- January 2016
Cambridge University Dance Society invites you to join us for a spectacular visual feast of movement and colour, featuring styles such as contemporary, ballet, hip-hop, breakdance, belly-dancing, Rock’n’Roll, Indian folk dance and more! Don’t miss the ADC’s biggest dance show of the year, as CUDS returns to the stage for their annual variety show which offers a performance platform for diverse groups across Cambridge to showcase their dazzling talent.
Praise for previous CUDS shows:
“Vibrant, eye-catching and enthusiastically performed” – Varsity, 2015
“Original and innovative choreography” – TCS, 2015
“A sensory buffet and an absolute delight… an uplifting night of quality entertainment” – The Tab, 2014
- January 2016
Murder! Murder in the ADC! Just before going on to perform, a sketch comic is killed. Over the course of an hour, the remaining performers will interrogate suspects in the audience, whilst keeping the remainder at ease with a series of hilarious sketches. Will the crime be solved? Will the sketches be funny? Come and see Murder On The Disorient Express: A Murder Mystery Sketch Show.
- January 2016
The finest of Cambridge's musical theatre talent join forces to create an original musical... in just 24 hours! Creative teams are given a theme for a musical, and each team write, compose and rehearse a song over the 24 hour period. The result is an eclectic and brand-spanking new show, and a spectacular celebration of new writing!
- December 2015
Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night, or What You Will’ takes us to the heart of the festive season, full of music, trickery, deception and disguise. This year’s European Theatre Tour’s production will be set against a backdrop of 1950s Europe in an era of post war opulence, where appearance is everything, yet nothing is quite what it seems to be. With identical twins separated by a shipwreck, a cross-dressing heroine and everyone in search of love, Twelfth Night is one of the most famous and tangled love stories in literature.
In the fantastical, wacky and slightly surreal Kingdom of Illyria, the peace of the grieving Olivia and heartsick Duke is disturbed by the arrival of Viola and Sebastian with a lazy drunk, a vain pedant, a cowardly fool and a cunning maid who indulge in the madness of the festive season against a backdrop of 1950s Europe, with a mixture of original compositions and fifties music.
Using music, movement, physical theatre and slapstick comedy to show just how “the course of true love never did run smooth” in this, the most loved of Shakespeare’s comic plays, Twelfth Night hurls us into the madness of Illyria as the twins try to make their way through.
Join ETG this winter as we tour European schools and theatres on the university’s oldest theatre tour.
The Cambridge University European Theatre Group (ETG) tours a Shakespeare play around Europe for two and a half weeks every December. It is an ambitious coach-bound operation; a company of 24 tour with professional lighting and sound equipment, costumes and an experimental set, enabling us to put on a show in a wide variety of venues around Europe.
The European Theatre Group is a self-sufficient theatre tour, that has travelled by coach to schools, universities and professional venues across Europe each December for the last 58 years. Whilst Switzerland remains a central part of the itinerary, tours have also included dates in Belgium, Germany, France, The Netherlands, Luxembourg and Italy. In recent years the company have enjoyed performing for a London audience, before a home run in January at the ADC Theatre, Cambridge.
An integral part of the tour is the educational enrichment we provide. Our plays are designed to engage with modern audiences, from children to expatriates; alongside this we offer both artistic and technical workshops, and work with schools to support students studying the text in class.
- January 2016
The Addams Family features an original story, and it's every father's nightmare. Wednesday Addams, the ultimate princess of darkness, has grown up and fallen in love with a sweet, smart young man from a respectable family - a man her parents have never met. And if that weren't upsetting enough, Wednesday confides in her father and begs him not to tell her mother. Now, Gomez Addams must do something he's never done before - keep a secret from his beloved wife, Morticia. Everything will change for the whole family on the fateful night they host a dinner for Wednesday's 'normal' boyfriend and his parents.
- December 2015
Fly away, fly away to the Neverland! Join Peter Pan as he flies into the ADC Theatre this December with KD Theatre’s fantastic musical adaption of the classic J. M. Barrie novel everyone has grown to know and love. Peter Pan is a boy who didn’t want to grow up and so spent his life in Neverland battling the pirates and Indians. When he brings the Darling children to Neverland with him, he is finally able to fight his biggest enemy, the elegant Captain Hook. Featuring great music, spectacular effects and real flying, this show is not to be missed.
- December 2015
- December 2015
“The problem with girls like that is they ruin it for everyone. The problem with girls like that is they give all girls a bad name.”
When Scarlet’s naked photo goes viral around school, the ferocity of smartphones and tweets are unleashed and her reputation is torn to shreds. The enemy however is not the boys; this is girls against girls.
"Sket, skank, slapper, you deserve everything coming to you"
A twisted fusion of 'Mean Girls' and 'Black Mirror', this explosive play captures our increasingly distorted sense of reality and the pressures on today's digital generation. While it is viciously funny, it speaks with brutal honesty and shockingly reveals not only the messed up standards that are imposed on young women by men, but more importantly by women themselves. Be prepared to leave asking yourself uncomfortable questions and rethinking how many friends you actually have on Facebook.
- December 2015
Don't miss the Show Choir's first performance with its brand new company - jazz hands and harmonies as you've never seen them before.
One night only.
- November 2015
Creativity. Determination. Caffeine. These are just a few of the elements that go into a 24 Hour Play festival. 24 Hour Plays is a fast-paced, mad, and extremely fun gallop through the theatrical process, for both the participants and the spectators! 5 teams have 24 hours to write, rehearse, and perform short plays, which will be voted on by the audience. The results are completely unpredictable, but predictably fantastic. To the winner goes the glory -- and a good night's rest!
- November 2015
Something is rotten in the state of Lichtenstein.
A shady businessman has been manipulating milk prices, plunging the world into a state of brittle-boned chaos and it’s up to Britain’s top agent, Macy Johnson, to sort things out. Along the way she’ll be helped and hindered by an array of shady businessmen, corrupt ministers, pompous diplomats and gun-toting Americans, all played by a cast of just three actors.
This hilarious farce is sure to be udder chaos.
- November 2015
In medieval times, life was very different to now. There were huge divides between rich people and poor people.
There were also snazzy musical numbers, talking trees and a live audience watching the every move of a medium-sized town in the East Midlands. Welcome to Nottingham!
Here, the Sheriff’s long-term economic plan is in full swing, and everything is rosy; the caviar flows like water and the water flows if you pay your taxes. Yet all this is about to change. When Maid Marian has a chance encounter with Robin Hood, she sets in motion a tree-topping tale of love, lies and Marxist liberation that promises to blow the glass ceiling, and your minds.
Will the Sheriff’s iron rule be broken? Will Marian find what she is looking for? Will Scarlet is also there. Join us for this year’s glitziest, jazziest, sparkliest, socialist-est show of all, starring the cream of Cambridge’s comedy and musical worlds in the all-singing, all-dancing, CUADC/Footlights Pantomime: Robin Hood!
- November 2015
The Marlowe Showcase will be a chance for graduating actors to perform a series of monologues and duologues to an audience of industry professionals including casting directors and agents.
- November 2015
Sculptor Brindsley Miller has pulled out all the stops to impress his flighty new fiancée’s hard-nosed father and a millionaire art collector, including embellishing his humble apartment with furniture ‘borrowed’ from an absentee neighbour. Then, the lights go out!
Brindsley blindly struggles to salvage the evening, but the unexpected return of the neighbour, not to mention a surprise visit from a jealous ex-girlfriend, mean that he might be better off keeping everyone in the dark...
Watch what really happens when the lights go out in this uproarious comedy from Peter Shaffer.
- November 2015
Based on Jamila Gavin’s novel and first staged at the National Theatre in 2005, Coram Boy is an emotionally overwhelming play set against the backdrop of adolescent love, abandoned babies, cruelty, murder, social prejudice, friendship and the music of 18th century England.
At the heart of this play is the story of two boys from very different backgrounds. Alexander, the son of Lord Ashbrook and a musical prodigy, runs away from a life of duty as heir to the family estate in pursuit of personal and creative freedom. Meshak Gardiner is the impoverished, mentally-damaged son of the sinister Otis – a man who promises a better life for abandoned children. During their troubled adolescence these very different life journeys become intrinsically bound, particularly through Aaron, the illegitimate son Alexander unwittingly leaves behind.
Though Aaron starts his life in the Coram Hospital for Foundlings, as he grows into a young man it becomes clear that he has inherited his father’s musical ability, a gift that could ultimately reunite his family.
- November 2015
Cinderella with less pumpkin, more picketing? The classic tale of Ali Baba told with one more X chromosome? The greed, ignorance and vanity of The Red Shoes translated into dance? They’re all destinations on the journey and you are invited.
Yearwalk brings to life the stories you thought you knew in a setting you could only dream of. Traditional folklore and fables are reinvigorated with music and dance, puppetry and shadows, magic and spectacle. The often vague and mysterious nature of story-telling is explored as ancient stories from around the world are brought to stage after being passed down the generations. The atmosphere will entrance you as we embrace the history and mystery of different cultures…
- November 2015
Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd, the story of the notorious demon barber of Fleet Street.
When Sweeney Todd returns to London after 15 years of unjust incarceration, his mind is bent on black revenge. He longs to kill the sadistic Judge Turpin who had stolen and abused Todd’s wife and wrongfully banished him to Australia. With the help of a young idealistic sailor, Antony, and the loveable but immoral Mrs Lovett, Todd sets his mind to avenging his beloved wife Lucy and being reunited with his daughter Johanna, now locked away by the lecherous Turpin.
This delightfully macabre tale descends into a cut-throat world of cannibalism, caged birds, meat pies, mad beggars and deceit as Todd restarts his career as a barber, declaring war on all mankind.
Join the Cambridge University Musical Theatre Society in an industrial world of smoke and steampunk as they try a little priest. It’s an acquired taste.
- November 2015
"Okay we get it, there's no binbags. So what do we do now?"
Four twenty-somethings wake up after a night out with killer hangovers and no memory of what happened the night before. Two are flatmates, one is a family friend, and the other is a stranger from their night out. They wake up, make breakfast and try to put the previous night behind them, only to have a rude reminder of it fall in front of them.
Winner of the RSC/Marlowe Society Other Prize 2015, and shortlisted for the Footlights Harry Porter Prize, "Living Quarters" is a dark comedy that will change the way you think about kitchen gloves.
- November 2015
How do you make your voice heard in a world that wants to keep you quiet?
Inspired by the events of the London Riots in 2011, this exciting new musical follows the story of a teenage boy trying to pursue his dream of becoming a successful musician against the backdrop of a struggling London borough. When the only hope of a future rests in the security of a local gang, he must decide which path to choose. Facing the pressures of social tensions and the changing nature of community, what will he do?
With a brand new script, and a score by the composer of The CUADC/Footlights Pantomime 2014: The Emperor’s New Clothes, we present to you a concert performance of snippits from this new show.
- November 2015
“I just thought everyone’s parents spoke like that. Then I realised.”
“Just like I thought everyone’s parents walked around in the nude shouting at each other.”
“They do.”
Billy’s fiercely intelligent and proudly unconventional family are their own tribe, with their own private language, jokes and rules. You can be as rude as you like, as possessive as you like and as critical as you like. Arguments are an expression of love. After all, you’d do anything for each other, wouldn’t you?
But Billy, who is deaf, is the only one who actually listens.
Meeting Sylvia makes him finally want to be heard, but can he get a word in edgeways? She introduces him to sign-language, love and the deaf community. Some of his family aren’t keen on his new, increasingly distant, identity.
Nina Raine’s award-winning play is a fascinating dissection of belonging, family and the limitations of communication.
- October 2015
"Yes, getting away with murder must be quite easy provided that one’s motive is sufficiently inscrutable."
A mysterious gentleman, Simon Gascoyne, has just entered Muldoon Manor trying to win the heart of the ravishing young Cynthia Muldoon...
A shot is heard. Simon lies dead! Who could have murdered him?
Cut off from the world, the fear and suspense rise! Their only hope lies with the enigmatic Inspector Hound, an illustrious detective on the hunt for a killer.
Who will the murderer target next?
Will the Inspector get to get to Muldoon Manor in time?
And most importantly, who is the REAL Inspector Hound?
Stoppard's one-act play is a wickedly funny tale of love, jealousy, murder, and melodrama; complete with a live band and original score.
- October 2015
Footlights bring you the funniest songs, sketches, monologues and standup in an hour of non-stop, back-to-back fun-filled hilarity. The material is always original and always varied. It can be soft and silly; rude and spikey; wordy and nerdy or a little surreal - whatever the style, it's always 'uproariously funny' (Varsity).
- October 2015
Slowly I learnt the ways of humans: how to ruin, how to hate, how to debase, how to humiliate. And at the feet of my master I learnt the highest of human skills, the skill no other creature owns: I finally learnt how to lie.
Childlike in his innocence but grotesque in form, Frankenstein's bewildered creature is cast out into a hostile universe by his horror-struck maker. Meeting with cruelty wherever he goes, the friendless Creature, increasingly desperate and vengeful, determines to track down his creator and strike a terrifying deal.
Urgent concerns of scientific responsibility, parental neglect, cognitive development and the nature of good and evil are embedded within this thrilling and deeply disturbing classic gothic tale.
FRANKENSTEIN was first presented at the National Theatre, London on 5 February 2011, directed by Danny Boyle
- October 2015
And it was written: let there be a book tour. Tristram Shandy's sizzling autobiography, 'The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman', has just hit the shelves and the author is touring the country, wowing audiences with a theatrical extravaganza which captures the scandal, wit and wisdom of this instant classic. Morrissey's autobiography went straight to Penguin Classics; Tristram's got Oxford and Wordsworth as well. Although we tend not to talk about the Wordsworth edition.
Join us at the ADC, for four nights only, and revel in the sex, the scandal, the song, the dance, the love, the lies and that bit where he gets his thingy trapped in a sash window. This new adaptation of Laurence Sterne's hilarious and groundbreaking novel takes you on a poignant and compelling tour through some of the life and many of the opinions of Britain's finest Tristram.
Torquay is still reeling.
- October 2015
Getting into the boyband game can be difficult. Despite having one good singer, one with a regional accent, and one token Asian, Orlando, Haydn, and Yaseen haven't been able to crack it. So you'll have to join them for an hour of stand-up comedy instead.
The new show from the stars of "Smile", "Who Am I?", "Telly Visions", "Bafflesmash", "The Witt Club", "Picasso Stole the Mona Lisa", and countless Footlights and college smokers. No lip-synching. Guaranteed.
Previous praise for the performers:
"Simply sensational."
"Had the audience laughing from start to finish."
"A slimline Michael McIntyre."
"Thought provoking, exquisitely written, and doesn't scrimp on big laughs."
- October 2015
“What would the good do if evil did not exist? And what would the earth look like if shadows disappeared from it?”
The Devil arrives in Stalinist Moscow. Pontius Pilate argues with Christ over the nature of human worth. And a woman goes to hell and back to save her lover.
This adaptation of Bulgakov’s violent, poetic and sprawling masterpiece stays true to the heart of the original: part diabolical satire, exposing the hypocrisy, greed and corruption of Moscow’s citizens, and part heart-rending love story, engaging with our most basic human instincts.
- October 2015
The original 1972 Broadway production of Stephen Schwartz (best known for his work on Wicked, Godspell, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The Prince of Egypt) and Roger O. Hirson's 'Pippin' won five Tony Awards, and the 2013 Broadway revival won another four.
The story is told by a troupe of actors, led by the ‘Leading Player’, a mysterious figure who breaks the fourth wall and blurs the distinction between the world of fiction and reality. The troupe stages the story of Pippin, a young prince who is searching for his place in the world. Rather than following a linear structure, the show resembles a picaresque adventure-story, consisting of a number of fantastical episodes: Pippin goes to war with the Visigoths, murders his father, becomes a tyrant, flees to the countryside and falls in love.
Pippin contains a masterful score by Stephen Schwartz, with upbeat pop-inspired numbers that propel the story along with wit and energy, and many of its memorable songs, from Pippin’s soaring ballad Corner of the Sky to Berthe’s rousing (and audience-participatory) anthem No Time at All, have become established classics.
- October 2015
"It is now one hour before dawn - when I must dismiss us both. When I return, I'll tell you about the war I fought with God through His preferred Creature - Mozart, named Amadeus. In the waging of which, of course, the Creature had to be destroyed."
It is 1823. Vienna. The famous composer Salieri is ill and dying. For him, it seems, his final hours on earth are not just for reminiscing, but confessing. Amadeus is the story of that confession - of how Salieri made a deal with God in the hope of gaining talent, and how the greater genius of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart turned everything upside down. Upon witnessing Mozart's extraordinary talents first-hand, Salieri starts down a course of action with dark and dangerous consequences for both men.
Peter Shaffer's play is a costume tragedy for the stage, taking the audience back into the world of the Viennese court of the 18th century and exploring the personal, and political motivations behind the facades. An ensemble of exotic and lively characters people his world, a world where music is intertwined with intrigue, sexual bargaining, and gossip. The play itself has been through multiple versions since its first run in 1979 (with Ian McKellen and Tim Curry in the leading roles), including one oscar winning film. Twice director of Amadeus Peter Hall has said that the current play has evolved massively from a melodrama into what it is today "while keeping its thrills and its intellectual edge, it has become a profoundly humanist play about forgiveness and atonement."
- September 2015
A refreshingly honest and funny musical about making real connections in the city that never sleeps (but probably should at some point.) Ordinary Days tells the story of four young New Yorkers whose lives intersect as they search for fulfillment, happiness, love and cabs. Through a score of vibrant and memorable songs, their experiences ring startlingly true to life. Ordinary Days is an original musical for anyone who’s ever struggled to appreciate the simple things in a complex place. With equal doses of humor and poignancy, it celebrates how 8.3 million individual stories combine in unexpected ways to make New York City such a unique and extraordinary home.
- September 2015
A farcical comedy play that pays homage to Agatha Christie’s classic whodunit murder mysteries. But in this case, it’s very much whodidntdoit!
- September 2015
Princeton, a bright-eyed college graduate comes to New York City with big dreams and a tiny bank account. He soon discovers that the only neighbourhood in his price range is Avenue Q. Still, the neighbours seem nice. Together Princeton and his newfound friends struggle to find jobs, dates, and their ever-elusive purpose in life! Blending puppetry, musical theatre and comedy, this musical was a smash-hit on Broadway and in the West End.
- August 2015
castcambridge.com
“If I be waspish, best beware my sting.”
The stubborn, rebellious Katherina must consent to marriage, before her sickly sweet, and much desired younger sister Bianca is allowed to be a wife to one of her many suitors. While Petruchio attempts to “tame” the shrewish elder sister, the suitors battle to win the younger by disguising themselves all under the watchful eye of Baptista, their father.
Are the dreams of happy endings all that they were meant to be? We’ll see…
A play within a play, and high on music, dance and laughs, Shakespeare’s greatest comedy is full to the brim of plot twists and turns. Shakespeare’s use of scintillating dialogue, foolery and daring schemes are jam-packed into our two hour performance of Romance and Revenge!
Fifteen years since its first tour, CAST returns to the east coast of the USA in September 2015.
- July 2015
Telling the story of a Meddlesome Matchmaker, Hello Dolly is an irresistible story of the joy of living, sparkling with some of the best songs in musical theatre and one of the most iconic characters ever to grace the stage, Dolly Levi. With great songs such as ‘Put On Your Sunday Clothes’, ‘Before the Parade Passes By’ and of course the title song, this show is not to be missed! Featuring a live orchestra and a cast of trained musical theatre performers this show will be glittering with West End quality. After last year’s successful run of ‘Anything Goes’, KD Theatre makes a triumphant return with the hit Broadway musical ‘Hello Dolly.’
- July 2015
'It’s wanting to know that makes us matter'. Combined Actors are proud to present Stoppard's fizzing comedy of ideas, which won both the Olivier and Evening Standard Awards for Best New Play. Arcadia is set in a Derbyshire country house during both the Regency and the late twentieth century: academic researchers argue their theories about the events of 1809, juxtaposed with scenes of what really happened during Lord Byron’s visit. Arcadia combines a literary detective story with discussions on the rise of Romanticism, mathematics, landscape gardening, why you can’t unstir the jam from your rice pudding, and the eventual death of the universe - culminating in a waltz which resolves the arguments across two centuries.
- June 2015
Yaseen Kader ("Smile") and Ken Cheng ("The Mark Liu Story") present Joke Thieves: an hour of stand-up comedy with a twist. Ken and Yaseen have stolen a half hour of each other's material and placed their own spin on it. Is a stand up set too personal to succeed if someone else is performing it? Find out. You may have seen these performers in The Witt Club, Smile, Three White Guys and many college gigs around Cambridge.
Previous praise for performers:
"Brilliant quips" - TCS
"Master of metacomedy" - Tab
"thought-provoking, exquisitely written" - Varsity
"Artistic gold" - TCS
"overwhelmingly endearing and natural" - Varsity
- June 2015
Grizzly is a new stand-up show at the ADC on June 18th that will eat your face off and potentially amuse you. Featuring badass young whippersnappers Jamie Armitage, Eleanor Colville, Tom Fairbairn, Rob Oldham and Orlando Gibbs. This show is for one night only so it's the hottest ticket in town - don't miss out on the funny.
