- 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?
- October 2024
"I planted myself inside you and waited to bloom. And it didn't take me no eighteen years to find out the soil was hard and rocky and it wasn't never gonna bloom.”
August Wilson's critically acclaimed Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play Fences has often been described as one of the most moving and accurate portrayals of the black family. Meet Troy Maxson, a disillusioned sanitation worker who has bitterly moved on from the days of his youth where he used to play in the Negro Baseball League. Wilson explores the battle between ruthless pragmatism and hope dividing the Maxson family living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as Troy is willing to tear down the dreams of his wife Rose and son Cory who aspires to one day follow in his father's footsteps in search of sporting acclaim with hopes of becoming professional football player. There is no line Troy is unwilling to cross.
- August 2024
On a cold Moscow night in 1925, a stray dog is lured to the laboratory of a rich and eccentric professor, where his endocrine system is replaced with that of a recently deceased man. As the dog morphs into an increasingly human creature, the professor's hitherto respectable life becomes a nightmare. The creature's interest in revolutionary values wars with the traditional views of the professor, the housing committee banging at his door to divide up his flat for increased occupancy. A black comedy based on the work of Kiev-born author Mikhail Bulgakov (most famous for 'The Master and Margarita'), 'Heart of a Dog' brings a cult Soviet satire for the first time to the English stage.
- August 2024
After a sold out run and a 5 star review, The Book of Margery Kempe is coming to London!
‘I may be a creature, but I am God’s creature!’
Margery Kempe is a normal housewife. She has fourteen children, a useless husband, and no education. But God has chosen her for a very special purpose. She’s been given the gift of tears, and she’s going to make sure you hear them.
As Margery’s raucous and ravishing visions of God begin to derail her life, she starts to attract more and more attention. And soon she’s on trial for heresy. But Margery won’t be quiet, and the visions won’t stop. In fact, they’re becoming more intense.
In this fast-paced, time travelling retelling of the autobiography of one of the Middle Age’s most incredible women, Margery takes to the stage to give us her life in her own words – tears and all.
'Captivating'
'Effortlessly witty'
'The epitome of what [...] student theatre strives to be'
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐, Varsity
- June 2024
CUADC EDINBURGH FRINGE SHOW 2024
They’re married. They just don’t know it yet. But this isn’t Vegas. It’s Slough…
Awoken by her birth control alarm in a messy hotel room, Poppy finds herself naked next to her ex who isn't really her ex, Freddie. The two struggle to piece together the events of the night before, gradually remembering the details until they reach the horrifying revelation that they are married. Sounds pretty rock-n-roll, right? But this isn't Vegas, this is a BnB in Slough. Stuck together in the honeymoon suite, Poppy and Freddie are forced to confront what went wrong between them and reconcile the differences that once forced them apart and, crucially, decide whether or not to get an annulment. Poppy and Freddie have an hour until they need to check out. What happens when a Scouser and a Kentish Maid wake up married? You'll have to wait and see...
FRINGE TICKETS: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/vegas
- May 2024
“While our eyes wait to see the final destined day, we must call no mortal happy until he has crossed life's border free from pain”.
A plague is destroying Thebes. Oedipus the King, renowned for his intellect and benevolence, vows to locate the source of corruption. As he traces the threads of pollution, he finds himself unknowingly entangled in an incriminating web and he must confront the fact that the truth lies a little too close to home. Sophocles’ tragedy, Oedipus Tyrannus, explores issues of identity, the limits of human knowledge and the fickleness of fortune. This new adaptation seeks to blend traditional Greek elements with contemporary styles in a liminal and seemingly timeless space.
- May 2024
There's my train - Good-bye.
Two strangers' chance encounter, or two lovers' final goodbye: two lives intersecting at Milford Junction station as the 5:43 train departs from the platform.
Still Life by Noël Coward is a deeply touching romance about a fleeting yet tentatively genuine love that provided the basis for the hit movie Brief Encounter in 1945. After meeting and falling in love at a suburban rail station, Alec and Laura meet every Thursday in the refreshment room over tea, debating between respectability or love, and some sentimental moments transpire before they must decide whether to take that leap in the dark.
A poignant tale of forbidden love, polite apologies, and a life left behind.
- May 2024
'The Palace' cabaret club, Berlin, sometime in the late 1920s. A drag performer, their faded mother, the controlling stepfather, a preacher who lives in the basement, a doorman and a patron.
This radical new adaptation of Oscar Wilde's 'Salomé' tells the biblical story in place we've never seen it before as cabaret performer Salomé struggles to maintain her independence in an environment controlled by sex, seeking salvation in the baptist preacher Jonathan, only to be scorned as a "child of Sodom".
A visceral and gut-wrenching tragedy which explores the depths of rejection and fetishisation as queer person.
- March 2024
Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd...
- February 2024
'Place like this - you know this - place like this gets in your blood. Once it's in your blood, you can't get it out.'
One night under Cardiff skies, four lost souls go searching for answers. After dark, when the city is quiet, their paths weave and collide. Their stories may be shocking, their morals may be ambiguous, but they all want salvation. When dawn breaks, their lives will go on, however there will be another night to contend with soon enough. Be prepared for a close-up glimpse into a heartbreaking world of choices and consequences in the Welsh capital. Can anyone really break free from their past?
- February 2024
Jesus College Drama Society presents an LGBTQ+ History Month themed Open Mic Night, in colloboration with CUADC and Jesus LGBTQ+ Society. We will be collecting donations for the Terrence Higgins Trust, as part of the events alongside CUADC's production of The Normal Heart this week.
- January–February 2024
"Don't you remember how it was? Can't you see how important it is for us to love openly, without hiding and without guilt?"
Meet Ned Weeks, an impassioned activist in 1980s New York, battling indifference and discrimination surrounding a mysterious new disease that threatens to consume everything he knows. Amid heartbreak and societal apathy, as they lose those closest to them, Ned and his contemporaries grapple with the profound importance of love, community, pride, and hope in the face of a devastating epidemic.
The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer, first performed in 1985, is a searing and emotionally charged drama that is breathed life from the experiences of activist-giant Kramer himself. This vivid exploration confronts the early days of the AIDS crisis, spanning the years 1981 to 1984—the heartbeat of an era.
- November 2023
Our tale follows Dick, an optimistic (if sometimes naive), young lad who lives with his mum in Cambridge. Vigorously inspired one day after reading the autobiography of political journalist (Julie Fitzwarren), Dick decides to go to London to try and carve out success for himself - he hears the streets are paved with gold! On arrival in London, Dick is gleeful to glimpse what looks like a Yellowy gold road! But it turns out to be a double yellow line. Undeterred, Dick enters the big city and starts seeking for work. As luck would have it ends up employed at his inspiration’s house, where he is under the authority of the snobby, jealous chef Nigel Oliver. Nigel is determined to get rid of Dick and plots with his dog crony how to do so. Panto-hilarity ensues!
- November 2023
- November 2023
All money corrupts, and serious money corrupts absolutely.
When a top City banker has to solve a murder, legal and moral boundaries alike slowly dissolve with each step – especially for those who can pay the right price for it. As whimsical as it is biting, Caryl Churchill’s Serious Money presents an ever-whirling carousel of eclectic characters that propels its audience through the vice-riddled landscape of 1980s London financial market, and brings them face to face with unscrupulous big-shots and duplicitous opportunists in a provocative satire that is daringly playful and playfully daring as it penetrates through the fierce and ruthless world of unrestrained capitalism.
- November 2023
https://www.instagram.com/almost.maine_corpus/
- October 2023
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect !
Gregor Samsa has worked. And worked. And worked. All his life. As a travelling salesman, Gregor works relentlessly to support his struggling family. His mother, a worried and endlessly busy housewife who cares deeply for her family, his father, hyper critical ‘in-the-home’ tyrant who’s terrified of authority, and his little sister Greta, a promising violinist who looks up to him, find their home turned into a world of horror as Gregor wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a “gigantic insect!”. Whilst Gregor struggles to survive, keep any sense of mental clarity and desperately longs to return to human form, his family’s opinions swiftly devolve from sympathy to despair and hatred as they live in terror both of their son they so desperately relied upon, and in constant fear of his discovery. Berkoff’s adaptation of Kafka’s iconic novella explores the effects of a ‘money-driven’ society’s pressure on the individual and the strain it causes on family relationships in a powerful and moving way which will make you reassess what takes does and what should take priority in life.
- October 2023
“What happens to a dream deferred...does it explode?”
Inspired by Langston Hughes’ “Harlem”, this play tells the story of the Younger family, who struggle with what it means to be black alongside finding their place in a new and hostile neighbourhood. While Mama Lena and son Walter must negotiate a new influx of money and how that changes their position within society, daughter Beneatha tries to find love, questioning beauty standards on her own journey to find pride in her African heritage.
Will the Youngers find the key to living openly with pride for their blackness, or will they crumble under the pressure of their finances and please the neighbours who so desperately want them gone?
- August 2023
Four Cut Sunflowers: CUADC x Edinburgh Fringe play 2023
‘When light and dark converge, it is an act of creation…’.
It’s the late 19th century. Modernity is taking hold of Europe… Socialism, feminism and ‘modernity’ is fastening its grip, and conservatism and the classical tradition is on its way out.
This play follows the true story of Johanna Van-Gogh Bonger, the woman who single-handedly made Vincent Van Gogh one of the most influential figures in western art history. Formerly an unknown and marginalised figure, this play aims to shed light on her incredible and inspiring life, and reveal the woman behind the artist.
This is a story about desire, grief, guilt, passion and politics. It calls into question why we create art, and what it means to leave an imprint on the world.
- August 2023
The love of a cruel bull, a queen’s illicit affair, and her hybrid son, the Minotaur, a monument to her cursed lust. A bold, feminist imagining of Euripides’ lost play ‘The Cretans’, it’s time for Pasiphae to tell her own story.
Exploring how dance, movement and puppetry can come together with the Greek chorus to create a striking piece, Evie Chandler's follow up to her London debut 'Cow' promises to get right to the heart of what it means to love and lust.
- May 2023
'An idea for a story. A girl like you lives by a lake; the lake is everything to her, she's carefree, happy as a seagull. Then one day a man—quite by chance—notices her. And he destroys her.’
25-year-old Konstantin is preparing to stage his new play, starring his girlfriend Nina, on the shore of the lake they love. But as the moon and the curtain rise, the presence of his mother’s young lover, a famous writer, changes everything.
A hilarious and heartbreaking exploration of unrequited love, the relationship between desire and domination, and what it means to grow up. Amidst the destruction of the natural world, Chekhov’s first major play is restaged for a 2023 audience.
- March 2023
Kiss me, Kate is a joyfully jazzy musical set in Baltimore in 1948, in a theatre company who happen to be putting on Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, whilst a similar story unfolds among the cast and crew. Egotistical leading man, director, and producer Fred Graham is forced to work alongside his ex-wife, Lilli Vanessi, playing opposite one another in a new production of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew. As the two bicker and fight, it becomes clear that they are, in fact, still in love. Throw comedy, big band jazz and dance into the mix and you'll get somewhere close to Kiss Me, Kate. This wonderful show includes the hits Brush Up Your Shakespeare, Too Darn Hot and Another Op’nin, Another Show, as well as lesser known gems such as I Hate Men and Tom, Dick or Harry.
- November 2022
In the midst of woeful underfunding and ridicule from local private school St Perfectton’s Prep, join the students and teachers of Grove Park Secondary as a mysterious pirate offers them the geography field trip of a lifetime. Will they find Billy Bones’ lost treasure? Will Jemima Hawkins fulfil her dreams of adventure and find the love of her classmate Lily? And will by-the-books Geography teacher Mr Livesey learn that there is more to life than longshore drift and oxbow lakes?
Geography Trips have never been more thrilling than in ‘Treasure Island!’, a story of swashbuckling, sea-shanty singing and self-discovery.
- November 2022
It's the 90s - Tony Blair has just won the election, Katrina and the Waves have won Eurovision, and no one knows who Harry Potter is. Oasis is king - Britain is the coolest place in the world.
At the local secondary school it's a different story. Tobias, the German language assistant, watches as this ordinary school goes through an era of immense change. Miss Belltop-Doyle can't control her year 10s, Mr Pashley has been put in charge of a confiscated tamagotchi, and Miss Turner is hoping that this muck-up day goes smoother than the last.
Devised by the Wardrobe Ensemble, and performed by a cast and crew of Cambridge University theatre freshers, Education, Education, Education is a love letter to the school system, childhood nostalgia, and really bad club music. Things can only get better.
- November 2022
Anton Antonovich, corrupt mayor of an unnamed Russian town, loves authority - but hates responsibility. So, naturally, when he learns that an anonymous Government Inspector has been sent to visit the town, he panics. Discovering that a bureaucrat newly arrived from St. Petersburg has been set up in the local inn at the crown’s expense, the mayor and his cronies go to extreme lengths to appease him.
Considered one of the greatest satirical plays of all time, Nikolai Gogol’s ‘The Government Inspector’ still serves as a cautionary tale for those seeking power and authority.
- November 2022
Girton College, 1896. Headstrong and brilliant, Tess Moffat arrives in Cambridge in pursuit of her academic studies, even though female students are denied the right to graduate. The new cohort of ‘blue stocking’ women face a tumultuous year of misogynistic professors, disgruntled male peers and a disapproving public. But even as they navigate this university steeped in tradition, they find themselves amongst a growing political movement calling for change, and a vote that would finally allow them to enter the world as graduates.
Jessica Swale’s exceptional play is a heart-warming and humorous exploration of the rights for education, the cruelty of the class divide and women’s suffrage.
- October 2022
A new performance art piece, examining the power of silence.
- October 2022
‘I cannot live without my soul’. Cathy and Heathcliff are a pair whose very names are synonymous with passionate desire: the ardent flame of their love, set against Gothic mists and earthy, rugged moorland, effloresces with fresh vibrancy in Andrew Sheridan’s entrancingly poetic rendering of Wuthering Heights. With all of the sustained intensity of the original text, Sheridan’s script conjures a thrilling, dream-like environment in which exterior and interior worlds blur. With inner lives coalescing amidst snatches of song and hauntingly fragmented dialogue, Sheridan’s reformulation of Brontë’s masterpiece lends a classic tale an arrestingly modern edge.
- August 2022
Real, Mad World is a brilliant piece of new writing following the joys, heartbreaks and absurdities of trans life. Laura, transgender woman and playwright, wants to be a mother more than anything. Faced by the children that she cannot bear, she writes herself into another life with a womb, cisgender husband and kids. But Lindsay, Laura’s partner, is waiting at home with a glass of wine and plans for Trans Revolution Now.
Selected as the Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club 2022 Fringe Play, Real, Mad World is a funny and tender study of how we treat the people we love.
- August 2022
Jewish teenagers Esty, Allister, Danny and Sara are sitting in a revision session about to take their GCSEs when the terrorist alarm rings. And this time it might not be a drill. Trapped in their RS classroom they have all the time in the world to think. Flipping back and forth between their different perspectives, in the past and present day, they must decide, if they come out the other end, what they will do differently, what risks they will take and most importantly what lines they are willing to cross. Set in Manchester 2016 during the rise in antisemitism, Life Before The Line is a deep insight into what it means to grow up during politically charged times. Selected as the CUADC Edinburgh Fringe 2022 play. Praise for "Life Before the Line":
“If I could give this a score above 5 – it is more than well-deserved – I would, but I suppose I’d have to settle on a 5/5 this time. An unmissable performance and a truly spectacular show. I cannot recommend getting a ticket to this enough.” - The Tab ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
“The conversations were so engaging that my eyes were glued to the stage, and the pairing of Lever’s script and Ben Phillips’ minimalistic direction was completely harmonious” - Varsity ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2
Praise for Fringe Run:
"Top Tier Fringe material" - Jake Mace, Binge Fringe Magazine, Editor and Chief ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"A revelation... I feel I am a better person for seeing it"- Richard Stamp, Fringe Guru, The Wee Review
"Strong and heartfelt... Keep an eye out for Lever's name in the future" - Edfringe review ⭐⭐⭐⭐
- June 2022
Gather around and I’ll tell you a tale!
Oral storytelling is a universal part of human culture and is one of our most ancient artforms. There’s a certain magic in being transported away by spoken word, whether into a familiar tale or a new one.
The ADC is hosting a relaxed evening of storytelling. Come and hear original stories and retellings of traditional tales from students in a cosy setting.
- May 2022
We love and we hate, we lust and we mourn. And in the face of these immensities, do you still care? Do you still want what you want? Time can't stop us, death can't stop us, war can't stop us! The power of Vanity Fair!
Amelia is kind and gentle. Becky is ambitious and rebellious. Amelia longs for love. Becky wants wealth and popularity. Despite all their differences, when both women are swept up by the tides of romance, money, gossip, power, war, and death, they quickly discover that their fortunes can fall just as swiftly as they rise. In the world of Vanity Fair, only one thing is certain: that nothing is certain.
- May 2022
The origin story of the Pied Piper - the classic folklore as a Mime. The Pied piper was once a troubled child. Their mischievous nature got them attention they didn’t want. In adulthood, the piper is now famous for their tunes. The piper learns about the issues at Hamelin and decides to pay a visit. The mayor at Hamelin explains the problem and promises a reward. The piper accepts and they lure the rats. The mayor decides to not pay the piper. The piper swears revenge. Will their plan work out? Happily ever after or never after?
Mime is finally here at Cambridge. Come experience the extravagance and magic this form of silent comedy brings to a dark tale.
- March 2022
Singin’ in the Rain brings you the classic, golden-age movie musical adapted for the stage, featuring some of the best-loved comedy routines, toe-tapping dance numbers, and classic musical theatre songs: “Good Mornin’”, “Make ‘em Laugh”, “Broadway Melody”, and the show-stopping title number “Singin’ in the Rain”. The show captures the Hollywood movie transition from silent pictures to the new ‘talkies’, following film co-stars Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont. When Monumental Studios turns silent ‘The Dueling Cavalier’ into an all-singing, all-dancing ‘The Dancing Cavalier’, they are faced with a problem – Lina’s shrill and squeaky voice which might just end her career. As Kathy Selden, an aspiring actress, steps in to save the studio, she begins to fall in love, leaving Don Lockwood with difficult decisions both on and off screen. Pouring with laughs, charm, romance, and wit, expect high-energy dance routines and classic songs from the movie, added with its spectacular stage effects for this year’s Lent Term Musical!
- March 2022
‘SWIM’ is the winning script of Cambridge Creatives x CUADC’s scriptwriting competition. When Cass is sent by her Dad to visit her older sister, Thea, at university, in the hope that this will help her out of a tough time, they struggle to get along. This short film focuses on an emotionally precarious relationship between sisters and how, in just over 24 hours together, they learn to be in each other’s company again.
- March 2022
Multi award winning play Moderation tells the story of two ex-social media moderators who meet again years after quitting their job when one decides to sue the company that exposed them to the traumatic material which left both with different psychological scars. For one of them, who has become unable to touch the ground, the prospect of digging up the past has little appeal. For the other, whose drinking led to a head injury that has damaged their ability to remember things, reconstructing what happened seems like the only way to heal. Based on real accounts, Moderation reveals the true impact of watching the worst things on the internet for a living.
The play won this year’s CUADC Playwriting Competition, winning £200 and a run in the Larkum Studio. It was also co-winner of this year’s Cambridge Creatives Playwriting Competition, which was judged by industry professionals Sally Abbott, Luke Barnes, and Alexis Zegerman.
