- March 2024
The annual Festival of New Writing, established in 2014 and now a central and prestigious feature of the Cambridge drama scene, returns in Lent 2024 to showcase the best of the writing talent the student body has to offer.
Students of all disciplines and from all over Cambridge submit one-act plays to be read and assessed over the Christmas holidays. A select few are chosen to be staged over the three nights of the Festival, directed and performed by students. At the end of each evening, the playwrights are invited to join a panel of top theatre practitioners to discuss their work-in-progress and take questions from the audience. Everyone plays a part!
The Festival provides students with the opportunity to engage with industry professionals, a unique learning experience, as well as bringing a wonderful theatrical spectacle to the Howard stage. DDS is proud of the fact that many FoNW alumni have gone on to forge successful careers in the Performing Arts as actors, writers and directors.
- February 2024
"I nearly died for him yesterday. And I’ve never met him. And yet I love him with all my heart"
Welcome to Hammerschmidt’s, named after a long-time salesman and perfume expert who employs a group of friends (and lovers!) who spend their days selling fragrances and beauty products with much success. All is well until, Hammerschmidt’s countenance begins to change towards his employees, notably George Horvath, his best salesman, the reason for which is a mystery. As George tackles navigating the sudden frostiness from Hammerschmidt, his friction with Amalia Balash intensifies- an ambitious and confident young woman whose assertiveness and natural talent for sales as competition, George sees as a threat to his position Everything is on the line in the perfume shop from secret pen pals to unexpected rendezvouses...
- February 2024
Lesbians, quiche, etc.
"No men. No meat. All manners."
It’s 1956 and The Susan B. Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertrude Stein are having their annual quiche breakfast. As the assembled ‘widows’ await the announcement of the society's prize-winning quiche, the atomic bomb sirens sound! How will the ‘widows’ respond as their idyllic town and lifestyle faces attacks? When placed under the pressure of a life without egg, they must face the real root of their love for quiche and what has brought them all together (see title for clues). DDS is so excited to stage this ‘cult hit’, a tasty recipe of hysterical laughs, unsuccessful repressions, and delicious discoveries.
- November 2023
It’s the week before Christmas, the chestnuts are roasting and the snow is falling...but crisis has struck in Nether Wallop! The village hall has been booked out for a wedding and the am-dram society, the Nether Wallop Players, is forced to do a radio version of their annual Christmas show. This year it’s Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Sounds easy enough? But throw in an ill stage manager, cast tensions and a deaf old man and you have the perfect recipe for DDS’s Christmas production! Unfortunately, no Muppets involved xx
- November 2023
The annual Festival of New Writing, established in 2014 and now a central and highly prestigious feature of the Cambridge drama scene showcases the best of the writing talent the student-body has to offer.
We have now expanded on this to admire the filmmaking talent of Cambridge, where students of all disciplines will either submit their scripts and film them over the summer, or will submit their finished pieces for selection.
From the wealth of admissions, select few are chosen to be displayed on our one-night-only event. At the end of the evening, the writers are invited to join a panel of top film practitioners to discuss their work-in-progress and take questions from the audience. Everyone plays a part.
The Festival brings both dramatic spectacle and a unique learning experience to the Howard stage and DDS is proud of the fact that many FoNW alumni have gone on to forge successful careers in the Performing Arts as actors, writers and directors.
- June 2023
Whilst holidaying at the idyllic home of Leonato, governor of Messina, Hero and Claudio fall in love at first sight. They are soon to be married, much to the joy of those around them. Meanwhile, Beatrice, Hero's cousin, is busy fighting in a war of wits against Benedick, both of whom claim they detest the idea of marriage, and each other. Will their friends be able to change that?
Soon, deception, gossip, and villainous plots get in the way of the two couples' respective relationships, with consequences for both. Come and see one of Shakespeare's most beloved comedies, performed in the beautiful Downing College Master's Lodge Garden this June!
- March 2023
Staged reading of Ian Giles' new film: Edward/Maurice
On the final day of a summer drama camp a group of LGBTQI+ teens use puppets to perform a potted version of Christopher Marlowe's 16th Century play Edward II. Another group of peers use roleplay and discussion to share the narrative of E.M Forster’s 1914 novel Maurice. Both texts feature fully realised complex gay protagonists within historic settings. Dramatic moments within the narratives are spliced together to create moments of connection and contrast. By holding these texts up against each other the groups offer each other a space to explore an unbound mapping of love, royalty and the natural world through a queer lens.
Ian Giles lives and works in London, he studied at the Slade School of Fine Art. His films and artworks have been exhibited at the Whitechapel Gallery, London; Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.
- March 2023
She may be dead and buried in the ground. She may be bathing and sleeping no more. But she lived a complicated life. And this is her story - through the eyes of the people who loved her the most.
This performance is part of the Downing Festival of New Writing 2023: https://www.camdram.net/shows/2023-festival-of-new-writing
- March 2023
The annual Festival of New Writing, established in 2014 and now a central and highly prestigious feature of the Cambridge drama scene, returns in Lent Week 8 2023 to showcase the best of the writing talent the student-body has to offer.
Students of all disciplines and from every Cambridge college submit one-act plays to be read and assessed over the Christmas holiday and from the wealth of admissions, select few are chosen to be performed over the three nights of the Festival. At the end of each evening, the playwrights are invited to join a panel of top theatre practitioners to discuss their work-in-progress and take questions from the audience. Everyone plays a part.
The Festival brings both dramatic spectacle and a unique learning experience to the Howard stage and DDS is proud of the fact that many FoNW alumni have gone on to forge successful careers in the Performing Arts as actors, writers and directors.
- March 2023
The Odd Love Support Club is a new comedy from writer Nadia Lines. Set in a group therapy session, this wacky play details the trials and tribulations of four people experiencing some truly odd love - from Shakespeare to the Pope, from kettles to pregnancy multivitamins, we've got it all! This comedy explores love in all its oddity - absurd, funny, and heartfelt, The Odd Love Support Club encourages you to be your silliest self.
- February 2023
Downing College Freshers' Play
"What would have happened had Shakespeare had a wonderfully gifted sister, called Judith, let us say...?" Virginia Woolf
Judith Shakespeare has one ambition: to be a playwright. When her debt-ridden father forces her into an engagement, she runs away with the help of dashing actor Ned Alleyn, hoping to join her brother in London. But when Judith arrives in the plague-stricken capital, she finds her brother gone, Ned engaged to another, and her play refused.
Judith and the players confront poverty in the midst of economic depression, in a society where women’s freedoms are curtailed, under a government confronting religious extremism in a climate of fear. Judith must choose between succumbing to social pressures, and following her dream, no matter what the cost.
This amateur production of “Shakespeare's Sister” is presented by arrangement with
Concord Theatricals Ltd. on behalf of Samuel French Ltd. www.concordtheatricals.co.uk
- November 2022
Carmen is a new, LGBTQ+ adaptation of Prosper Merimee’s novella. Set in Seville, it follows the story of its eponymous character as he navigates a relationship with the repressed police sergeant Don Jose. As the story progresses and we are introduced to a whole host of vibrant characters, Don Jose is forced to choose between love, or the life that is expected of him. Comedy, drama, music, and dance all come together in this raucous celebration of love and queer identity.
- June 2022
A live reading of poetry, interspersed with quotations from David Hockney, in the Heong Gallery on the subject of modern art and whether we can truly know what art is?
- June 2022
The Downing Dramatic Society proudly presents Downing shorts- A film festival!
As an extension of the ever popular Festival of New Writing, Downing shorts comes as an opportunity for student short film writers to showcase their work to a panel of industry professionals, and, more importantly, to an audience! Where the Festival of New Writing stages plays, Downing shorts will screen 6 student written short films.
- March 2022
The annual Festival of New Writing, established in 2014 and now a central and highly prestigious feature of the Cambridge drama scene, returns in Lent Week 8 2022 to showcase the best of the writing talent the student-body has to offer.
Students of all disciplines and from every Cambridge college submit one-act plays to be read and assessed over the Christmas holiday and from the wealth of admissions, select few are chosen to be performed over the three nights of the Festival. At the end of each evening, the playwrights are invited to join a panel of top theatre practitioners to discuss their work-in-progress and take questions from the audience. Everyone plays a part.
The Festival brings both dramatic spectacle and a unique learning experience to the Howard stage and DDS is proud of the fact that many FoNW alumni have gone on to forge successful careers in the Performing Arts as actors, writers and directors.
Shows included in this year's production:
10th March: You Haven't Made This Easy, Blind Watching, and Dialback.
11th March: On Comedy, There's Something Cringe About Theatre, Wedding Present, and Uncanny Valley.
12th March: Les Chaussons Rouges, Martha, and Backroom.
(Shows are not listed according to a running order.)
- March 2022
The God Committee: anonymous citizens tasked with deciding who will live and who will die.
From the trenches to the 60s to the halls of an impossible ward, old man Oliver and teenage Emily await their fates together. But the ghosts of Oliver's pasts are catching up to him, and under the eye of the God Committee and the mysterious Nurse Nightingale, there is nowhere left to run.
Inspired by true events in Seattle's Hospitals, The God Committee examines the fractured heart of healthcare, and how our age of aggression and austerity is leaving no winners on any rung of the collapsing ladder.
CW: strong language, mature themes, death/dying, illness, war, PTSD, mention of blood and illness, convulsing, mention of child death
- February 2022
Downing College's Freshers' Play
A mad romp set in Yorkshire, based off Richard Sheridan's original play.
With a secret plan to undermine the ridiculous Lord Foppington, alongside a cascade of failed romances between both enemies and friends, we hope to leave you thoroughly amused and amazed by Downing's raw talent.
From first time actors, to the more experienced freshers, we have had a lot of fun putting this together, so come show your support!
(also there are preshow drinks!)
- November 2021
This piece of new writing follows a young man, Danny, who leaves South Africa in search of a happier life with a family he once knew. Offered a job, alongside a secure, welcoming home, he finds joy with the foreign family. Once free from his troubled past, he begins to realise his radical freedom in the face of adversity.
The family also uncovers a new way of living, as Danny begins to develop a close relationship with his host, Martha, alongside her son, Alex. The longstanding atmosphere of tension is altered, as the pair secretly develop their own erotic interests in Danny. In the brief absence of Steven, domestic haven is both formed and threatened by uncontrollable and conflicting desire.
This is a gripping play with a diverse thematic reach, exploring identity, family relationships, sexuality, abuse and the possibility of a promising future. This exciting piece of new writing won the 2020 Marlowe Writer’s Prize and its debut on stage will be an event not to be missed.
- October 2021
Downing Dramatic Society are delighted to announce the return of the Monologue Clash, taking place for the first time over two evenings in the spectacular Howard Theatre. This event is open to students from all colleges and with any level of experience, and is a chance to perform a monologue of any length and any genre without the time commitment of a full-length show, in addition to providing performers with the unique opportunity to work on their monologues with Downing's professional Director of Drama.
- October 2021
The Downing Freshers' Play has been cancelled! So what else can an actor do on a Midsummer's Night but go back to bed? They awake to the all-to-real dreamscape of Athens where lovers are fighting, the Duke and Duchess are about to get married, and a group of distinctly mediocre actors are rehearsing a play. That is all before they enter the palace woods... no one can know what happens after that, only the fairies, and even then, they don't know all. Mischief runs amok!
- June 2021
Postponed from our usual Lent slot because of Covid-19, the theatrical jewel in the DDS crown is back!
The annual Festival of New Writing, established in 2014 and now a central and highly prestigious feature of the Cambridge drama scene, returns in May Week 2021 to showcase the best of the writing talent the student-body has to offer.
Students of all disciplines and from every Cambridge college submit one-act plays to be read and assessed over the Christmas holiday and from the wealth of admissions, nine are chosen to be performed over the three nights of the Festival (which also features live music and now includes workshops from professional writers and directors). At the end of each evening, the playwrights are invited to join a panel of top theatre practitioners to discuss their work-in-progress and take questions from the audience. Everyone plays a part.
The Festival brings both dramatic spectacle and a unique learning experience to the Howard stage and DDS is proud of the fact that many FoNW alumni have gone on to forge successful careers in the Performing Arts as actors, writers and directors.
- November 2020
Downing Dramatic Society are excited to announce our second Monologue Clash! As opposed to our inaugural online event, it will be taking place in person in Downing College. Depending on the weather, we would like to present our clash outdoors on a temporary stage erected on The Paddock to adhere with social distancing rules.
For our second event, we will not be asking you to write your own monologues, instead we would like all performers to audition with a contemporary monologue, written from 1950 onwards to the present day.
- October 2020
William Shakespeare's Macbeth
- June 2020
An evening of student written monologues, performed online and presented by DDS.
- March 2020
Grotesque, surreal and absurd!
Meet Sasha and Misha, the Ukrainian soldiers of the Donbas hybrid war. Meet also their dead dogs - Ollie and Boi. All trapped together in a bombed pet shop on the Eastern Front, accompanied by unexpected visitors and smart-ass radio.
In this grotesque and surrealistic story human perspective is mixed with that of animals, the well known world, although under fire, slowly disappears in the fumes of absurdity. Is anthropocentric perspective the legitimate one? Who has the right to decide the fate of other living creatures? What is man capable of and are there any borders?
- March 2020
The theatrical jewel in the DDS crown is its annual Festival of New Writing, established in 2014 and now a central and highly prestigious feature of the Cambridge drama scene.
Students of all disciplines and from every Cambridge college submit one-act plays to be read and assessed over the Christmas holiday and from the wealth of admissions, nine are chosen to be performed over the three nights of the Festival (which also features live music and now includes workshops from professional writers and directors). At the end of each evening, the playwrights are invited to join a panel of top theatre practitioners to discuss their work-in-progress and take questions from the audience. Everyone plays a part.
The Festival brings both dramatic spectacle and a unique learning experience to the Howard stage and DDS is proud of the fact that many FoNW alumni have gone on to forge successful careers in the Performing Arts as actors, writers and directors.
Praise for A Festival of New Writing 2018:
"The future of new writing in Cambridge continues to look pretty bright." ***1/2 (Varsity)
- February 2020
“Them? Call them people? Muck and dregs—that’s what they are! I’m a workman—I’m ashamed even to look at them. I’ve slaved since I was a child. . . . D’you think I shan’t be able to tear myself away from here? I’ll crawl out of here, even if I have to leave my skin behind—but crawl out I will! Just wait . . . my wife’ll die . . . I’ve lived here six months, and it seems like six years.”
The Lower Depths is a 1902 classic of Russian socialist realism. A mismatched crew of social recluses, ex-convicts, alcoholics and paupers live together in a ramshackle boarding house. There, some dream of one day extricating themselves from the “depths”, others reminisce about the days when they were “somebodies”, but, try as they might, they are unable to fight the gravitational pull of circumstance. The inhabitants find their daily lives altered by the appearance of a wanderer called Luka who encourages them to reform and make a new path for themselves in life. For the disillusioned dwellers, there is now a choice: to drink or to dream.
This production is set in 1992, post-collapse of the USSR. The 90s were a tumultuous period for Russia, as economic disaster and social upheaval accompanied rapid Westernisation and sudden cultural autonomy. The golden stars of the Soviet Union now find themselves squatting in a derelict flat and, with their lives turned upside down, they struggle to come to terms with the burden of existence. Darkly humorous “The Lower Depths” is an exposé of the human condition quite unlike any other in theatre.
- November 2019
Trapped within a cubicle, Annie attempts to piece together her memories, yet there are far too many to balance. The closer she gets to reality the less it all seems to make sense, until a visitor arrives. Whether a saviour, captor, or pursuer, only one thing remains the same - a bottle full of pills.
Pills explores the consumption of fact, fiction, and where lines begin to blur as a narrative repeats itself.
- November 2019
Humbug, forsooth!
Dickens' classic tale of redemption with a Shakespearian twist! Scrooge is a wealthy theatre owner with a stingy heart until he’s visited by his old partner Christopher Marlowe. The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future become Puck, Sir John Falstaff and the ghost of King Hamlet. The cast is weaved with familiar characters from the Bard's canon and it's all in iambic pentameter!
All the world's a stage, and Scrooge will learn to play nice.
- October 2019
Hell is empty and all the devils are here. A ship is coming. A storm has been conjured, and nothing is what it seems.
This production of The Tempest foregrounds its treatment of abuse and subjugation, examining the importance of forgiveness to the stories of Caliban, Miranda, Ariel and Prospero, who each must come to terms with its difficulty.
It is particularly important to us that queer and BME-coded characters are represented by queer and BME actors, as their experiences and agency should be at the forefront of the play, and that we evoke the spectacle and grandeur of larger, earlier stagings, but through the emotion of the actors rather than the extravagance of our setpieces and practical effects, as this is where we feel the depth and strength of the story lies and it is an unexplored area.
Join us on the strange isle, where what’s past is prologue…
- August 2019
There are only two remaining vacant graves in the family plot – and Uncle John will not miss out on one. Cue a morbid dogfight with vindaloos, Belgian girlfriends, and handbag-wielding octogenarians.
This piece of new writing by Connor Rowlett treads the line between morbid farce and naked drama as it explores the lives of a Northern Irish family who just can’t seem to change the subject from death.
Here, there’s lots of money to be made in the business of opening graves. I’m serious. Farmers should be forgetting about crops and moving into the graveyard trade. It’s all about prime real estate for the dead nowadays.
- March 2019
The Downing Dramatic Society presents A Festival of New Writing 2019!
Come and join us at the Howard Theatre for three nights of short plays written, directed and performed by Cambridge students. A panel of industry experts will judge each night, providing invaluable feedback for our student writers. It's a festival that promises the very best of original writing that Cambridge theatre has to offer!
The judges A Festival of New Writing 2019 were:
Kate Barton – playwright and actor. Barton's play 'Fast' received rave reviews at Cambridge, Brighton and Edinburgh and is being developed for production at London's Park Theatre.
Alexander Lass – freelance theatre director. Lass has directorial and assistant directorial credits at the RSC Swan Theatre, RADA and Trafalgar Studios. He is an alum of Downing College.
Nicky Bligh – film and television casting director. Bligh has cast for Mrs Brown's Boys, Psychobitches and other hit British productions.
Praise for A Festival of New Writing 2019:
"For £5, the chance to watch the germ of something you might pay upwards of £50 for on the West End in thirty years is unmissable." ***** (The Tab)
"If you want a dizzying variety of up and coming creativity in a short and punchy format, this is exactly the show for you." **** (The Cambridge Student)
- March 2019
This is Aron Linklater’s living history project for school - an attempt to capture some of the Orkney old world before it succumbs to the 21st Century. It’s also a story about his grandfather, a local fisherman, and his conspiracy theories. It’s also a story about Avery, a girl recently displaced from New Mexico who finds herself in Stromness. It’s also a ceilidh. It’s also a poetry recital. It’s Star Jelly.
Debuting at the Downing Festival of New Writing
- February 2019
In his small pub in the northern English town of Oldham, Harry is something of a local celebrity. But what's the second-best hangman in England to do on the day they've abolished hanging?
Amongst the cub reporters and pub regulars dying to hear Harry’s reaction to the news, his old assistant Syd and the peculiar Mooney lurk with very different motives for their visit.
- November 2018
"Under Milk Wood" was Dylan Thomas's last major work. This magically poetic "Play for Voices" records, with humour and pathos, a day in the life of a tiny village fishing community; its dreams, its scandals and its secrets.
Join Captain Cat, the blind sea captain, tormented by his drowned shipmates, who long to enjoy the pleasures of the world again. Share Mog Edwards' and Myfanwy Price's dreams of each other, Mr. Waldo's visions of his childhood and failed marriages, Mrs. Ogmore-Pritchard's instructions for her deceased husbands and much more - all with musical accompaniment.
- November 2018
the new experimental journal 'transition' is partnering with Downing Dramatic Society and the Heong Gallery to complement the exhibition 'Halfboy' by Stuart Pearson-Wright.
working from the portraits on the walls and the gallery space as an unusual playing ground, we will present a collection and collage of performances centered around the theme of portraits in the loosest sense...
anyone will be doing anything that could have anything to do with showing, presenting, introducing, describing or exposing ANYONE,
this more unusual venue paired with a more unusual approach to performance is your chance to finally see something different, something you couldn't necessarily call 'theatre'.
