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ACT member society Worsley Intimate Theatre did some
careful planning when deciding on their plays for the recent
season, and chose to select a play that was on the school
curriculum.
An Inspector Calls
by JB Priestley has always been one of his
most popular plays to perform and is well known to audiences,
and this year was being studied by a few schools for their GCSE
English exams. This opened up a really good opportunity for
WITS to invite various local schools so they could get an
opportunity to bring to life this well read manuscript in a more
visual form.
Schools from the Walkden and Worsley area and one from
as far away as Rawtenstall contacted the society to make block
bookings. Some planning by the society ensured that not only
could they see the play at a student rate but also by getting the
majority of them in on the same night, we also allowed for a
post production question and answer session for the students.
Also present on that evening was ACT drama agent Brian
Seymour who was on this occasion directing the play for
WITS. Being an ex school headmaster meant that Brian knew
the score when it came to the Q and A and was prepared
for every eventuality - he did some revision himself!! The
questions proved quite testing for the cast and crew and it was
really clear the students had really studied the play by asking
some interesting, intellectual and well thought out questions
around the play’s moral and social commentary.
Being a member of WITS and stage manager for the play
gave me the opportunity to speak to some of the teachers at
the interval. One of the teachers did say that quite often they
take the pupils to professional productions but they had not been
able to find any professional productions of this play so he was
delighted to be informed of this production.
I know the WITS committee was delighted with the additional
ticket sales and also felt that going in this direction had really
allowed them to put something back into the community and
support local educational need. So much so, that they are
making enquiries about next year’s English syllabus to see if it is
something they can repeat next season.
An Inspector Calls
in rehearsal
Worsley Intimate Theatre
Supporting Education in the Community