Touring & Shows Elsewhere
Theatre societies provide a number of opportunities to tour inside or outside Britain. There are two annual foreign touring shows: the European Theatre Group makes a headlong dash around Europe in the three weeks just before Christmas, and the Cambridge American Stage Tour sets off across the Atlantic during September. Footlights take a tour around the UK each year, taking in the Edinburgh Fringe. In addition to these, occasional tours are mounted by other groups.
The style of touring varies widely. ETG is able to take a great deal of technical equipment in its coach, whilst CAST tends to take an “essentials only” approach, as it has to fly its apparatus across the Atlantic. But the common excitement of all touring shows is turning up to each venue and working out what you can do with what you’ve got and what’s provided. The exact challenges differ between technicians,
directors and actors, but everyone works together to make best use of the different spaces and facilities.
There are also regular non-touring shows which perform in a venue outside Cambridge, such as productions at the Edinburgh Fringe and the annual Gilbert and Sullivan Society trip to the stunning Minack Theatre in Cornwall. Recent one-off trips have visited Canada and Greece or, most glamorous of all, Scarborough for the
National Student Drama Festival – and great fish and chips.
Performing elsewhere or on tour can be an intense experience: in addition to the performance challenges, there’s also the personal dimension of living in close quarters with the rest of the cast and
crew, which has its down and up sides. You may have to pay a contribution towards living or accommodation costs: make sure you find out before committing.
Last edited Sun 15th Jan 2006 by Camdram (taken from the original Knowledgebase by Andrew Pontzen)
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