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Players Theatre

Anfield Rd, Cheadle SK8 5EX

Phone:0161 485 1441
website: www.playersdramatic.co.uk/

 

Players Dramatic Society is based in Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire, about nine miles south of Manchester.

We have our own theatre with bar and lounge facilities. Established in the 1920s, we usually perform four main productions throughout our season.

The youth stage their own productions in the season and have the opportunity to become involved with the adult section plays.

We also have a varied social calendar throughout the year which non-members are welcome to attend.

Our History

Founded in the 1920s, the Players Dramatic Society spent many years performing its productions and holding social events in Cheadle Hulme Parish Hall, and sometimes in members’ homes. This pattern carried on until after World War II, but members always yearned for a home of their own.

In 1947 they purchased a redundant army hut which had been in use during the war as an ambulance depot in Sharston. This was dismantled and stored until such time as a site could be found for its re-erection.

Over the following years several sites were considered and for various reasons, rejected until finally the present site was purchased and in 1950 the hut was erected and optimistically named ‘The Playhouse’. This wooden structure was used for meetings and socials but plays were still presented in the Parish Hall, until, as usually happens at Players, a bunch of enthusiastic members rolled up their sleeves and set to work on the construction of a stage and fairly primitive dressing room facilities. This included the use of a caravan parked behind the theatre and accessed through an open window on the back wall! Not exactly the height of luxury but at last, Players had a theatre they could call their own.

In 1955, Count Your Blessings became the first three-act play to be presented at the Playhouse

This was a great step forward but not without its problems. The building was recognised by the Council only as a temporary construction, with the constant threat of demolition hanging over it. The only answer was to make it a permanent building by putting a brick shell around the wooden structure. Thus began another building project to do just this, and, at the same time, to create the lighting and sound ‘perch’, make the Green Room a permanent fixture and carry out other improvements to the foyer, kitchen and toilets. (Goodbye Elsans - Hello flushing loos!)

The new theatre, externally much like it is today, opened for business in 1965. Over the succeeding years, the society went from strength to strength, both onstage and in the facilities provided for our patrons and performers.

One project saw further improvement of the foyer, kitchen and toilets and the construction of the lounge and bar at the front of the theatre.

Then came the building of what was known as ‘The Tower’ at the rear of the theatre, to provide storage for scenery, props etc.

Another part of this project was the provision of new toilets and a washroom for the actors. At around the same time the car park was surfaced and at last we were able to drive in without putting our car’s suspension at serious risk.

Seating in the theatre still took the form of stacking chairs which, before each production, had to be clipped together, numbered and laid out on the ‘stillages’. These were a set of boxes which created different seating levels, and which after each play had to be removed and stacked under a tarpaulin in the corner of the car park.

Then, in the early 1980s, suggestions were made in committee that we should consider improving the auditorium, with a proper stepped floor and real tip-up theatre seating along with central heating, carpets and other creature comforts.

The idea took hold, particularly among those of us sick of the sight of stillages and stacking seats. Plans were drawn up and a budget prepared, and at the end of the 1984-85 season work commenced and carried on at a frantic pace throughout the summer.

The new theatre, more or less as we know it today, was opened in 1985. Much has been achieved over the years and much remains to be done. Let’s hope that in the future, members will be able to look back on similar achievements with the same sense of satisfaction and pride as we do.