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2011 - The Grange Players - 2012
Comedy Drama It's 1994, and the lifeblood of Grimley's community is threatened when the pit looks set for closure, signifying the loss of 1200 jobs and the end for the colliery's long-standing and close-knit brass band. Conductor Danny is determined the band gain National recognition and with the arrival of flugelhorn-playing Gloria it seems his goals aren't quite so far-fetched. But can the band really ever reach the National Championships at the Albert Hall? This is a poignant and charming play, full of pathos, showing the plight and strength of a community, focusing on relevant issues experienced by so many mining communities throughout Britain.
Drama Amadeus explores the rivalry between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, the court composer for the Emperor of Austria in the late eighteenth century. Peter Shaffer became interested in the relationship between the two composers after learning about Mozart's mysterious death. Although he could not find evidence that Salieri murdered Mozart, it set him thinking about the conflict between virtuous mediocrity and feckless genius. These thoughts led to a play that critics have praised for its craftsmanship and its study of the effects of success and failure. Generally regarded as Shaffer’s best work, it is a very strong and indeed challenging play that we are proud to present in our 60th Anniversary Season.
Farcical Black Comedy After more than 60 years, Arsenic and Old Lace is still an incredibly funny show. Mortimer Brewster, a drama critic, must deal with his crazy, homicidal family and local police in Brooklyn, NY, as he debates whether to go through with his recent promise to marry the woman he loves. His family includes two spinster aunts who have taken to murdering lonely old men by poisoning them with a glass of 'special' home-made elderberry wine; a mad nephew who believes he is Teddy Roosevelt and digs locks for the Panama Canal in the cellar, which then serve as graves for the aunts' victims; and a long-lost evil nephew who has received plastic surgery performed by an alcoholic accomplice, Dr. Einstein, and now looks like Boris Karloff. Could you wish for anything more?
Comedy Set in nineteenth-century Salford, this is an exquisitely crafted comedy in which Henry Hobson, a man a little too fond of drink, runs a successful bootmaker’s shop. He tries forcefully to rule the lives of his three grown-up daughters, but when he decrees 'no marriages' to avoid the expensive matter of settlements, his eldest daughter Maggie rebels and sets her sights on timid Will Mossop, Hobson's star bootmaker. Maggie and Will leave to start up in competition, and she then sets about helping her sisters marry their chosen partners.
 Comedy John Buchan’s The 39 Steps, the quintessential ripping yarn, is being sent up in what has become a theatrical classic. The play calls for the entire story to be performed with a cast of only four. One actor plays the hero, Richard Hannay, an actress plays the three women with whom he has romantic entanglements, and two other actors play everyone else in the show: heroes, villains, men, women and children; in all there are 150 characters! The performance goes at breakneck speed and is played for laughs all the way. No wonder this wickedly funny adaptation won the Olivier Award for Best Comedy in 2007.
Drama Salt of the Earth is primarily a family saga with its tensions and ambitions. This rollercoaster ride of emotions across nearly four decades will transport you into the lives of people who are fictional but very real. It focuses on the dreams, joys and disappointments of the Parker sisters, Annie and May, as they live through the darkest time in Yorkshire’s mining history. Humour and pathos are successfully woven together until their lives slowly fall apart as the outside world presses in. At the heart is the community which shapes the family, but which is inexorably disappearing and changing.
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