Archives - Welwyn Drama Festival

Monday 11th – Saturday 16th June 2012

The 78th annual festival at the Hawthorne Theatre

This event is at the Hawthorne Theatre, Welwyn Garden City

It’s an exciting line-up at this year’s Welwyn Drama Festival! Teams from all over the UK, including local groups from Welwyn and St.Albans, will be at the Hawthorne Theatre, Campus West, every evening from Monday 11th to Saturday 16th June. This year eight out of the twelve teams will be presenting.

Here’s just a flavour of the delights in live on stage at this year’s festival:

• Local team, Digswell Players from Welwyn brings us the story of Olive and Hilary, a play by Geraldine Aron. Olive and Hilary have exchanged the 'rat race' for reading Tarot cards and selling herb-filled pillows. Well-meaning friends try to persuade them to give up the simple life, but Olive and Hilary take an unusual revenge…
• Winners of the Tony Sidoli award for Best Play at the Abbey Theatre Festival of New Playwriting – from St Albans and with a fantastic name, All Actors are Psychotic – bring the new play Empire of Dirt by Ian Jordan. As Pastor Clay Jones ends another day at the Mega Church, New Faith, in Bible-belt USA, he is visited by Jerry Summer, an ageing member of his congregation, proclaiming a revelation with profound implications.
• Breakaway Theatre, also from St Albans, present the new play, Sofa Story, by Pete Hawes - a comedic and touching tale of finding love in the strangest of places... even down the back of a sofa. They’ll be making a second appearance with Bed by Jim Cartwright.
• Presenting The 2012 Overture, a new play by Jane Fookes, Company B has been formed especially for this year’s Welwyn Drama Festival, bringing together new and not so new members of the Company of Ten in St Albans. Keen to prove herself and gain promotion a young reporter brings her editor a terrifying scoop unaware of the horrors the story could unleash.
• All the way from Leicestershire, Oadby Drama, bring A Kind of Alaska by the moving and insightful Harold Pinter. This compelling play, based on Oliver Sachs's Awakenings, explores the extraordinary situation of a woman who has spent three decades in a catatonic state and how she tries to come to terms with waking in the present. Despite its haunting quality, it is a curiously positive and life-enhancing piece.

And that’s just the start. Full details of all thirteen plays are available on the festival website.

Tickets

Every evening there will be at least two plays. You can book for one evening for just £10 on the door, or £8 in advance. Student tickets are just £5 and under-16s go free with a paying adult.

If you are a true drama addict, then why not book a season ticket for all 6 nights?

Box office

Book online now at the Hawthorne Theatre or call 01707 357117. The box office is open Monday to Saturday, 9am to 8:30pm and from 9:30am to 8:30pm on Sunday.

Venue

Hawthorne Theatre
Campus West
The Campus
Welwyn Garden City
Hertfordshire
AL8 6BX