- May 2025
Blank Canvas is a celebration of longer-form new writing works in development, platforming new and underrepresented voices in the theatre scene. With support from the Fletcher Players committee, Blank Canvas is proud to present semi-complete stagings of new works that deserve to be seen by Cambridge audiences. Blank Canvas has a different show on every night - follow Fletcher Players on social media for further announcements.
THURSDAY - 'Go to Hell' - A visceral contemporary reimagining of the Greek myth of Hades, Persephone and Demeter, focused on gender dynamics and mother-daughter relationships
FRIDAY - 'If Walls Could Talk' - If walls could talk, what would they say? Find out in this homoerotic story of love and faith — is love ever truly enough, or are hearts made to be broken?
SATURDAY - 'Nobody!' - Nobody! follows Debbie as she tries to balance her friendships with aspirations of fame, narrated through Emily Dickinson’s poetry
- May 2025
"After traversing about a mile of trenches… we arrived at the entrance of a long tunnel which we entered and, proceeding almost to the other end of it, made ourselves comfortable and awaited the signal… Our guns had been silent almost all night… but at 5.30 the barrage was opened up. Even down in the tunnel, which was close to 60 feet deep, the sound was like a vast roll of thunder. We hurried out and I do not think I shall ever forget the sight which met our eyes as we reached the lip of the crater into which the tunnel ran.”
-Sergeant Harold Panabaker, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery
Set in real time, this new play by William Lloyd tells the evocative story of three Canadian students in the First World War in the hour leading up to the monumental Battle of Vimy Ridge.
- May 2025
Expect laughs, laughs, and more laughs...
Footlights bring you the funniest songs, sketches, monologues and stand up in an evening 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).
- May 2025
Life is precious, life is finite.
Martha doesn’t want to be alone and is unable to face reality in the process of losing her mother Madeline to Alzheimer’s. She turns to the universe for answers to help guide her. Convinced by the power of signs and divine numerological calculations, Martha and her new love interest stand a 98% chance they are destined to be together! But what about the other 2%?
Strangers is about the human need for love and connection, and what happens when a vital bond is threatened or cut off.
- May 2025
What would you do for an Oscar?
Actor/Filmmaker Nick Cohen relives his desperate Hollywood years - a tragicomic true-life Sunset Boulevard.
Nick flees South London and his dysfunctional family to live as a permanent guest in Hollywood with a double Oscar-winner; a man who worked regularly with Orson Welles, promising to get Nick’s film nominated if he follows exact instructions.
'Life with Oscar' upends La La Land in a confessional rollercoaster ride through its dark, twisted underbelly; aptly premiered, at Underbelly, Edinburgh fringe before transferring Off-West End to the Arcola Theatre in London.
‘Nick Cohen is a theatrical and comedic genius... . A one-man army... This is a must see.’ Broadway Baby ★★★★★
'This autobiographical show will keep you laughing for 60 minutes straight... it is physical theatre in its pure form; energetic, intimate and powerful.’ The Broad Online ★★★★★
- March 2025
- March 2025
In the confusing-as-to-how-distant future, the world lies in chaotic disrepair, and a cartoonishly power-hungry government rules over the lower classes (who have had it up to here, honestly). The laws that they enforce are so bizarre and silly that they may as well have been shouted out by an audience. But hope is still alive in the young adults that want to see change in their world. Only they can band together and fight back to bring down the absurd regime under which they live. In The Dystopia Games, you have the opportunity to build a totally new YA-style dystopian future and watch as our improvisers bring it to life! Is everyone divided up by hairstyle? Does the fate of millions come down to a cook-off? Is the world trapped in a big Zorb? You decide!
- March 2025
Two cantankerous Irishmen set out to sea to find a missing boy - if only it were that simple...
- March 2025
Sola, is a dance piece which tries to construct the presence of absence. Each night will consist of 4 solos, devised by the dancers themselves around the theme of isolation. There will be 6-8 dancers meaning each night the rotation of solos will change, making four different pieces. Each dancer involved therefore also becomes a director. Sola will be more than the shows themselves. Rehearsals will consist of a series of workshops and improvisation sessions, with some open to any one who wants to join including musicians and artists. The aim is to create a collaborative and interdisciplinary environment which best facilitates the production of the solos.
- March 2025
Smörgåsbord is the Corpus Playroom's own eclectic bi-annual showcase of new student-written theatre.
For over a decade, this evening has been a rite of passage for emerging student playwrights in Cambridge, and it’s the event at the heart of the Corpus Playroom’s calendar.
We particularly seek to give a spotlight to those who haven’t previously had their work audienced, and to anyone who feels that they have an underrepresented narrative or cultural lineage to bring to the fore.
Come and sample a platter of the most exciting new theatre in town!
- March 2025
“I don’t want to die with my skull pokin’ out. What if the angels all laugh at me?”
Clay Hudson is a stone-cold vigilante. He's widely known for hunting down guilty men and sending them back to the law.
Wyatt is an incredibly guilty man.
Neither of them would choose to be stuck at the bottom of a well together, one cold night in 1860s Nevada, but life has a funny way of happening downwards sometimes. There’s nothing to do but wait for dawn and pray someone will come by with a ladder.
...
They find other things to do.
Two Cowboys Get Stuck In A Well is an exploration of survival, softness, and Old Western masculinity. Saving the day makes for a cool story- but when the story has run out, that loner cowboy still has to confront who he is. Introspection's a tricky game with blood under your nails.
- March 2025
All Mags Crypt ever wanted was to be recognised as the world's best witch in the world's worst village. But when the witch-finders accuse an innocent woman of witchcraft instead, Mags gets jealous - really jealous. Can she overcome her pride and save the woman, or will she let professional envy get the better of her?
A new comedy about female friendship, jealously and male incompetency. Copious amounts of dung and grown adults in cat costumes guaranteed.
- March 2025
Four girls, a sheep, a corpse, and a vote that could change everything. What could possibly go wrong?
December 1947, days before the University of Cambridge will vote on whether to allow women to receive degrees. The women’s colleges buzz with anticipation, aware this could change everything for them, but also that the stakes are sky-high. So when Florence accidentally runs over an infamously misogynistic fellow with her bicycle, the choice seems obvious: cover up the manslaughter by any means necessary. After all, what’s hiding a corpse in a cupboard when weighed against finally getting degrees for Cambridge women? As Florence and her friends Betty, Celia, and Lyla undertake increasingly farcical measures to prevent anyone - from the university itself, to a potential love interest - finding out, they reckon with the university’s ingrained prejudices, and question whether one vote can really undo seven centuries of control by grumpy old men. Sometimes, pushing for change can take sisterhood, a little criminal activity, and… a sheep?
- February–March 2025
“It’s all going to be downhill from now on.”
A young girl stumbles into the kitchen, and tentatively questions her aunt about the bloody assault she has witnessed in the night. Several years later, the whole world, including birds, animals, and gravity itself, has descended into war. Facing a culture on the cusp of apocalypse, the girl returns to her aunt’s to seek refuge.
First performed in 2000, Caryl Churchill’s Far Away is part absurdist drama, part dystopian nightmare. With notes of environmental decay, pervasive violence, and glimmering, hard earned, hints of hope, Far Away is more comparable to our modern condition than ever before, and closer to our generation than is comfortable to admit.
The Far Away team is thrilled to have worked with director/dramaturg/performance maker Rebecca Goh, who hosted a BREAD LAB on eco dramaturgy with Bread Theatre & Film Company
Take a look at our Varsity review: https://www.varsity.co.uk/theatre/29238
- February–March 2025
"Quite the contrary. I never doubted for an instant that you would have me put to death."
Creon wakes up one morning to find himself King of Thebes. He said "yes" because somebody had to captain the ship, and now he will never stop paying. Antigone, on the other hand, wants everything of life, and she wants it now. She is of the tribe that asks the questions, and she is here to say "no". The play is on. Antigone has been caught. She has made up her mind. And now, it seems, nothing less than a cosy tea party with death and destiny will quench her thirst.
Antigone is a modern adaptation of Sophocles' tragedy which interrogates authority and integrity. Despite the howling mob - the torture - the fear of death - our little Antigone is wriggling her way out of the straitjacket of human vestment. And what are we possibly to do for her? Condemn her to live?
- February 2025
Actors Orla and Freddie are cast in the main roles of a new west-end production of ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ but Orla is immediately suspicious of her underqualified co-star – sparks of anger, rather than romance, fly between the two. As rehearsals for the show begin, Orla, Freddie, and their fiery director, Laurie, all discover fragments of their own relationships within the play. Emotions rise, and personal tragedies, secrets and grudges surface. Tension begins to stifle the company, threatening to topple the production altogether.
- February 2025
Féadfaidh beirt, gan beann ar a ngnéas, conradh pósta a dhéanamh de réir dlí
Based on interviews by the journalist Charlie Bird, Colin Murphy’s documentary drama charts the arc of the fight for legal gay marriage in Ireland culminating in the historic 2015 vote. Watch as ‘The Yes Equality Office’ navigate their campaign for marriage equality through the highs and lows of political referendum. Interwoven with personal stories of those affected, this play not only challenges the audience’s interpretation of modern history but examines the experience of LGBTQ+ youth.
“There's a million in the middle - and they might go either way.”
- February 2025
They meet at an AA meeting. They’re suddenly drawn to each other. They feel bound by a passionate bond. Later, when they start drinking again, the two feel that they might have met before. Together, they should really get sober and figure everything out. Perhaps they will, just after one last quick drink…
With raw honesty and striking lyricism, Joe White's intense and unflinching two-hander delves into the complexities of addiction, co-dependency, love and memory as it follows the tumultuous relationship of Him and Her, a relationship that slowly descends into a dangerous addiction.
- February 2025
- February 2025
Try to think about the worst thing you’ve ever done. Rate it on a scale of 1-10. Now think about your intention behind it, the actions from others and yourself that led you there. Rate it again. Has it changed? Improved or worsened? How easy was that task for you? Would it be easier if you weren't deciding for yourself? Sorry for all the questions, we'll let you put it into practice soon. We just want to ensure that you are prepared for the role you're about to take on. Join us at Symptom of Life where you, the audience are the deciders, the jury. Whatever your verdict is, goes. We look forward to working with you soon.
Symptom of Life combines the themes of morality, justice, power, control and blackness to bring you a show, a first of its kind, where your say, as an audience member, has never mattered more.
- February 2025
In a cruel twist of nominative determinism, Jenny Jones is condemned to be Jenny Jones. 24/7. All year long. She is also a nervous little dear. Bless her. Surely she should stay in that shell, but this snail's got dreams baby. Come and watch them unfurl! (bit like a snail).
- February 2025
A father with cancer, a recent breakup, moving back home to rural Washington and a large unexplained rash down her back are just some of the problems Mae is having to face. As her life tumbles around her, her struggles are abated a little when a sinister, sexy cowboy starts to invade her dreams and fantasies. You Got Older is a dark, hilarious exploration of family and sexuality during the most desperate of personal crises.
- January–February 2025
Straight off his successful Edinburgh run.. Junayd's fascinating play has come to Cambridge! Escape to 1920s Jerusalem and follow the wanderlust of reporter Leopold Weiss. What was meant to be a holiday turns into an adventure across the Middle East searching for unity with destiny. Take leap after leap with this daring Austrian student as he blags his way to the most prestigious newspapers, risks death in the Nufud desert and dissects the political and spiritual issues of East and West. The first ever theatre-quality dramatisation of the autobiography The Road to Mecca.
- January 2025
Expect laughs, laughs, and more laughs...
Footlights bring you the funniest songs, sketches, monologues and stand up in an evening 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).
- January–February 2025
- December 2024
“I’ve discovered the secret of happiness is following my will.”
Meet Jerusha Abbott. As a longtime resident of the John Grier Home for Orphans, her prospects
are a little bleak. But one day, her life is turned upside down by an anonymous benefactor, a
shadowy figure she knows only by the moniker she gives him, Daddy-Long-Legs. Jerusha steps
into a world of education and society she could never have dreamt of, but little does she know that
her mysterious patron will change her life in more ways than one…
An intimate epistolary musical sure to prove a delight for your festive season.
- December 2024
You there! Boy! What day is today?! Why… it’s Chrimprov day!
Cambridge Improv Factory are back with their annual festive comedy special. Bring your finest suggestions and watch Cambridge comedy legends turn them into an hour of spontaneous hilarity! Think 'The Muppets Christmas Carol', but with bigger, leathery, human-shaped muppets, more improvised comedy, and relatively few Dickensian morality tales. A light-hearted, laugh-a-minute way to kick off your festive season. Come join us, everyone!
'Tear-inducingly funny' (The Guardian)
- December 2024
Fresh from its run at the Camden Fringe, The Chaplain tells of a prison chaplain in 1850s Victorian England, tasked with cleansing the souls of those sentenced to death or transportation for the most heinous crimes.
In a dirty prison cell, the Chaplain meets three convicts. Throughout, he is also plagued by the voice of a mysterious woman who lurks in the cell's shadows, and the Chaplain is certain he has met her somewhere before. As the musical unfolds and the Chaplain's mental state deteriorates, it becomes clear that he too has sins he must confess.
- November 2024
"Tragedy comes for them, and it looms larger with every passing hour. There is nothing they can do about it. And those bearing the news are likewise powerless to prevent it."
In "Intruder", a family waits in nervous expectation for news about their sick relative. In "Home," an old man and a stranger gather in a back garden, preparing to deliver some bad news. Both one-act plays are thrillingly intense, lyrical, and tragic in the imagist tradition. These dramas are both unconventional, original works that become breathlessly anxious as they ask profound questions about what it's like to lose a family member. Nobel-prize winner Maurice Maeterlinck's mystical, death-haunted tragedies are both profound and cathartic. Never before performed in Cambridge. Script adapted by AC Gray.
- November 2024
Standup. Making Friends. Nothing Else.
- November 2024
'I wish there was something else, but there was... the excitement that all of us deny. Because excitement is not – no, not an appropriate response.'
Four artists are invited to their most famous friend's house, after ten years apart, for a night of reminiscing and celebration. However, celebration soon turns into horror, when the host suffers a horrifying accident. Soon placed into in a coma, the group battle with an intense array of emotions; the suppressed resentment, the duty to care for a friend, and how just maybe, their 'friend's' suffering could be their next work of art.
'pool (no water)' a visceral and shocking play about the fragility of friendship and the jealousy and resentment inspired by success.
- November 2024
CUADC Freshers' Play
In a remote area of the UK, where nothing ever happens, a group of teenagers share a safe house for LGBT+ young people. The group must decide how they commemorate an attack on queer people that happened in a country far away.
How do you take to the streets and protest if you're not ready to show the world who you are?
Dungeness is a funny, uplifting and moving play about being yourself.
This production is suitable for ages 14 and over.
- November 2024
CUADC Freshers' Play
Left quad. Right quad. Lunge. A girls indoor soccer team warms up.
From the safety of their suburban stretch circle, the team navigate big questions and wage tiny battles with all the vim and vigor of a pack of adolescent warriors.
The Wolves is a portrait of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for nine girls who just want to score some goals.
This production is suitable for ages 14 and over.
This amateur production of “The Wolves” is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd. on behalf of Samuel French Ltd. www.concordtheatricals.co.uk
- November 2024
Negotiating With The Dead is returning to Cambridge this Michaelmas!
You are a singular stroke of a letter in a word of the great Epic of these Crusades. Your rebellion will be counted as a tremor in the hand of a chronicler. The story has already started; This tale must be written. Do not presume to have a say in it.
A historical fiction drama split between the modern day and medieval crusades, 'Negotiating with the Dead' follows an archaeological team discovering ‘The Templar’s Cross’, a fictional medieval relic supposedly as famous as the Holy Grail. It is a discovery which the archaeologists have dedicated their lives to finding, and now, one archaeologist, Florine, has begun to hallucinate the Crusaders who once searched for the same relic – as she does, the play devolves into an exploration of how faith can be manipulated by corrupt figures for political and personal goals (e.g. expansion of empire, war, power, greed) and how this behaviour often works in direct opposition to the goals and motivations of the faiths they claim to represent.
Winner of the Pembroke Player's Playwriting Competition 2023.
- November 2024
'And this our life exempt from public haunt
Finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.’
Rosalind and Celia have spent their childhoods telling stories, dressing up, putting on puppet shows, and creating plays. But when Rosalind is banished to the Forest of Arden, play is no longer a luxury, but a necessity. Their toy puppets become a means of disguise, and a chance for freedom.
A charming new take on Shakespeare’s comedy of youth, love, and finding yourself, As You Like It will whisk you a way into the whimsical world of the Forest of Arden, where anything is possible. Perhaps you’ll fight a lion, or marry a clown, or even fall in love with a puppet…
- November 2024
Can we ever control how we feel?
Are our feelings an emotional or physical sensation?
Are love and sadness anything more than a chemical reaction?
Lucy Prebble’s gripping play "The Effect" delves into the lives of four individuals involved in a clinical trial for a potent new antidepressant, RLU37. Doctors Lorna and Toby, once lovers, find themselves in a heated scientific debate about ethics and the extent to which we should seek to manage human emotion. Volunteers Connie and Tristan quickly find themselves ensnared in a turbulent love affair where every developing affection is tarnished and they question if their love is true, or simply a side effect. This expansive and exhilarating play willingly asks us a multitude of questions, but does it provide the answers?
