Latest news from CADS
June 2022 newsletter
(June 20, 2022)Kim to come
We're delighted to announce that the talented Kim Ensor - former CADS member and now full-time actor - has agreed to give a talk about life on the professional stage at one of our evening meetings. The date is Tuesday 19 July at the Coombes Community Centre in Burns Road and the meeting starts at 7.30.
Kim says she'll be covering such things as training and auditions, dealing with agents, motivation, and coping with the pandemic, as well as detailing some of the milestones in her career so far and a few of the funny things that have happened on the way. The talk is likely to last about an hour and there'll be a Q&A session of about half an hour afterwards.
Kim has suggested that you might like to submit your questions in advance; this would to some extent help her to structure the talk, although she's equally happy to answer on the spot during the Q&A session. If you do want to send in a question, please contact [email protected] in the usual way and it'll be forwarded to Kim.
Learn from a pro
The first of our free acting workshops, hosted by former professional actor and CADS award winner Martin Maynard, took place on Tuesday 14 June (a late change from the previously advertised Wednesday) and was both well attended and much appreciated, despite a somewhat rocky start when the school buildings were found to be locked!. The situation was, however, quickly resolved and the evening was a great success. There are four more sessions, each on a Tuesday evening from 7.00 to 9.00 p.m. at King James Academy Royston (Senior Site) and it's not too late to go along and learn more about the craft of acting.
If you'd like to take part in the remaining sessions, though, it would be enormously helpful to know in advance so that Martin can select pieces to work on that reflect the composition of the group; please contact [email protected] to register your interest.
New blood
We were delighted this month to welcome to the CADS committee two new members, though both are well known to the group. Alison Bass and Ruth Durrant have both volunteered to help us steer CADS through the next year and hopefully beyond. Alison attended our recent meeting (Ruth will do so at our next) and has already, as you'll see below, contributed greatly to our plans for the remainder of this year!
Bombshell returns
You'll probably be aware by now that our production of Roy Maddox's The Blonde Bombshell did pretty well at this year's Welwyn Drama Festival, coming fifth out of a very strong field of fourteen one-act plays by teams from all over the country. It also scooped the award for Best Unpublished Play and the script is now likely to be submitted in September for the national Derek Jacobi Award for new playscripts.
We've thought long and hard about bringing this award-winning show to a Royston audience and have come up with a plan to perform it at this year's Royston Arts Festival (which runs from 23 to 25 September). We weren't sure at first what to pair it with in order to make a complete evening's entertainment, but at the suggestion of new committee member Alison Bass, we're now hoping to combine a live performance of Bombshell with a screening of another Roy Maddox original - Seven Movies. This was a piece written specifically to be performed during lockdown and recorded via Zoom and was the CADS entry to the 2021 Welwyn Drama Festival, where it won awards for Kathy Young (performance) and Michael Young (direction) as well as a special Adjudicator's Award for one particular scene.
More details on these plans as soon as we have them!
Committee
Our next meeting is on 13 July, so if there's anything you'd like us to consider or discuss then, please feel free to contact any of us at any time via the Contact page of this website!