- October 2018
You’re six years old. Mum’s in hospital. Dad says she’s ‘done something stupid’. She finds it hard to be happy.
So you start to make a list of everything that’s brilliant about the world. Everything that’s worth living for.
Ice Cream
Kung Fu Movies
Burning Things
Laughing so hard you shoot milk out your nose
Construction cranes
Me
You leave it on her pillow. You know she’s read it because she’s corrected your spelling. Soon, the list will take on a life of its own.
A beautifully funny play about depression and the lengths we will go to for those we love.
- June 2018
'If he forsake me not, I never die,
For in his looks I see eternity,
And he'll make me immortal with a kiss.'
Marlowe's visceral, lyrical reworking of Book IV of Virgil's Aeneid breathes new life into this ancient story with the psychological intensity of Elizabethan drama.
Troy has been burned to the ground and Aeneas is a prince turned refugee. He and his men are soon shipwrecked and wash up on the shores of Carthage, home to the powerful Dido. In a world of warring gods and clashing empires, the two plunge into a passionate love affair. But as Aeneas faces mounting pressure to follow his destiny and found a new city on Italian soil, Dido fears she will lose everything and resolves to take drastic action.
- May 2018
It’s summer in Venice, and the Art Biennale is in full swing. At one of the exhibitions, two gallery attendants who start off as strangers soon become like family to one another. Through a series of conversations, they explore their fears about the future, their troubled pasts, and their new adventures in the City of Water.
- May 2018
”Deep Throat IS the future of freedom of speech.”
Star Papazian is having her 40th birthday, finally ready to lose her virginity. However, before she can get down to business she must deal with the past. Moving through her life from late sixties to present day Star recounts the rise and fall of her parents’ porn emporium, Dolls and Stripes. More than just a business, the porn industry is both a family and a cause to the Papazians. Through her growing pains, Star bears witness to how the market takes its toll as what had started from free-love-free-body struggles against the tide. Definitions of private and public, personal and published blur.
Combining documentary and fiction, The History of American Pornography shows how people and their bodies are consumed. No one remains unchanged.
- March 2018
Downing Festival of New Writing is back for the fourth year running! Hosted annually by Downing Dramatic Society. With nine independent, student-written plays running over three nights, come and enjoy one of the biggest new writing events in Cambridge performed in Downing College’s beautiful Howard Theatre.
- February 2018
Think traditional, English ‘whodunnit’, complete with an Agatha Christie style of setting, plot and characters, but with a twist. Characters including an aged rear admiral, a bitchy aristocrat and a doddering old archaeologist along with a butler gather at an old country house for a black-tie dinner during a storm, each of them with archetypical personalities bigger than the last. However, there is blackmailer amongst them, and he systematically reveals the compromising and dark secrets of the guests, before turning up dead. Each of them is suspect, but Whodunnit?
- February 2018
Is it possible to put on a show in 36 hours? We don't know but we sure will try!
Teams of writers, directors and actors must write, rehearse and put on plays on a theme in the space of just 36 hours. This is theatrical collaboration on a scale not seen anywhere else, pushing the whole team to the limit and creating unforgettable performances.
- February 2018
Gérard B. is arrested for the murder of Polonius - a murder he committed in a dream. From reality to absurd, ‘Rêver,Peut-Être’ is a schizophrenic dance into B.’s deepest fears and fantasies.
As part of the Month of International Theatre, the French society will be proposing this original and immersive show - on the brink between typical French absurd and experimental theatre. The play promises to be a visual and aesthetic experience suited for a non-French-speaking audience.
Between dreams and reality all the characters of this sometimes fantastical play coexist, evolve and become obsessive. Rêver Peut-Être is an absurd comedy with a plethora of references to Hamlet: it addresses the unconcious, the desire for revenge, the dangers of arrayed justice, the absence of the father and perhaps more than anything the schizophrenia of the actor.
- November 2017
The Heong Gallery's latest exhibition showcases the life and work of Dame Elisabeth Frink, whose art deals with notions of war, fear, and moral resonpsibility. One series of sculptures, titled: 'In Memoriam', was created by Frink to honour those who have suffered because of their beliefs.
Downing Dramatic Society, in collaboration with The Heong Gallery, presents Arts After Dark: In Memoriam. We have curated a collection of nine short monologues, poems, and performances which higlight the kinds of experiences Frink endeavoured to honour through her art.
The texts have all been sourced from individuals throughout history who have faced such trials: conscientious objectors, prisoners of conscience, activists for civil and human rights. The collection of writers and poets is diverse, ranging from across the many years, many countries, and from the mouths men, women, and children.
The performances will be staged in the gallery, against a backdrop of Frink's own artwork. The evening is free for all to attend, but space in the gallery is limited to make sure you arrive early to secure a seat!
Wine and nibbles will be provided on the night.
https://www.facebook.com/events/533638353640876/?acontext=%7B%22ref%22%3A%22108%22%2C%22action_history%22%3A%22null%22%7D
- November 2017
'Killing my enemies is easy. The challenge is to control their minds. And I think I controlled yours pretty well. In years to come, I'll be able to say: 'Bulgakov? Yeah, we even trained him. He gave up. He saw the light. We broke him, we can break anybody'. It's man versus monster, Mikhail. And the monster always wins.'
Moscow, 1938.
A dangerous place to have a sense of humour; even more so a sense of freedom. Dissident playwright Mikhail Bulgakov has both, despite being stalked by the secret police. Inspired by historical fact, Collaborators embarks on a surreal journey into the fevered imagination of the writer after he’s offered a poisoned chalice in exchange for freedom: write a play glorifying Stalin to celebrate his sixtieth birthday. Help is at hand, however, when the dictator himself decides to help out in the writing of the play – and Bulgakov takes over the running of the Soviet Union!
‘Collaborators’ is both hilarious and surreal, charting an artist’s slow erosion of principle and certainty involved in collaboration as he is confronted with the steamroller of absolute power.
- November 2017
All BME production
A gender-bent twist on one of Shakespeare's best-loved comedies - if you didn't think Twelfth Night was confusing enough already! Violo and his twin sister Sebastia are victims of a shipwreck. When Violo washes up on a strange land, alone and desperate, he realises the best way to get work with the Duchess Orsina is to dress as a woman, Cesaria. Orsina, who is madly in love with the Countess Olivia, sends Violo/Cesaria to deliver her love messages to Olivia. Olivia ends up falling for Violo/Cesaria instead, while Violo begins to realise his own budding feelings for Orsina. Further chaos and confusion ensue as Olivia's household staff and relatives hatch a plot to humiliate her stuffy housekeeper, and events come to a head when Sebastia arrives on the island and is mistaken for Cesaria!
Join us for a fun and modern take on Shakespeare's classic!
- November 2017
首演于1989年的纽约，在大陆第一次上演于2005年的北京，这部让成千上万的观众蜂拥而至剧场的话剧即将在剑桥拉开帷幕。《收信快乐》仅有两位主角，他们之间的长达四十年通信讲述了人生的酸甜苦辣和彼此间剪不断的情感。让我们一同回到那个“车马很慢，书信很远”的年代，找寻笔墨下的离合悲欢。《收信快乐》将于十一月上演，请和我们一起被感动吧。
'Love Letters' was premiered in New York in 1989. After revised by a writer from Taiwan, its first show in Mainland China was in 2005, where thousands of audiences were attracted to the theatre. The drama has only two leading roles, and the transcript is based on their letters in more than forty years.
Downing Dramatic Society and Cambridge University Chinese Drama Society have the pleasure to present Love Letters in November, and sincerely invites you to enjoy this drama with us.
This production will be in Chinese (Mandarin) with English subtitles.
- October 2017
In a time and space where the public house has long since been obviated, the last bar in town is still in business. Unending instalments of diuretic bliss are handed out to the clientele while veteran compere Sydney Diazepam presents a cabaret of things almost forgotten. It's a stable picture, but with the arrival of the enigmatic Viscera Skye those in attendance are dazed and struggle to maintain their own dreary perspectives. Welcome to Mist.
"The ArcSoc of cam theatre" - Saskia Ross
"Is this post-Cambridge Theatre?" - Zoe Black (Fletcher Players President 2017-???)
"Love yourself." - Thomas Warwick
- August 2017
‘These Walls’ is a story of three young women facing walls in their lives. Eden is contained within the walls of expectation: she cannot escape from the image nor stray from the path of perfection which other people draw for her. She is top of her class, captain of the netball team and three-time winner of the British secondary school debating championship. Chrissy is trapped by a lack of expectation. She has only ever been defined as a beauty, a beautiful object. She works as an erotic dancer though no-one ever wants anything more from her than her body. She has been fenced into a lifestyle she loathes. Althea is limited by her love. She loves an unfaithful man but cannot bring herself to leave him. These women find themselves brought together and forced to face their vulnerability, envy and hypocrisy. The walls close in as each woman is physically detained and forced to remember, forced to decide. Will one catalyzing event break down these walls?
- June 2017
CURRICULUM VITAE is looking for two female/nb actors for a one-afternoon-stand at the Downing Dramatic Society garden party on June 16th!
“It’s just the normal worries. Having a stable relationship, kids, cash, comfy house, cushy job...
Sounds fucking terrifying.”
Winner of the Downing Festival of New Writing 2017, CURRICULUM VITAE lasts only 15 minutes, which it turns out is just long enough to franticly run through all the hypothetical outcomes of your life in which you abandon the ideals of your youth in increasingly new and imaginative ways!
Looking to fill the roles of the excitingly named ‘Person’ (the lead) and ‘Woman’, auditions will be held on Wednesday the 14th, 11am – 1pm in ADC dressing room 1, with flexible rehearsals over the following two days. Extracts on the door, email me at jlo43@cam.ac.uk with any questions or for a look at the full script :)
(As is true of life in general, northern accents are a bonus but not a must! )
- June 2017
Rights kindly provided by Samuel French.
- March 2017
Downing Festival of New Writing is back for the third year running! Hosted annually by Downing Dramatic Society. With ten independent, student-written plays running over three nights, come and enjoy one of the biggest new writing events in Cambridge performed in Downing College’s beautiful Howard Theatre. At the end of each evening, the writers will receive a live feedback session from a group of industry professionals and experts, following which, at the end of the festival one play will receive a festival prize of £100, along with the promise of further development from the society. Our judges this year include Tanya Ronder (Playwright: RSC, National Theatre); Edward 'Chips' Hardy (Writer & Producer: Taboo BBC One, father of Academy Award nominee Tom Hardy) and David McDermott (Award-winning Screenwriter: BBC, ITV, Channel 4). With scripts which range from verse to black comedy, and a judging panel packed with interesting names, sample some of the best student writing Cambridge has to offer.
This year's selections are as follows:
Curriculum Vitae by Jenny O'Sullivan
Frank and the Baby by Johannes Black
Abba, mamma by Eloïse Poulton
Oedipus Rex by Beatriz Santos
Greater Love Hath No Man Than This by Isaac Jordan
Ava by Maya Yousif
The Stone Cold Loser by Edith Franklin
Waiting by Isla Cowan
Thy Neighbour by Charlotte Cromie
Candy Hymns by Amelie Lasker
https://www.adcticketing.com/whats-on/play/a-festival-of-new-writing/
- February 2017
Come down and support the Downing freshers in The Importance of Being Earnest! The latest production by the Downing Dramatic Society.
The Importance of Being Earnest is the most renowned of Oscar Wilde’s comedies. The story of two bachelors, John Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff, who create alter egos named Ernest to escape their tiresome lives. They attempt to win the hearts of two women who, conveniently, claim to only love men called Ernest. The pair struggle to keep up with their own stories and become tangled in a tale of deception, disguise and misadventure.
Event: www.facebook.com/events/582278325294409/
- November 2016
An evening of monologues, duologues and poems at the Heong Gallery at Downing College. Inspired by the new exhibition on ‘Portraits of Place’, the performances will bring together a series of thought provoking and humorous passages from 20th century writing. The evening will engage with Richard Long’s photography, Constable’s landscapes, and Winifred Nicholson’s wind-swept sea fronts. This will mark the first event in a new collaboration between Downing Dramatic Society and the Heong Gallery. Admission is free and the performance will start at 6pm.
- November–December 2016
"You're my prize possession, why can't I watch you ?... You're mine"
Nora Helmer years earlier committed a forgery in order to save the life of her dictatorial husband Torvald. Now she is being blackmailed and lives in fear of her husband finding out and of the shame such a revelation would bring to his career. But when the truth comes out, Nora is shocked to learn where she really stands in her husband's esteem. A play that was once banned for daring to depict a woman defying her husband "A Doll's House is considered to be one of the first "feminist" plays, challenging the Victorian ideal of a woman's role in marriage and revolutionising the portrayal of women on the stage.
- October 2016
‘An amateur performance is not teamwork. It is a free-for-all among a dozen egos, and the ego that gets there firstest with the mostest wins.’
For fifty years, Michael Green’s dramatic manual parody 'The Art of Coarse Acting' has been a classic work of comic genius that is all too relatable for anyone involved in amateur theatre. Now, it is being brought into the environment it pokes fun at and lays bare – the stage.
A non-stop, breakneck hour of madcap guidance on how to be the best worst amateur dramatics society you possibly can, dealing with everything from stage deaths to stock characters, from unhelpful prompters to distraught directors to even distraughter writers, from Shakespearian jokes to collapsing scenery to making the most of a non-speaking part.
‘Have you ever seen an entire box set slowly teeter inwards and bury Lady Windermere? I have.’
- October 2016
'O heart of mine, steel thyself!'
Euripides's dark and brilliant tale of sexual revenge comes to the Corpus Playroom for the first time.
Medea is a foreign woman in a hostile country. For the sake of her husband Jason she has betrayed her family and left her homeland. When she is abandoned by him in favour of a younger wife she is left with nothing. Facing banishment and separation from her children Medea begs for one day's grace. It is enough. Propelled into action by her unflinching sense of justice and constantly affirmed by her desire to see it done, she sets to work to exact a terrible revenge.
- June 2016
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
The beautiful, aristocratic, Lady Windermere is an adored mother and young wife, whose strong moral code almost causes her own social suicide as she prepares to leave her husband on the suspicion of adultery. Ironically the only one who can stop her is the mysterious Mrs Erlynne whose illicit relationship with Lord Windermere has prompted the imminent downfall of Lady Windermere in the first place. And Mrs Erlynne has a deadly secret - a secret Lady Windermere must never find out if she is to keep her peace of mind and the world she has come to identify with.
A production not to be missed, join us for an evening of the finest upper class debauchery. Lady Windermere's Fan presents the exposition of shocking home truths, the satirisation of societal expectations and Wilde's renowned cutting wit.
- April 2016
Join Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley and Claire Clairmont on a pit stop of their Grand Tour, as they discuss the woes of the Grand Tourist and just what the English have brought to the intellectual world.
- March 2016
Following the success of last year's festival the Downing Dramatic Society is once again offering a platform for new writing by current students of the University. Eight plays by will be showcased in Downing's fabulous Howard Theatre followed by an open forum with top industry professionals.
- February 2016
'You're a divinely mad family!'
The Blisses live in the countryside, and they love inviting people over for the weekend - only this time they haven't told each other! The house is soon crowded with friends and lovers who, as they start arriving and meeting each other, realise just how crazy and melodramatic The Bliss family can get.
Join the glamourous Judith Bliss and her eccentric family for an awkward, confusing and hilarious soirée at their home. This 1920s farce will surely have you in stitches!
- February 2016
“Do you believe in the afterlife?”
A young woman dies suddenly and unexpectedly. Her friends plan a cleansing trip to the seaside. All is not what it seems, and the mechanics of death aren’t quite what they should be. Who is Hurtle T., how did Adrianne really die, and why are there ghosts everywhere?
Meet jeering Adrian, absent-minded Romania, foppish Birch, the self-proclaimed Ex-Ghost, and, at the centre of it all, Susanne herself and her tragic decline.
A comic and unsettlingly dark film heavy with theatrical ambiance, Susanne is a twisted foray into some of humanity's deepest fears.
It can be watched on Youtube via the following link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGSUeDyjSwc
- February 2016
London, 1665: one man suffers love and loss in the shadow of plague. In this song cycle, drawn from accounts such as Defoe's 'A Journal of the Plague Year', Mark Ravenhill’s wry libretto and Conor Mitchell’s experimental score sensitively explore questions of mortality and survival, whilst revealing sharp parallels with modern epidemics.
- February 2016
Laden with moments of both comedy and searing tragedy, Frank Wedekind's famous double bill is brought to the beautiful Howard Theatre. Combined as "Lulu: A Monster Tragedy", Earth Spirit and Pandora's Box are two of the most striking and famous of fin de siècle sex tragedies: forming a commentary on the destructive potential of sexual and material excess in the turn-of-the-century bourgeoisie. A tale which Wedekind tells through the fatal and enigmatic figure of his protagonist Lulu. Travel from Berlin, to the opulent high society of Paris, to the grimy slums of London, following Lulu and her successive lovers, as, at each shift in setting, the play's world and its characters slowly degenerate, before the play’s now iconic and brutal climax.
- November 2015
‘I like this place, / And willingly could waste my time in it.’
This is a story one can hear softly spoken around a campfire in the glowing embers of an evening. It is a tale of ‘the golden world’, disguised lovers and gender swaps. We will be beckoning in our audience to join the company of witty Rosalind; ardent Orlando and wry Jacques in this production's autumnal Forest of Arden.
- March 2015
Downing Dramatic Society are hosting a New Writing Festival Downing's Howard Theatre. We are looking for new one act plays, running at no longer than 20 minutes, to be submitted by the end of January. The best submissions will be staged and watched by a panel of top industry professionals and special guests who will then offer advice and feedback. The winner's prize will include an opportunity to develop the writing further, with support from the society. Many exciting surprises to be announced in due course. Get those pens scratching and await further announcements!
- February 2015
One of the greatest revenge tragedies of Western theatre, Aeschylus’s ‘Agamemnon’ offers a telling depiction of the danger of meeting violence with violence that is gruelling, visceral and strikingly modern.
Set in the aftermath of the Trojan war, the play follows the bloody chain of murder and revenge within a royal household. Power, sacrifice, social oppression; it’s a ruthless portrayal of the extent to which humanity is willing to go for control.
- February 2015
Not so very far in the future, Paulina Salas, a medical student, falls prey to the repressive regime controlling her country. Whilst captive, Paulina is raped and tortured by a Doctor she never sees, who is obsessed with playing Schubert's 'Death and The Maiden'. Paulina is eventually released when the regime falls, and leads a normal life with her husband, the lawyer Gerardo. But the past remains with her.
One night, her husband is stranded by the roadside and is rescued by a kind man, Doctor Miranda, who drives him home. When Paulina hears his voice she is instantly reminded of her rapist and tormentor, and seeks to have his confession by any means possible, while her lawyer husband seeks to ensure Doctor Miranda has a fair trial in the hands of his seemingly deranged wife....
Come and see this play about trauma and the ambivalent nature of guilt and innocence.
- November 2014
- June 2014
May Week 2014 will see the revival of the Downing Dramatic Society May Week show. A brand new take on the traditional May Week Shakespeare, Strange Capers will be a relaxed, funny and hopefully sunny (or at least dry) hour of everyone's favourite bard in the stunning grounds of Downing College.
- May 2014
Free comedy to get you through exam term!
