MEMBERS AGM – REMINDER
Stables Theatre Annual General Meeting – 25th March 2024
This year’s AGM will be held at the Theatre on 25th March 2024 at 7.30pm.
Statement of Accounts – as last year, the accounts will be available on our website from 18th March 2024 Click Here or in hard copy on the night of the AGM.
AUDITION NOTICE-THE LAST FIVE YEARS
Director: Hugo Trebels
Assistant Director: Jamie Seaton
Musical Director: Lesley Olivia van Egmond
Performance dates: Sept 17,2024 to Sept 20, 2024.
Open Auditions (all are welcome to attend).
Audition date: May 19, 2024 at the Stables Theatre, Hastings. Auditions will start at 10am
10am till 1pm – first auditions
2pm onwards – further first auditions and initial call backs
Recall date: May 26, 2024 at the Stables Theatre, Hastings. Recalls will start at 10am.
Rehearsal dates: Mainly Tuesday and Thursday evenings 7pm to 9.30pm. There will be a couple of Mondays instead of Tuesdays and please expect a couple of Sunday rehearsals. Start date TBC
Production week – cast call time will be at 6.00pm on performance days (1pm for the matinee performance). There will be a company warm up which is compulsory, and we will strictly adhere to ‘the half’. Please bear this in mind when you audition.
Synopsis
A contemporary song-cycle musical that ingeniously chronicles the five year life of a marriage, from meeting to break-up… or from break-up to meeting, depending on how you look at it. Written by Jason Robert Brown (Parade, Songs For A New World), The Last Five Years is an intensely personal look at the relationship between a writer and an actress told from both points of view.
The story explores a five-year relationship between Jamie and Cathy. Cathy’s story is told in reverse chronological order (beginning the show at the end of the marriage), and Jamie’s is told in chronological order (starting just after the couple have first met). The characters do not directly interact except for a wedding song in the middle as their timelines intersect.
Jamie Wellerstein
Male, tenor. Jamie is a talented, charming, and rising novelist. He’s ambitious and enthusiastic, experiencing a growing success in his career. Jamie’s part is written for a Tenor. His vocal range in the musical extends from A2 (A below middle C) to Bb4. Jamie’s songs demand a good upper range, with a mix of lyrical and powerful moments.
Cathy Hyatt
Female, mezzo soprano. Cathy is a struggling actress, characterized by her emotional depth and vulnerability. She deals with professional rejections, the complexities of love, and the challenges of being in a relationship with a rising star. Cathy’s part is written for a Mezzo-Soprano. Her vocal range typically extends from about G3 (G below middle C) to D5 or Eb5. The character’s songs require a strong mix/belt voice as they often sit in the middle of the Mezzo range with occasional higher belts.
Music: You will be required to sing 2 songs for the auditions.
1. Please bring a song from any musical with you on the day. You will need to supply sheet music unless you are happy to sing a cappella. Please choose something that fits the style of this show and shows off your voice/range to the best of its abilities. No longer than two minutes please.
2. We would like you to sing one contrasting song from The Last Five Years. Sheet music and backing track for a 2 minute cut will be provided for you to learn. Please note, you will be accompanied on piano rather than using the backing track.
Cathy: I Can Do Better Than That or Still Smiling
Jamie: Nobody Needs To Know or Moving Too Fast
Please contact Hugo – htrebels@aol.com to register your interest in auditioning and to obtain audition materials.
This is a sung through musical without an interval.
Spring Theatre For Young People (10 – 14 Years)
Free Workshop, 10am-3pm, 20 Spaces.
The focus will be on voice, physicality and confidence on stage.
Morning – workshops
Afternoon – rehearsal and performance
Anonymous Was A Woman – An Interactive Seminar With Women Of Wit, Wisdom And Wonder
The Gwen Watford gallery a workshop for 30 people.
Using actual and imagined letters grounded in our discoveries, come join us, listen and be inspired to write yourselves through a unique opportunity. Led by two exceptional Women of Wit, Wisdom & Wonder.
From Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman) via Mary Shelley (Frankenstein), Ellen Terry (actor extraordinaire of late 19th and early 20th centuries), Edy Craig (theatre director, costume designer), Emily Wilding Davison (Suffragette) to women of the present day, research has led us to discover so much more than we are told.
Who would you write to? What would you say? What would you write to a woman of the future? Bring something that reminds you of a woman who inspires you (past or present).
Penni Blythe and Deborah Clair: Friendly Feminists write, act, sing, carry, inhabit and tell women’s stories, produce theatre, coach, educate, and reveal the reality of women’s lives then and now.
All welcome!
Deborah Clair as Emily Davsion. Photo by Peter Mould
Penni Blythe Photo by Nigel Jenkins
Shakespeare Now: Villain Villain!
Enter a world of conspiracy and intrigue; rebellion and revenge; treachery and deceit.
This year’s YT show is a unique theatrical experience which propels the audience into a gripping journey around some of Shakespeare’s most dangerous characters and those who aim to defeat them.
Vibrant and haunting, Villain Villain! is an intoxicating blend of unforgettable Shakesperean moments performed with dynamic energy.
Theatrical storytelling at its finest.
1066 Youth Theatre is a project for young people aged 14-19. Using physical theatre and innovative theatrical techniques, participants build new skills and develop their creative voice over a two week rehearsal period for this project. The directing team includes Mountview Drama School trained directors and Royal Shakespeare Company educational specialists.
Directed by Niall Whitehead and Barbara Ward
Blue Blood Or How To Kill Your Way To The Top
Allow outcast Gabriel Jones to introduce you to the eccentric and despicable members of the wealthy and illustrious Gascoyne family – his family. Witness Gabriel’s scandalous adventures and murderous revenge as he indulges himself in the most ruthless style of social climbing.
★★★★★“Without a doubt, one of the strongest shows I have seen in a long while. Richly intoxicating and darkly amusing; Blue Blood is a classic ‘eat the rich’ theatrical delight.” Emily Schofield, Lost in Theatreland.
An enthralling new play based on the classic novel that inspired the beloved Ealing comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets.
Blue Blood or How to Kill Your Way to the Top returns to The Stables after a sell-out show in the summer of 2023.
Benched
Benched is a unique exploration of human relationships – the formative and defining ones with those close to us, and the incidental meetings with strangers that stop us in our tracks. Through their unique style of transgentle storytelling, Tink demonstrates the radical and transformative power of offering undivided attention.
Prepare for a tender, spontaneous and uncompromising insight into Tink’s world, told through mementos, stories and improvised exchanges.
Benched is programmed by Home Live Art for Trans Pride Hastings.
Becoming Tosca
Have you ever seen a show and wondered about a character’s backstory and what brought them to the point at which the action starts? So have we. Hastings’ new opera theatre company present a prologue to Puccini’s famous opera, Tosca.Becoming Tosca is an innovative and unique piece of drama, illuminating the earlier lives of the well-known characters and propelling the audience into their world. Every song and every word of dialogue in the Prologue brings us new insights into their backgrounds and choices.
Catholicism and the appeal of dictatorship are never far from the surface in Puccini’s Tosca. Can revolution or religion change human nature? Can art be the agent of either or does it merely passively record the process? Becoming Tosca relocates the action to an unspecific Latin American setting in the second half of the 20th century; a nation founded on Jesuit colonisation, where religion now jostles with the politics of capitalism and self-interest. It is a society dominated by the struggle to exchange poverty for influence, still seeking solutions to all-pervasive inequalities and oppressions. Does the church love repentance or does it prefer punishment? Is brutality a necessary weapon to control a turbulent population? Even now, we do not have answers and until we do, these questions must continue to be examined.
An evening of revolution, romance and tragedy, combining newly composed music with a tango flavour and an abridged version of Puccini’s sumptuous score,will entertain you from the opening chords to the dramatic finale, challenging your preconception of both the original piece and the art form of opera itself.
Cast & Creatives
Tosca – Anna Sideris
Scarpia – Brendan Collins
Cavaradossi – Anthony Flaum
Spoletta – Jonathan Cooke
Angelotti – Harry Gentry
Director, Script & Translation – Christopher Cowell
Designer – Viva Halton Wright
Stage Management – Jane Richardson
Lighting Designer – Jon Richardson
Composer – Frank Moon