richard Evans, Imogen Levy, Adam Moulder, Chris Warren, Stephen Russell, Neil Duggan, Fran Rafferty, Layla Estasy, Sophie Head, Isabel Eriksson, Pip Brewer, Matthew Partridge, Kathy Robbins, Charlotte Blake, Zoe Ashdown, Ernesta Vainovskaja, Michael Barry, Zoe Thomas-Webb, Mary Groom, Amy Bird, Julia Collier, Kathy Petrakis, Sarah Hennan, Carl Fletcher, Frances Bushe *DEEP BREATH* Helen Niland, Katherine Wootton, Richard Williams, Ciara Robley, Sian Davies, Carrie Johnston, Amy Jackson, Helen Jackson, Peter Cabrera, Trina Hasthorpe, Govind Hodgson, Bernard O’Sullivan, Michael Johnston, Lisa Moore, Nick Dastoor, Jeremy Small, Alex Waddington, Samantha Merrydew, March Fothergill, Fiona O’Sullivan, Anna Whitelock, Catherine Ion, Kevin Morin, Oli Wilson, Caleb Watson, Francis Whittaker, Invo Dinkov, James Tulley, Kim Morrison, Maeve McClenaghan, Vanessa Okello, David Balfour, Nick Franco, David Crackles, Jacqui Adams, Asma Mani, James Killeen, Tracie Laurinaitis, Sarah Beebe, Jess Battersby, Matt Hudson, Elizabeth Daly, Hayden Bennett, Ida Scofano, Marlies Kunnen, Lucy Walker, Sky Bembury, Alice Jeffrey, Jules Cross, Tash Muntoni, Chris Penney, Eddie Register, Clive Eliot, Alexis Coward, Cara Baressi, Abi Deffee, Beccy Reese, Rob Timbrell, Ciaran Cunningham, Matt Matravers, Simon Hill, Julia Collier, Alex Wheeler, Rebecca Ison, Alexandra Mackenzie-Smith, Catlin Homes, Nigel Barker, Sarah Lowes, Leila Mountford, Rebecca Shoot, Rob Britton, Melissa Reardon, Tom Mannings, Claire Stone, all our contacts at Questors and the RSC,  Charlotte, Martin and Ryan and the other guys at the Etcetera Theatre and George, Bianca and all of the Giant Olive guys at The Lion and Unicorn!

We’re already off to a flying start for 2013 too! You Decide is a VERY cool new thing we’re trying in the shape of an audience interactive theatre pieve – Auditions are TONIGHT Monday 10th. Details are on the website! We also have two of our plays in place for our Spring Season! A Spotlight Showcase for two actors, in the form of The Early Bird, to be directed by first time collaborator, long time friend, Zoe Thomas-Webb, and our Ensemble Classic, Richard III, to be directed by Chris Warren, formerly of The Priory, Measure for Measure and Anna Karenina! You can find out more from THEM at our pub quiz in The Hoop and Grapes on Thursday!

Phew! If you’ve made it this far, treat yourself to a cookie.

My fingers are numb, but my note is complete!

See you ALL very soon!

Bring on 2013!

Andy Marchant

KDC Chair