- October 2018
SAMSON:
I praise the poetry of ‘stony wastes’,
I praise the poetry of lush spaces,
I praise the poetry of difference,
I praise poetry of co-existence.
Samson Agonistes is a complex verse play which touches on themes of modern warfare, identity, and the knotty tragedies of global international politics. As a content notice, it touches specifically on the political situation of Israel and Palestine, and contains discussion of gender. Kinsella dedicates the play "for Israel and Palestine and lasting peace and equality in all things".
- October 2018
Tennessee Williams’ intimate masterpiece journeys back through the hazy memories of Tom Wingfield to his time spent living in a stifling St Louis apartment with his mother Amanda, a faded Southern belle, and older sister Laura, whose crippling shyness and limp prevent her from leaving the house. Instead, she focuses her energies on a menagerie of small glass animals.
When Tom brings his popular colleague Jim home to dinner in the hopes of finding Laura a husband, the outgoing newcomer threatens to dismantle the precarious emotional ties holding the family together. During the evening, disillusionment takes precedent over fantasy, and the characters’ lives and dreams begin to look as fragile as the glass animals themselves.
- February 2018
"Such a mad marriage never was before." (III.ii)
This Lent Term for TWO NIGHTS ONLY we will be returning with a BME production of The Taming Of The Shrew! Think fiery, fusion, and full of life as we attempt to traverse one of Shakespeare's most problematic comedies. This will be a diverse and interactive BME production truly built around its cast, crew, and communities. Join us, as we present the play as it has never been seen before!
CN: This play explores themes of domestic abuse which some may find upsetting.
- February 2018
H A T C H is The Marlowe Society's night for students to showcase their prose, poetry and drama in development.
- January–February 2018
Bromley Bedlam Bethlehem is drama exploring the effects of mental illness on three
generations of an immigrant family, in a society that is unforgiving of those who do not
‘fit’. The story is told over three timelines, with the weight of each generation bearing on
the next: Eamonn, an Irish immigrant, struggling with dementia and alcoholism and
trying to make amends with his estranged daughter Sara; Ben, Sara’s son, suffering
from undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenia and his mother’s unrealistic expectations for
him; and finally Sara, as she copes with the suicides of both her father and son.
- January–February 2018
The Atreus family is in turmoil.
10 years have passed since Clytemnestra’s husband, Agamemnon, sacrificed their eldest daughter, Iphigenia, in order to stop military defeat. Clytemnestra is left to exact revenge.
Blood for blood, wound for wound, act for act: Aeschylus’ earth shattering trilogy tells the story of a family at war with each other. Husband against wife, wife against son, son against mother.
Their battlefield is an icy wound upon which terse family bonds are exposed and tightened, an empty stage on which the world’s oldest tragedy ricochets back into existence.
The Oresteia is reborn.
The cycle of blood continues…
- January 2018
The Arts Show is the Marlowe Society's biggest and most ambitious show every year. Performed at the beautiful Cambridge Arts Theatre, it is a tradition dating back to 1936. We hire a professional director and designers, each of whom takes on student assistants to teach and mentor. It is an unparalleled chance for students to perform on a professional stage and gain real-world experience for their future careers.
This year's show will be directed by Tom Litter, artistic director of London's Jermyn Street Theatre.
- November 2017
The Marlowe's New Writing night , for students to showcase poetry, prose and drama work in progress.
- November 2017
Join poet John Agard on a quirky re-visioning of the notorious New World Enterprise of Christopher Columbus. One of Britain's foremost cross-cultural voices and winner of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, Agard is known for his mischievous satirical wit. Whether glorified or vilified, Columbus, by his accidental 'discovery' of the so-called New World, gave a kickstart to globalisation, bridging Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas, and joining forever the fates of these separate hemispheres and eco-systems.
Telescoping the voyages, Agard brings his irreverential humour from page to stage, fusing elements of calypso, cabaret and the absurd, as he variously takes on the voices of Columbus, The Atlantic, a native shaman and The Mighty Mosquito!
Written in verse with a sprinkling of songs and performed against a background soundscape of Atlantic murmurings and symphonic mosquito buzzing, Agard takes us on a fantastical, fanatical historic voyage that still bears relevance to contemporary issues.
Directed by award-winning live literature director, Mark C. Hewitt, with specially composed music by Thomas Arnold of Stomp's Lost and Found Orchestra, this is a one man show like no other.
- November 2017
The Marlowe Showcase is an opportunity for 12-14 graduating actors to perform one or two monologues or duologues in front of industry professionals (including agencies and casting directors) and be directed by a professional Director. Returning as 2017's professional Director is Nicholas Barter, former Principal of RADA (1993-2007) and former Artistic Director of the Arts Theatre.
- October 2017
What do you do when you know, without a shadow of a doubt, that your wife has cheated on you? If you're a Shakespearean tragic hero, you kill her, very few questions asked. If you're a sailor named Compass, however, the solution is a bit different...
Join the Marlowe Society as we set out on a new venture--exploring the lesser-performed plays of the early modern period through script-in-hand stagings. This year, we start with the expectation-shattering A Cure for a Cuckold, John Webster's neglected comedy about love, friendship, and trust.
Presented in partnership with the Centre for Mediaeval and Early Modern Law and Literature, the evening will include a panel discussion on the legal issues invoked by the play. Tickets are free, but space is limited!
- October 2017
★ For How Can One Study in the Presence of Seductively Stockinged Legs? ★
Cambridge, 1938.
The menfolk vow to forego all worldly pleasures and devote themselves only to pure and holy study. Meanwhile, in their isolated colleges, women are still denied full membership of the university.
But the approaching visit of the Princess of France and her three ladies, Rosaline, Maria, and Katharine threatens to upset the sexless academic paradise.
Will the celibate scholars stay strong to their vows or will the wily charms of the fairer sex prove too inviting for them?
- October 2017
"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again.
Fail better. " - Samuel Beckett
The Marlowe Society’s Hatch is an event for the theatre community providing space for short excerpts of student new writing of any genre to be staged at the ADC Theatre.
This HATCH launches a brand new year-long program for writers that the Marlowe is running in 2017-18, offering a hub for the writing community with a biweekly writers' group. This evening will be particularly useful to those looking to test audience reaction to a piece in development. It will be both for existing ADC regulars to reconvene at the beginning of the year and for freshers or newly inspired theatre-makers to meet the community. Our first writer's programme session will be Wednesday the 11th following the HATCH.
At a HATCH, we want you to feel like you can fail, succeed, slip up, try again, get it wrong, get it right... but most importantly, write.
Details for writers, actors and directors who would like to be involved in the night are below.
This night is in the ADC Theatre Bar on Monday 9th October at 8pm.
For tickets: https://www.adctheatre.com/whats-on/literary/hatch/
Doors open at 7. Before and after the event there will be social drinks and a chance to meet the new committee.
TAKING PART
We're contactable at marlowehatch@gmail.com (og262 cc'd)
Writers-
Please submit your script, poem or piece of prose for performance by Friday 6th of October at 6pm.
This can be any genre and, for our programming purposes, should fit into one of three categories: 1 minute and under, 5 minutes and under or 10 minutes and under.
Directors & Actors -
Drop us a line by Friday October the 6th at 6pm to register interest.
Writer/ Actor/ Director teams are welcome to apply together and/ or writers can specify who they would like to direct or act in their pieces.
Teams will be allocated on Friday the 6th and will have three days (within which we recommend 2-3 hrs rehearsal) to prep for either script-in-hand or off book performances as suits the group.
- September 2017
"When do we know when we’re happy? Sometimes we say we were happy then or will be happy when, but do we ever realise it now…
All seems well in the Stratton family when husband Gerry, sons Glyn and Adam with their partners Stephanie and Maureen gather to celebrate wife and mother Laura’s 54th birthday at their favourite restaurant. But tensions and secrets lurk beneath the happy, joyous surface - Glyn is trying to rebuild his marriage with Stephanie, Laura disapproves of Adam’s new girlfriend Maureen, and old unspoken feelings lie between Gerry and Laura. Each of these fragile situations needs to be addressed by bringing up the memories of the past, living the uncertainty of the present and coming to terms with the inevitability of the future.
Alan Ayckbourn, in one of his most acclaimed plays, explores our perception of moments through a delicate balance of humour and pathos. Time Of My Life questions whether we spend most of our lives looking forward to things or looking back. All of the characters are in search of personal happiness, but as is so often the case, they find it difficult to recognise it once found. By learning about the family’s lives, past, present and future in a journey through time and human emotions, might we ourselves be able to get a glimpse of how best to have the time of our lives?
First staged twenty-five years ago in 1992, Time Of My Life is now a classic of modern drama, combining Ayckbourn’s dialogues of sparkling humour with a heartwarming sensitivity to the struggles of the human condition."
UCATT will be taking Alan Ayckbourn's "Time of My Life" around venues in China, Hong Kong, Korea and Japan this September for a period of three weeks. On tour we will be performing at universities, international schools and public venues. There is also a strong educational element to the tour, so as well as the performance we will be engaging audiences in theatre workshops and discussions on the play. There will also be a home-run in Cambridge and London.
- May 2017
Write. Rehearse. Perform.
The Wanderer walks the earth in search of all the dark and strange stories of the world.
In just seventeen hours our teams must write, rehearse and perform their pieces. Will they be able to put on a show that impresses even the weary Wanderer? For one night only the ADC stage will be home to some of the most curious and bizarre tales the student scene can cook up.
- May 2017
"Dear Mother.
I do not understand what this war was for."
Based on Sebastian Faulks's international bestselling novel, 'Birdsong' tells the story of a soldier haunted by his past. Trapped in the trenches of the First World War, Stephen Wraysford relives in overwhelming memories his love affair of seven years earlier, when he lived in Amiens during peace-time. As the War unfolds, Stephen finds himself pulled closer and closer back to Amiens, back to the Valley of the Somme.
- March 2017
A play about an interracial (black/white) queer couple who are putting on a play about their relationship in order to provide social commentary on contemporary race and gender politics. They trust each other, having been together three years. But the process of devising the play reveals just how much of a defining role race plays in their relationship and individual experiences of the world, throwing up unresolved issues and - challenging them as writers and actors, as well as the audience to think critically about the intersection between race, gender and sexuality. A love story that asks questions and who and why we love and the things that separate us from one another.
- March 2017
Ralph Roister Doister thinks Christian Custance loves him madly. Christian Custance thinks Ralph Roister Doister is a twit. Only one of them is correct.
Join the Marlowe Society as we set out on a new venture--exploring the lesser-performed plays of the early modern period through script-in-hand stagings. On March 14, we begin with Nicholas Udall's 1552 comedy about a dim-witted man convinced of his own importance attempting to force himself on an unwilling woman. Sound like anyone in the news today?
Presented in partnership with the Centre for Mediaeval and Early Modern Law and Literature, the evening will include a panel discussion on the legal issues invoked by the play. Tickets are free, but space is limited!
- February 2017
Son to an impressive father, husband to a passionate queen, King Edward II struggles to find his own voice amidst the clamour of stronger personalities in the English court. Despite the disapproval of his nobles, he finds consolation in his relationship with the low-born Piers Gaveston, often choosing his pleasures with Gaveston over the responsibilities of his position. When his queen and nobles unite against Gaveston, Edward must decide how far he is willing to go to assert his own will in the face of hostile resistance.
In Edward II, Christopher Marlowe masterfully depicts the conflict between personal and political, in which duty wars with desire and even a king’s wishes must yield to the demands of state.
Christopher Marlowe’s gripping drama of deceit and responsibility is brought vividly to life by the Marlowe Society, Cambridge University’s leading drama society. The Marlowe return to Cambridge Arts Theatre after their recent acclaimed productions of Measure for Measure and Dr Faustus; it has been responsible for launching the careers of some of Britain’s greatest actors including Ian McKellen, Tilda Swinton, Tom Hiddleston and Derek Jacobi.
- February 2017
"Nobody's normal. Normal's not normal. Every single person in this room, the waiter, the chef, that balding bloke over there, they've all thought about what we do. They wish they could do it. They're all just fucking cowards."
Dominion is a powerful piece of radio-drama about how two people experience the world, seen through the lens of their sadomasochistic relationship.
- November 2016
August 1939; three days into her job as a journalist, Clare Hollingworth is sent to Poland to report on the growing tensions. It is there she discovers a line of German tanks lined up on the Polish border, poised and just awaiting the order to strike. It is there she warns the entire globe that World War Two has just begun. It is back in her English newspaper office, however, that her contribution is glossed over, her name forgotten and her story erased from our history. All because she was a woman in the male dominated, cutthroat newspaper business.
Right Place Wrong Time tells the remarkable true story of how one woman saved the world and how the world repaid her by forgetting all about her. The story is presided over by present day 104-year-old Clare and told through a series of flashbacks acted out by her younger self and an ever changing cast of characters.
- November 2016–April 1908
Hatch is a collection of dramatic student writing - between five and ten minutes in length - of all different genres and styles that make up over an hour of some of Cambridge's most creative student written theatre.
- November 2016
The Marlowe Showcase is an opportunity for 12-14 graduating actors to perform one or two monologues or duologues in front of industry professionals (including agencies and casting directors) and be directed by a professional Director. Returning as 2015's professional Director is Nicholas Barter, former Principal of RADA (1993-2007) and former Artistic Director of the Arts Theatre.
- November 2016
“Revenge for the Duchess of Malfi, murdered,
For lovely Julia, and for myself,
That was an actor in the main of all…”
In the court of Malfi, the jealous, incestuous obsession of one man sets into motion a series of events that will end in tragedy and redemption…
There will be sheets, soot, shadows, blinking red lights, and those shoes...
That pair of hanging shoes.
- March 2016
“A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown,
Whose compass is no bigger than thy head.”
Richard is King. Richard is King. Richard is King.
The frivolous young monarch is blinded by his own vanity, contentedly crippling the country to fund his hedonistic existence. Yet when the banished Bolingbroke returns and the nobles flee to support him, Richard watches on alone as his kingdom and kingship melt away.
The resplendent Emmanuel Chapel will be the setting for this celebration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, as the Marlowe Society presents an all-female production of one of his most poetic, beautiful and beloved history plays: The Tragedy of King Richard the Second.
The Marlowe Society is one of Cambridge’s oldest and most prestigious drama societies, responsible for sparking the careers of some of Britain’s greatest acting and directing talent: Sir Ian McKellen, Tilda Swinton, Sam Mendes and many more.
- March 2016
The Marlowe Society presents Hatch, a showcase of scratch performances of new dramatic and poetic works in progress from the hotbed of Cambridge literary talent. We return to the ADC Bar for our second HATCH of Lent!
A fantastic insight into fresh new writing in its infancy, there will be an informal post-show discussion for audience, performers, directors and writers to pick apart the evening’s work.
If you're interested in writing drama or poetry, then please also have a look at The John Kinsella and Tracy Ryan poetry prize - more information here! https://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/student-hub/resources/financial-support/english-prizes/
Hatch is a unique and exciting opportunity to be a part of a writing process.
Previous praise for HATCH:
“Wonderful makes for the most accurate description” The Cambridge Student
“Everything about it is just so lovely” The Cambridge Tab
“a gutsy enterprise” Cambridge Theatre Review
- March 2016
"I’m just the crazy, unreliable narrator of my own story."
Haworth parish hall welcomes you to their weekly ‘Womens Aid’ meetings, held every Wednesday, six ‘til seven.
Featuring: Jane, the woefully under-qualified group leader; Tony, who finds sexual gratification in Channel 4 documentaries; Grace, her warden, who sings karaoke every Friday night; Isabel, whose growing baby bump is struggling to fit behind the Tesco till and Helen, who lives in the hall on the hill and always arrives with paint on her fingers.
See these classic Brontë figures strip off their corsets, break down the attic door and elbow their way in to the twenty-first century.
A dark comedy.
Byronic heroes not invited.
- February 2016
In Verse returns to the ADC Bar! The Marlowe Society presents a night of monologues and duologues, a showcase of performances of classic or modern dramatic works in progress from the best performers Cambridge theatre has to offer.
The Marlowe Society was founded in 1907 by a group of students including Justin Brooke as a reaction against Victorian theatre and tradition. Its purpose was to revive the presentation of Shakespeare in Cambridge which had not been performed since 1886, and, in doing so, raise the standard of verse-speaking by actors. Since then, it has met with remarkable success, maintaining these traditions and acting as a nursery of talent and reform.
- February 2016
"The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?"
Vienna at the dawn of the 20th century. By day, a city of coffee shops and smart society. By night, a hotbed of sex and fevered dreams. The wealthy and the powerful climb the stairs to Doctor Freud's consulting room.
The government decides it is time to wage war on vice. But nobody – not even the puritanical new ruler, Angelo – is immune to temptation. The Marlowe Society, Cambridge University’s leading drama society, celebrates the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death with a vivid production of his gripping drama of lust and repression.
Director Tom Littler is Artistic Director of the award-winning Primavera, and was Associate Director of the Peter Hall Company. His critically acclaimed work includes the world premiere of Howard Brenton's Dances of Death.
The Marlowe Society returns to the Cambridge Arts Theatre after their recent acclaimed productions of Henry V and Dr Faustus. The Society has been responsible for launching the careers of some of Britain’s greatest actors including Sir Ian McKellen, Tilda Swinton, Rachel Weisz and Stephen Fry.
The Marlowe Society was founded in 1907 by a group of students including Justin Brooke as a reaction against Victorian theatre and tradition. Its purpose was to revive the presentation of Shakespeare in Cambridge which had not been performed since 1886, and, in doing so, raise the standard of verse-speaking by actors. Since then, it has met with remarkable success, maintaining these traditions and acting as a nursery of talent and reform.
- February 2016
Flamineo is a ruthlessly aspirational malcontent. His sister, Vittoria, is a strong willed woman with questionable morals. Her lover, Bracciano, is shamelessly self-centered, and stops at little to attain what he desires. These characters are the basis of what is one of the very darkest and bloodiest of revenge tragedies.
Set in contemporary Russia, this production of Webster's ‘The White Devil’ entertains the clashes of political ambition. Infidelity, murder, corruption and above all revenge within the atmospheric confines of the Russian Orthodox Church and the cold streets of an oligarchy’s Machiavellian Moscow.
- November 2015
The Marlowe Society presents Hatch, a showcase of scratch performances of new dramatic and poetic works in progress from the hotbed of Cambridge literary talent.
A fantastic insight into fresh new writing in its infancy, there will be an informal post-show discussion for audience, performers, directors and writers to pick apart the evening’s work.
Hatch is a unique and exciting opportunity to be a part of a writing process.
Previous praise for HATCH throughout the ages:
'The Marlowe Society’s more active presence in Cambridge Theatre is much appreciated when opportunities like Hatch are the result.' Tab, 2015
'Wonderful makes for the most accurate description' TCS, 2014
'dark, alarming, and riveting' TCS, 2013
'Everything about it is just so lovely' Tab, 2012
'a gutsy enterprise' CTR, 2011
- November 2015
This year is Yeats150. Events around the world are celebrating the great poet, a leading figure in the fight for Irish independence. In Cambridge, on 23 November, there will be an international conference, commissioned by the Irish Embassy. But when Yeats accepted the Nobel Prize in 1923 it wasn’t as a poet. It was as a dramatist and founder of the Irish National Theatre. The Cambridge Conference will therefore stage two of his plays. Both focus on Yeats’s life-long obsession, the legendary hero and man of blood, Cuchulain. When the leaders of the abortive Easter Rising occupied Dublin in 1916, Yeats saw them as possessed by the ghost of the Cuchulain he had brought back to life on stage. Hence the troubled question in his last book of poems, published after his death:
Did that play of mine send out
Certain men the English shot?
The Marlowe Society and Magdalene College Dramatic Society will present to the Conference the play in which Cuchulain first appears, On Baile’s Strand, followed by the play Yeats wrote on his own death-bed, The Death of Cuchulain.
- 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
"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.
- October 2015
The Marlowe Society presents a night of monologues and duologues, a showcase of performances of classic or modern dramatic works in progress from the best performers Cambridge theatre has to offer.
The Marlowe Society was founded in 1907 by a group of students including Justin Brooke as a reaction against Victorian theatre and tradition. Its purpose was to revive the presentation of Shakespeare in Cambridge which had not been performed since 1886, and, in doing so, raise the standard of verse-speaking by actors. Since then, it has met with remarkable success, maintaining these traditions and acting as a nursery of talent and reform.
- 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.
