- November 2013
Enter the courtroom and witness first-hand the gripping action of the landmark trial in the fight for marriage equality in America. Pembroke Players, in association with Broadway Impact and AFER, present a staged reading of ‘8’, a documentary play about the ‘Perry vs. Schwarzenegger’ trial, written by Academy Award-Winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black (Milk, J. Edgar). Following the performance, stick around for a discussion about ongoing developments in this debate at home and abroad.
‘8’ is based on the actual words of the court transcripts, first-hand observations of the courtroom drama and interviews with the plaintiffs and their families. Performed as a documentary play, it sits at the intersection of art and politics and uses pre-existing documentary material as source material for the script. Breaking down the perceived barriers between the personal and the political, ‘8’ attempts to bring the audience into the real-life courtroom of the landmark trial that changed American history.
This event is being run as a fundraiser for PACE, a LGBT+ mental health charity.
- June 2013
Hamlet’s fucked on Strongbow, Claudius is passed out in the bushes, and Ophelia’s just had her stomach pumped. The edgy bitch.
From the acclaimed writer of Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth and Sonnet 48, and presented by reprehensible comedy troupe CowsDrinkMilk (BBC Radio 4 Extra, Edinburgh Fringe), Shakespeare’s greatest and most Danish play descends on Cambridge again this May Week in a whirlwind of debauchery and controversy. It’s not the audience who will be drunk. It’s the actors.
Inspired by the hit phenomenon from the Edinburgh Fringe, we will bring the finest thesps of Cambridge together, and each day randomly select two of them to get systematically and extravagantly plastered. When the show starts, the audience won’t know what’s going to happen, and neither will we.
Come and have a drink at Elsinore. Just remember, adults shouldn’t regularly exceed three to four versions of Hamlet a term.
- March 2013
Fifteen years ago Una and Ray had a relationship. They haven't set eyes on each other since. Now she's found him again.
An evocative presentation of an award winning modern play dealing with the darker sides of familial and sexual relationships and the deeds that lie underneath. Presented in frank proximity to an intimate audience in the closeted space of Pembroke New Cellars, the productions promise an intense, raw experience focusing on honest and open presentations by actors of the delicate subjects of sex and abuse.
David Harrower's Olivier award winning play dealing with the emotional trauma and experiences in pedophilia. Trapped in a single room, the two actor piece deals intimately and frankly with the experiences of those concerned.
- March 2013
Four Cambridge comics come together for an hour of sketches to give you an insight into the dark recesses of their minds, all in the intimate setting of the Pembroke New Cellars.
No costumes. Few props. Some mercy.
It's about to get tough, but not especially crowded.
- March 2013
Mental health issues: myth or fact? Based on interviews and correspondence we bring together verbatim, immersive and physical theatre in a bid to hand the stage back to those at the heart of the matter.
- February 2013
Inspired by the song by Regina Spektor
"Don't make frowns, you silly clown..." Invisible waves whispering. Something hidden. Slippers, sand-filling. An old man sits. "Come and open up your folding chair next to me..."
- February 2013
A play of language, translated and translated again. A non sequitur made in passing by the Local fire Chief sends the Smith's and Martin's dinner party out of control.
"We've eaten well this evening. That's because we live in the suburbs of London and because our name is Smith.''
An absurd and hilarious parody of life.
- February 2013
Cambridge's classiest comedy event. Come along for an evening of high quality comedy, as well as champagne and fine food. You get to vote for your favourite act and could see them walk away with a £50 cash prize!
- February 2013
Two half hour long dark comedies, to be played by the same small cast, about how often we mistake what is said for what is true.
No Comment by Guy Clark - "an impressive piece about a very current issue" Nick Hytner
Overworked and underpaid, young journalist Sam Taylor is desperate for a break. But when a scandal breaks that Sam finds himself in a unique position to exploit, it's sell the the story first and ask questions later.
A Civilised Society by Ellen Robertson
In a desolate, Beckett-esque, environment four homeless people attempt to brainstorm a solution to the problem of homelessness by imagining themselves into the corridors of power of a range of potential regimes. A theatrical and experimental piece.
- November 2012
THE CLASS / EIGHTH QUARTER / PAPERCLIP MAXIMISER
Three experimental short plays from New Word Order
Oh! What a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive! Take note, you innocent, you naïve, The price that freedom will aggrieve.
A teacher struggles to define freedom to a class that does not care. A man with a plastic straw and a sore arm exists for another day in a dimly lit room. An anxious surveillance robot wonders what to do with itself now that it is alone.
Three new plays about liberty from the experimental drama group New Word Order in the modes of naturalism, surrealism and theatre of the absurd, and German expressionism. Written and directed by Jess Moor (Arthur Cotterell prize winner 2010), David Rattigan ("Extremely funny," Varsity; "Terrific energy," TCS), and Scott Aandrasden-Banach ("real talent ... moving and thought-provoking," TCS; "Punchy and succinct," Varsity).
- November 2012
'Luck of the Draw'. Five friends, three lottery tickets, one fortune. As cut-throat as it sounds.
- November 2012
The comfortable Berkshire home of the Bliss family is playing host to a tragedy this summer. Unbeknownst to the rest, all four members have invited separate guests to stay for the same quiet weekend! The calm atmosphere had better brace itself, for the Bliss family may not be as peaceful by nature as by name...
Watch as the unfortunate callers suffer humiliation and ridicule at the hands of their eccentric hosts, whose self-dramatising and outlandish behaviour turns a quiet weekend into a raucous menagerie of squabbling, rudeness and the outright ridiculous.
A comedy with the greatest taste in bad manners, catching Hay Fever in the heart of winter is sure to have you spluttering in your seat long after the final curtain.
- November 2012
INDELIBLE ACTS is three short plays by Tom Powell, Jack Gamble and Stephen Bermingham.
A pair of tired traders unravel in a desolate bar. / 3.47 AM. Twitching hour. Three mellow revellers are being followed back from an unspeakable party. / You’re told not to speak ill of the dead, but some acts are far worse.
Previous work: ‘One to watch’ (Varsity), ‘Funny and fascinating’ (TCS), ‘Truly great’ (CTR), Winner (National Radio Drama Award). See http://slippersandrum.com/.
- November 2012
Pembroke Players presents an interpretative and immersive production based off of Tennessee Williams' Tony Award winning comedy "The Rose Tattoo". Music, puppetry, audience interaction and movement combine to create an original take on Williams comic love story set in an Italian-American village in Louisiana.
Telling the story of a lost love, sexual repression and expression, social conventions and the trials of faith, the play centers around Serafina Delle Rose's loss of her husband and the interplay with the curious characters of the other residents in her insular community.
A talented cast leaps between various roles both comic and tragic using audience interaction, physicality and laughter to spin a magical tale.
“Everybody is nothing until you love them.”
- November 2012
The Pembroke Sticky Floor Smoker is a great showcase for the most exciting new comedy talent in Cambridge. Taking place in the intimate setting of the Pembroke New Cellars, this is not a smoker to be missed. Whether you snigger, Howl with laughter or are merely slightly disgusted at how sticky the floor is, this is a Smoker not to miss
- October 2012
A daring and innovative production of Fay Weldon's adaptation of Gustave Flaubert's groundbreaking masterpiece Madame Bovary - the story of a woman, constrained by boredom and suffocating social etiquette, who follows her desires and passions to a tragic conclusion.
Pembroke Players invite you to join Emma Bovary on her last day alive as she sits down for breakfast with her trusting and talentless husband Charles and reminisces about a marriage spent trying desperately to escape from everything he represents, calling to mind a lifetime of forbidden lusts, unfulfilled dreams and ill-fated love affairs.
- October 2012
A fast paced and witty new tragicomedy from the team behind "It's Complicated", "Guido!", and the Graduate Smokers.
The year is 2080 AD. The Oblivion Virus has brought civilization to its arthritic knees. All but the youngest in society are infected with dementia. Below the city, an aging couple, young scientist and priest hide in the basement morgue of London Bridge Hospital from the virus and youths, looking for something (anything!) to save off the boredom... The year is 2080 AD. Wait, did I already say that?!
- October 2012
- October 2012
'An thru the pump pump pump of the disco dance I see it all!'
Pig and Runt are soul mates. Born seconds apart in the same hospital, they are inseparable, with an almost supernatural understanding. As partners in crime, they share an appetite for drunkenness, recklessness, adventure and destruction. But on the eve of their 17th birthday it is an appetite for sex that threatens to tear them apart.
Disco Pigs erupted onto the Edinburgh Fringe when it debuted in 1997. Winner of both the Steward Parker and the George Devine Award, the ADC debut of Disco Pigs promises to be a thrilling paean to unbridled youth.
- October 2012
Pembroke Players presents PEMBROKE PLAYERS JAPAN TOUR 2012
‘Now, the most important thing you should know about real witches is this. Real witches dress in ordinary clothes, and look very much like ordinary women. They live in ordinary houses, and they work in ordinary jobs.’ - This summer, the Pembroke Players will tour Japan with their production of Macbeth. Set in Edwardian Britain, in a country house haunted by the absence of a child, where rocking horses move unprovoked, the clocks forever tick and spirits are ever present, the Macbeths are left questioning who and what they can trust as they sacrifice everything for power.
The Pembroke Players Japan Tour is now moving into its sixth consecutive year. Every year the Tour takes a high-quality production of a Shakespeare play to universities, schools, and public theatres across Japan. The tour is based in Tokyo but also gives participants an opportunity to travel and perform in locations outside of the capital - previous destinations have included Yokohama, Kyoto, Nagoya and many others.
- July 2012
- May 2012
- May 2012
“Try to look unhappy. We’re going to a burial, remember?”
A brother and a sister. A cart and a coffin. A dead man in a box. But is there a clear road to the graveside? There’ll be passage to pay and bridges to cross, the war is barely over and there are men in the woods who are still intent on fighting it...
Funny, tense and thought-provoking, this poignant new play by Harry Baker asks where love and loyalty ends, and pride begins. On at the ADC for a short run only, make sure you see the best of Cambridge’s new writing for 2012.
It’s a clear road, but it goes through dark places.
**** TCS "Its script and its execution were equally absorbing and exquisitely balanced between comedy and heartbreak...thoughtful and poignant... refreshing and enjoyable."
**** Varsity "The fact that A Clear Road takes a coffin on wheels as its inspiration goes some way in describing the bravery and originality of this production.... Magnetically atmospheric."
- March 2012
Have you? No, neither have I. But he has. Yes, he has. He so has. Look at him. Having it.
Phil Liebman and Jamie Mathieson, as seen at the Edinburgh Fringe, Footlights Smokers and the County Arms, present a brand spanking new sketch show like no other that takes the rulebook for student comedy and does such bad things to it that our mothers would be ashamed.
Praise for the writers:
Phil: ‘Delightful’ (The Tab), ‘Vigorous’ (New Current), ‘His essays aren’t perfect but there are no major issues.’ (Dr. Jonathan Birch)
Jamie: ‘Marvellous’ (Varsity), ‘Lovely’ (The Tab), ‘The lateness of many of his essays have precluded me from writing detailed feedback on his work.’ (Dr. Isabel DiVanna)
- March 2012
The French classical tragedy par excellence: passion, jealousy, revenge, politics and gallantry ending in bloodshed.
Oreste loves Hermione who loves Pyrrhus who loves Andromaque, who is torn between her fidelity to her late husband Hector, killed by Pyrrhus’ father, and her attempt to save their son. Disappointed love turns into hatred as the frantic quadrangle dissolves. Each of the protagonists either kill, or die; the survivor descends into madness.
Racine’s Andromaque, as transcendent as Shakespeare’s tragedies, blooms some of the most beautiful verses ever heard on stage. As every translation would betray this intimate union of poetry and drama, the text will be performed in French; but the bodies carried away by violence and desire will speak a language everybody can understand.
- February–March 2012
A stranger has come to the city of Thebes, claiming to be Dionysus, god of wine, and the women of the city have begun flocking to join him in his wild rites on the hillsides. Pentheus, the newly crowned king, thinks the man a charlatan and will do anything in his power to crush this new cult. But he is about to learn that gods - especially drunk ones - rarely take criticism well. This production will be a powerful, physically demanding interpretation of Euripides' masterpiece: the horrific majesty and sublime cruelty of the god of wine will be fully explored, and the audience will be immersed in a world of sex, alcohol and violence.
- February–March 2012
‘You are tricking a little girl into loving you.’
As a married couple prepare for a rare night alone, a simple mistake provokes a confession that threatens to devastate their family. Forced to face up to an uncomfortable reality, accusations and apologies are exchanged as the pair find themselves desperate to both understand and hide the truth. Innovatively staged in an intimate setting, Unconditional is a by turns moving and unnerving play that considers what happens when our most fundamental expectations go unfulfilled.
‘This is the point where it gets better.’
‘Only for you.’
Tickets available here: http://www.adcticketing.com/shows/show/1224
- February 2012
'You take your eyes off a show for two minutes, and the next thing you know the theatre's half empty and all the laughs have gone.'
Keith is at the theatre watching his play. So is everyone else. Allegedly. But what with upholstery, understudies and unwelcome birthday treats, is it any surprise no one's paying attention?
From Michael Frayn, two times winner of the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Comedy and writer of ‘Noises Off’ comes ‘Audience’, a one-act comedy about how the real spectacle can be found in the stalls, even if the drama is on stage.
- November 2011
- November 2011
You've Burnt The Parsnips is an original 45 minute one-act comedy, telling the story of an ill-fated dinner party.
Susan, a positively obnoxious snob, is fretting over the last-minute preparations for the dinner party she is holding for her brother’s twenty-fifth birthday. While she panics and perfects every minute detail, all her husband, Simon, does is dance along to his only remaining record, after the mysterious disappearance of his collection. Simon - a long-suffering and downtrodden man - yearns to escape his marriage but is too weak to oppose his tyrannical wife.
As the guests arrive, the underlying tensions surface all too easily: Susan’s bitter competition with her “common” sister, Brenda; a not-so-subtle affair between Susan and Brenda’s husband; and Susan’s overbearing mollycoddling of her wimp of a younger brother.
Served with a generous helping of snide gibes and a hearty dollop of awkwardness thanks to an unworn Christmas present and a total disregard for the Estonian champagne industry, "Parsnips" follows every member of the family reaching breaking point and setting out to exact revenge in increasingly inventive ways.
Will the evening’s events finally set Simon free?
- November 2011
Freshers' Week: we've all been there. This time with songs...
Follow the lives of five freshers as they attempt to navigate the highs and lows of that first week of university life. Nervous Hayley is finding it difficult being away from home but there is hope that cheeky chappy Tuc will help her overcome her fears. Posh boy Rupert enjoys playing croquet, but his female counterpart Ally seems less than impressed by his advances. And shy Basil is struggling to find out who he really is... Will rapping about your cat really win you friends? Is Frankenstein or Flo Rida a more appropriate costume for the fancy-dress party? And why are all romantic encounters fraught with complications? With the ‘best years of our lives’- and some of the worst mornings after - re-imagined in musical form, FRESHER! will take you back to those first days of university you wish you could forget.
- November 2011
- October 2011
Tom Stoppard’s THE REAL THING, already a classic in modern drama, is an unforgettable exploration of love, art and reality. Winner of the Tony Award, Critics’ Circle Award and Evening Standard Award for Best Play, it has delighted audiences the world over and established Stoppard as one of the greatest writers of our time. At its heart, Henry—a playwright with high romantic ideals—aims at true love in both his life and writing. His relationship with the strong-minded actress Annie comes at a price he struggles to afford, but it affords us ‘two of the finest [roles] in modern drama’ (The Independent). Sparklingly witty yet profoundly moving, Stoppard's play muses and amuses as it asks us whether we can ever find true love, express love truly or capture 'the real thing'.
This new staging for the all-new Corpus Playroom comes from the production team that brought you SEXUAL PERVERSITY IN CHICAGO and MARGOT DE SADE, and looks set to be a highlight on the theatrical termcard this Michaelmas.
Find out more at TheRealThing.org.uk.
- October 2011
Serge has bought a painting. A very expensive, totally white painting. Marc hates it. Yvan is caught in the middle.
Marc is a cynical know-it-all. Serge is a proud name-dropping showoff. Yvan is just trying to be a good friend and mediator.
If your friendship is based on tacit mutual agreement, what happens when one person does something completely different and unexpected? The question is: Are you who you think you are, or who your friends think you are?
Multiple Comedy Awards. The Tony Award for Best Play. Who'd have thought it was all about a "white piece of shit"?
- September 2011
Now in its fifth consecutive year, Pembroke Players Japan Tour will be taking Shakespeare's Twelfth Night to a range of venues in England and Japan. Visiting schools, universities and professional theatres both in rural and urban Japan during September, the tour will also feature a home run in Cambridge at the beginning of Michaelmas term.
Transported to 1940s civilian England, the characters of Twelfth Night resort to music, drink and trickery to distract themselves from death and unrequited love. Dealing with chaos, cons and crossed wires, their lives veer between the comic and the tragic as they look for entertainment and affection in Shakespeare's iconic play.
- June 2011
When a rhinoceros charges across the town square one afternoon, Berenger doesn't bat an eyelid and attempts to carry on with life as usual. Soon, however, rhinoceroses are popping up everywhere and Berenger's whole world begins to unravel. In 'Rhinoceros', a landmark piece of French absurdist comedy, Ionesco dares us to resist temptation in the face of conformity and cling on to our humanity...even when everyone else is going rhino...
JEAN: Instead of squandering all your spare money on drink, isn't it better to buy a ticket for an interesting play? Do you know anything about the avant-garde theatre there's so much talk about? Have you seen Ionesco's plays?
BERENGER: Unfortunately, no. I've only heard people talk about them. (...)
