Watermill Theatre
Encyclopedia
Repertory
Repertory or rep, also called stock in the United States, is a term used in Western theatre and opera.A repertory theatre can be a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation...
theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
with charitable status. It is a converted watermill
Watermill
A watermill is a structure that uses a water wheel or turbine to drive a mechanical process such as flour, lumber or textile production, or metal shaping .- History :...
with gardens beside the River Lambourn, in Bagnor
Bagnor
Bagnor is a hamlet close to the town of Newbury in the English county of Berkshire and on the banks of the River Lambourn. It is best known as the home of the nationally famous Watermill Theatre. It was recorded in the Domesday Book as Bagenore....
, near Newbury
Newbury, Berkshire
Newbury is a civil parish and the principal town in the west of the county of Berkshire in England. It is situated on the River Kennet and the Kennet and Avon Canal, and has a town centre containing many 17th century buildings. Newbury is best known for its racecourse and the adjoining former USAF...
, Berkshire
Berkshire
Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It retains many of its original architectural features such as the waterwheel, which is viewed through a screen on entry to the auditorium; also wooden beams and corn chutes, which protrude incongruously through the lighting arrays. Although housed in a 200 year old building, the theatre uses state of the art technology.
Jill Fraser was a co-owner of the theatre (with her husband James Sargant) from 1981 until her death in 2006, and under her artistic direction it developed into a significant regional theatre. Jill's vision has led the Watermill to build an excellent reputation worldwide, whilst also encouraging creativity and growth at home; for example, many of today's successful theatre practitioners began their careers at the Watermill before going on to further their careers elsewhere (probably most famously Bill Nighy
Bill Nighy
William Francis "Bill" Nighy is an English actor and comedian. He worked in theatre and television before his first cinema role in 1981, and made his name in television with The Men's Room in 1991, in which he played the womanizer Prof...
, Sean Bean
Sean Bean
Shaun Mark "Sean" Bean is an English film and stage actor. Bean is best known for playing Boromir in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and, previously, British Colonel Richard Sharpe in the ITV television series Sharpe...
and David Suchet
David Suchet
David Suchet, CBE, is an English actor, known for his work on British television. He is recognised for his RTS- and BPG award-winning performance as Augustus Melmotte in the 2001 British TV mini-drama The Way We Live Now, alongside Matthew Macfadyen and Paloma Baeza, and a 1991 British Academy...
); many of these people retain a personal and professional connection with the Watermill Theatre. The Theatre was put up for sale by the Sargant family 2008. A development board was established, chaired by Ralph Bernard
Ralph Bernard
Ralph Bernard CBE was the chief executive of commercial radio group GCap Media. He started his career as a journalist at Sheffield's Radio Hallam in 1975, before moving to Hereward Radio in Peterborough....
, and was successful in raising funds to purchase the building and grounds. The theatre is now run by a Board of Trustees and is managed by the current artistic and executive director, Hedda Beeby, who took over in 2007. Under her leadership the Watermill continues to evolve and to enjoy considerable success.
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"As an actor who began his career here, The Watermill fulfils my vision of a perfect theatre."
David Suchet - as quoted from the Watermill Theatre website
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The theatre seats around 220 people in the stalls and a gallery and sometimes the seats are arranged 'in the round'. Sometimes a summer production will be partially performed in the garden of the theatre, which will have been specially set up. The stage is particularly small, around 4 m x 7 m, however plays and musical theatre shows with larger casts are still possible with ingenuity, the largest so far being around 14. Jill Fraser was one of the few artistic directors who dared to premiere new work. Among her notable Watermill premieres were works by Vivian Ellis
Vivian Ellis
Vivian Ellis was an English musical comedy composer best known for the song "Spread a Little Happiness" and the theme "Coronation Scot".-Life and work:...
award-winners George Stiles
George Stiles
George William Stiles is an English composer of musicals for stage and screen.-Education:From 1974 to 1979, he was educated at Gresham's School, in Norfolk.George Stiles also went to Exeter University.-Collaboration with Anthony Drewe:...
and Anthony Drewe, and the cult hit The Great Big Radio Show! by Philip Glassborow
Philip Glassborow
Philip Glassborow is a playwright, lyricist and composer who writes for theater, radio and television. His best-known theater musical is the cult hit The Great Big Radio Show! with book in collaboration with Nick McIvor, which won a special prize in the Vivian Ellis Awards and was premiered by the...
. Jill also encouraged diverse new writing and established, with the writer/director Ade Morris, the regular small-middle scale touring of new plays. Watermill touring now produces up to three tours a year, two of which seek out those UK towns and villages with little or no theatre activity of their own, and one, usually a musical theatre piece or a Shakespeare, to large scale theatres across the UK. Often these large scale UK tours will also travel abroad to Europe, the US and the Far East, or transfer to the West End. For example, the previously mentioned Propeller
Propeller (theatre company)
Propeller is a theatre company which presents the plays of William Shakespeare in the UK and around the world. The director is Edward Hall, and the casts are exclusively male actors.-Background:...
Theatre Company, based at the Watermill from 1997 - 2009, have toured to more than 17 countries. The theatre also has a thriving Outreach team with a widely diverse community and education programme, including a large youth theatre ranging from the two year old 'Waterminis' to the Young Company at twenty plus.
More recently, the theatre has concentrated on revivals of musicals which feature cast members playing 2 or more instruments over the course of the play. This can be on or off stage when they are not involved with the action, due to the lack of an orchestra pit, although increasingly the Watermill has produced actor musician shows where the actors are both playing and performing throughout the production.
This has been developed into a highly successful actor musician genre with the help of Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
winning director John Doyle and Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
winning musical director Sarah Travis
Sarah Travis
Sarah Travis is a British orchestrator and musical supervisor for theatre and film. She received the Tony Award for Best Orchestrations and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Orchestrations for the 2005 revival of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd.-Career:...
. This team is responsible for Watermill productions of 'Pinafore Swing', 'A Star Danced' and 'Ten Cents a Dance', and more recently with the highly successful Sweeney Todd
Sweeney Todd
Sweeney Todd is a fictional character who first appeared as then antagonist of the Victorian penny dreadful The String of Pearls and he was later introduced as an antihero in the broadway musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and its film adaptation...
and Mack and Mabel both of which have gone on from the Watermill to tour the UK and transfer to the West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
. In the case of Sweeney Todd, the Doyle/Travis production was successful on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
(and resulted in the previously mentioned Tony Awards). As well as musicals, season's in the late 2000's usually saw a Shakespeare play in conjunction with the Watermill based Propeller company, directed by Edward Hall
Edward Hall (director)
Edward Hall is an English theatre director and an associate director at The National Theatre. Hall is known for directing Rose Rage, a stage adaptation of Shakespeare's three Henry VI plays. He also runs an all-male Shakespeare company, Propeller...
, often in a reinterpreted format, and a Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
operetta
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
, again a re-arranged version which may only superficially resemble the original, sometimes even the title was altered (such as 'Pinafore Swing'; an actor musician version of HMS Pinafore
HMS Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the Opera Comique in London, England, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, which was the second-longest run of any musical...
with music arranged by Sarah Travis
Sarah Travis
Sarah Travis is a British orchestrator and musical supervisor for theatre and film. She received the Tony Award for Best Orchestrations and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Orchestrations for the 2005 revival of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd.-Career:...
, and the more recent Hot Mikado
Hot Mikado
Hot Mikado is a musical comedy, based on Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado, adapted by David H. Bell and Rob Bowman...
; a condensed actor musician version of the already existing Hot Mikado, which in turn is a jazzed up version of the Gilbert and Sullivan comedy opera The Mikado
The Mikado
The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations...
!). The Watermill production of Hot Mikado was directed by Craig Revel Horwood
Craig Revel Horwood
Craig Revel Horwood is an Australian-British dancer, choreographer, and theatre director in the United Kingdom.-Biography:...
, also known for his role as a judge on 'Strictly Come Dancing
Strictly Come Dancing
Strictly Come Dancing is a British television show, featuring celebrities with professional dance partners competing in Ballroom and Latin dances. The title of the show suggests a continuation of the long-running series Come Dancing, with an allusion to the film Strictly Ballroom...
'. As the Hedda Beeby era has evolved the Revel Horwood/Travis collaboration has gone from strength to strength with successful productions of "Martin Guerre
Martin Guerre
Martin Guerre, a French peasant of the 16th century, was at the center of a famous case of imposture. Several years after the man had left his wife, child, and village, a man claiming to be Guerre arrived. He lived with Guerre's wife and son for three years. The false Martin Guerre was tried,...
" " Spend Spend Spend
Spend Spend Spend
Spend Spend Spend is a musical with a book and lyrics by Steve Brown and Justin Greene and music by Brown.In 1961, Yorkshire housewife Viv Nicholson won £152,319 in the football pools. When a reporter asked her what she planned to do with her new fortune, she replied, "I'm going to spend, spend,...
" and "Copacabana
Copacabana (musical)
Copacabana is a TV-musical, stage musical, and nightclub show written by Barry Manilow, based on the song of the same name. The show toured the United States and, as of 2006, became available to license to performing companies and schools for the first time....
".
Production archive
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- Radio Times
2010
- HeroesHeroesHeroes may refer to:* Hero, one who displays courage and self-sacrifice for the greater good- Television :Series* Heroes , a 2006–2010 American science fiction series* Heroes , a 2010 South Korean variety Show...
- Brontë by Polly TealePolly TealePolly Teale is a British writer and theatre director best known for her work with the Shared Experience theatre company, where she is joint artistic director alongside Nancy Meckler. Teale won the prize for best director at the 2003 Evening Standard Theatre Awards for her staging of After Mrs...
(Co-production with Shared ExperienceShared ExperienceShared Experience is a British theatre company. Its current joint artistic directors are Nancy Meckler and Polly Teale. Kate Saxon is an Associate Director.-Productions:*A Passage to India *Madame Bovary...
) - Gullivers Travels
- Daisy Pulls It OffDaisy Pulls It OffDaisy Pulls It Off is a comedy play by Denise Deegan. It is a parody of wholesome adventure stories about life in a 1920s girls' English boarding school, such as those by Angela Brazil...
- CopacabanaCopacabana (musical)Copacabana is a TV-musical, stage musical, and nightclub show written by Barry Manilow, based on the song of the same name. The show toured the United States and, as of 2006, became available to license to performing companies and schools for the first time....
- Spend Spend SpendSpend Spend SpendSpend Spend Spend is a musical with a book and lyrics by Steve Brown and Justin Greene and music by Brown.In 1961, Yorkshire housewife Viv Nicholson won £152,319 in the football pools. When a reporter asked her what she planned to do with her new fortune, she replied, "I'm going to spend, spend,...
- Single SpiesSingle SpiesSingle Spies is a 1988 stage play written by English playwright Alan Bennett. It consists of two acts, An Englishman Abroad and A Question of Attribution.-Stage play:...
- Bullets and Beetroot Lips
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2009
- The Merchant of Venice / A Midsummer Night's Dream
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- Bubbles
- Blithe SpiritBlithe Spirit (play)Blithe Spirit is a comic play written by Noël Coward which takes its title from Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "To a Skylark" . The play concerns socialite and novelist Charles Condomine, who invites the eccentric medium and clairvoyant, Madame Arcati, to his house to conduct a séance, hoping to...
- The King And Queen Of Sugar Street
- Spend Spend Spend Spend Spend SpendSpend Spend Spend is a musical with a book and lyrics by Steve Brown and Justin Greene and music by Brown.In 1961, Yorkshire housewife Viv Nicholson won £152,319 in the football pools. When a reporter asked her what she planned to do with her new fortune, she replied, "I'm going to spend, spend,...
- Hot MikadoHot MikadoHot Mikado is a musical comedy, based on Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado, adapted by David H. Bell and Rob Bowman...
- Educating RitaEducating RitaEducating Rita is a stage comedy by British playwright Willy Russell. It is a play for two actors set entirely in the office of an Open University lecturer....
- Lay Your Sleeping Head
- James And The Giant PeachJames and the Giant PeachJames and the Giant Peach is a popular children's novel written in 1961 by British author Roald Dahl. The original first edition published by Alfred Knopf featured illustrations by Nancy Ekholm Burkert. However, there have been various reillustrated versions of it over the years, done by Michael...
2008
- Merrily We Roll AlongMerrily We Roll AlongMerrily We Roll Along is a play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. It concerns a man who has lost the idealistic values of his youth. Its innovative structure presents the story in reverse order, with the character regressing from a mournful adult to a young man whose future is filled with...
- Micky Salberg's Crystal Ballroom Dance Band
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- Knight And Day - Boxford Masques
- Sunset BoulevardSunset Boulevard (musical)Sunset Boulevard is a musical with book and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Based on the 1950 film of the same title, the plot revolves around Norma Desmond, a faded star of the silent screen era, living in the past in her decaying mansion on the...
- Our Country's GoodOur Country's GoodOur Country's Good is a 1988 play written by British playwright, Timberlake Wertenbaker, adapted from the Thomas Keneally novel The Playmaker. The story concerns a group of Royal Marines and convicts in a penal colony in New South Wales, in the 1780s, who put on a production of The Recruiting...
- The Siren's Call
- Matilda And Duffy's Stupendous Space Adventure
2007
- Plunder
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- The Story Of A Great Lady
- The Rise And Fall Of Little VoiceThe Rise and Fall of Little VoiceThe Rise and Fall of Little Voice is a 1992 play written by English dramatist Jim Cartwright. Sam Mendes directed stars Jane Horrocks and Alison Steadman at the Royal National Theatre before transferring to the Aldwych Theatre in London's West End....
- Donkey Hoo Ha!
- Twelfth Night / The Taming Of The Shrew
- River Of DreamsRiver of DreamsRiver of Dreams is the 12th studio album by Billy Joel, released in 1993. This is the last pop album made by Joel, and presented a much more serious tone as a whole, dealing with issues such as trust and long-lasting love; it was rumored that the themes of trust and betrayal, particularly certain...
- Martin GuerreMartin Guerre (musical)Martin Guerre is a two-act musical with a book by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, lyrics by Alain Boublil and Stephen Clark, and music by Claude-Michel Schönberg....
- RopeRopeA rope is a length of fibres, twisted or braided together to improve strength for pulling and connecting. It has tensile strength but is too flexible to provide compressive strength...
- Mira Mira
- Far From The Madding CrowdFar from the Madding CrowdFar from the Madding Crowd is Thomas Hardy's fourth novel and his first major literary success. It originally appeared anonymously as a monthly serial in Cornhill Magazine, where it gained a wide readership. Critical notices were plentiful and mostly positive...
2006
- TartuffeTartuffeTartuffe is a comedy by Molière. It is one of his most famous plays.-History:Molière wrote Tartuffe in 1664...
- I Dreamt I Dwelt In Marble HallsI Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble HallsI Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls or "The Gipsy Girl's Dream" is a popular aria from The Bohemian Girl, an 1843 opera by Michael William Balfe, with lyrics by Alfred Bunn. It is sung in the opera by the character Arline, who is in love with Thaddeus, a Polish nobleman and political exile. It has...
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- Hobson's Choice
- You Make Me Happy When Skies Are Grey
- The Crowning Of The Year - Boxford Masques
- Hot MikadoHot MikadoHot Mikado is a musical comedy, based on Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado, adapted by David H. Bell and Rob Bowman...
- The Garden Of Llangoed
- The Taming Of The ShrewThe Taming of the ShrewThe Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1591.The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the Induction, in which a mischievous nobleman tricks a drunken tinker named Sly into believing he is actually a nobleman himself...
- Mary Kelly's Bed
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2005
- The Winter's TaleThe Winter's TaleThe Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare, originally published in the First Folio of 1623. Although it was grouped among the comedies, some modern editors have relabelled the play as one of Shakespeare's late romances. Some critics, among them W. W...
- The Comedian
- The Odyssey
- Mack and Mabel
- Thieves' Carnival
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- The Gilded Lilies
- Jungle Book ... this link is to the original story, not to the stage version
2004
- Sweeney ToddSweeney ToddSweeney Todd is a fictional character who first appeared as then antagonist of the Victorian penny dreadful The String of Pearls and he was later introduced as an antihero in the broadway musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and its film adaptation...
- Mr And Mrs Schultz
- The Gentleman From Olmedo
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- Pinafore Swings
- Neville's Island
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- Arabian Nights