We are very pleased to announce the programme for the forthcoming 85th Welwyn Drama Festival

Monday 13th May

Limitless Academy of Performing Arts
Senior Winners of the Welwyn Garden City
Youth Drama Festival
Teechers by John Godber

Come see Mr Nixon attempt to control the wild kids of Whitewall High School! Using the format of an end-of-term play, the new drama teacher’s progress through two terms of carnage classes, sneering colleagues and obstructive caretakers is reviewed. Disenchanted, he departs for a safer private school.

The College Players
The Welsh Job by Nick Wilkes

In this award-winning play based on true events from November 2000, an undercover British hit squad carry out a ‘devastating deed’ at the Plaza Hotel in New York.

Tuesday 14th May

Room One Theatre Company
Riverside Drive by Woody Allen

The companion play to Old Saybrook, Woody Allen’s other half of Writer’s Block, Riverside Drive is an absurdist take on marital infidelity set on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Fred Savage, a homicidal, paranoid, schizophrenic vagrant ex-copywriter, has been stalking screenwriter Jim Swain for weeks, convinced that his prey stole his idea – in fact, his life – to create a successful movie plot.

The Settlement Players
The Second Night by Jim Anderson

Exactly fifty years ago, the swinging sixties were drawing to a  close. An ordinary American couple return home after a family trip.  During the evening they discuss recent events in their neighbourhood, unaware of what is about to happen…

Wednesday 15th May

Woodhouse Players
One Day When We Were Young by Nick Payne

Leonard is scared. Not about his impending departure. He’s not even worried about the falling bombs. He’s scared that when it’s all over, she won’t be waiting for him.

Violet wants Leonard to know how proud she is of him. She took him dancing. She’s baked him a cake. She can’t imagine a future without him.  But when that future is taken away, how long can you wait?

Out of Ideas Theatre Company
Silence and Skylarks by Sarah Ridley

Ever wondered what it’s like growing up with hearing loss? Seventeen-year-old music-loving Maggie faces the loss of not only her hearing but everything she knows as normal.

Thursday 16th May

Company of Ten
Peitho’s Persuasion by Jan Haniff

Agnes devotes all her passion to her lingerie shop leaving no time for romance of her own.  Now in her sixties, life is a struggle, especially with the threat of a bridal shop opening in the same street. Her new assistant, appears adept at handling the emotional problems of the customers, but can she help Agnes with hers?

The Over Players
The Play’s The Thing by Kirsty Smillie

It’s Drama Festival time and tensions are running thus unusually high. What play should they take to the Festival? Should they go with an old familiar, or should they try something bold, something new? No matter what they do, they seem to fail. So – will they win this year or will it be full of sound and fury, signifying… nothing?

Back to Front Theatre
The Hebrew Lesson by Wolf Mancowitz

Set in Ireland in 1921 this is a story of a young revolutionary who seeks shelter from an elderly refugee.  They are united in their fear of the outside world.

Friday 17th May

The Players’ Theatre (Wales)
The Nth Degree by Richard James

In a Fundamentalist state,  new reporter arranges a confrontation between two prisoners and the couple who prosecuted them for offences against their faith.

Bus Stop Productions
Baggage by Bev Clark

When housewife Sandra misses the bus she meet Annie a homeless woman and they begin to form an unlikely friendship.  Sandra is weary and frustrated but Annie’s tragic background makes her re-evaluate her life.

Bawds
Killing Him Softly by Sean Baker

Robert McLintock is the highly successful author of the Trent Rockface series of novels, but is suffering from writer’s block. When he decides to let the characters write their own story, things begin spiralling out of control.

Saturday 18th May

The Players’ Theatre (Wales)
See You Tomorrow by Frank Vickery

In a small hospital’s single room a patient is seriously ill, his nurse seems emotionally involved, so too is a friend.

Garden Suburb Theatre
Jeeves and the Song of Songs by Francis Beckett

Bertie and his friend Tuppy Glossop are persuaded to sing “Sonny Boy” to an East End audience consisting, as Bertie puts it, of “a million costermongers, with a sprinkling of whelk stall attendants, purveyors of blood oranges, and minor pugilists.”  It may be the only way Tuppy can get his girl, and Bertie can avoid getting his.

Followed by the Awards Ceremony

Please note: Programme is subject to alteration in the event of a team withdrawing their entry due to unforeseen circumstances