Stephen Joseph Theatre: 2000

This page contains a more detailed guide to significant events concerning the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, in 2000.

2000

  • 11 - 22 January: First visit to the SJT by Hull Truck Theatre with Unleashed by John Godber.
  • 2 - 6 April: The first Ayckbourn and the Round theatre school is held at the SJT offering participants from around the world a chance to spend the week going behind the scenes at the SJT with Alan Ayckbourn and the SJT company.
  • Summer: The SJT has initially planned the 2000 season would be a retrospective celebration of a century of theatre with a play from each decade of the 20th century by different playwrights. The reality - apparently for budgetary reasons - is somewhat different. The year includes J.M. Barrie's What Every Woman Knows (1900) and The Twelve-Pound Look (1914), George Bernard Shaw's Candida (1894) and Village Wooing (1934), Noël Coward's Private Lives (1930), Alan Ayckbourn's Bedroom Farce (1975) and the world premieres of Virtual Reality and Whenever (2000). Quite what happened to plays from the '20s, '40s, '50s, '60s, '80s and '90s and all the other great playwrights of the 20th century is unknown…
  • 8 August: The New Vic Theatre tours The Mikado, the first production at the SJT to be directed by its future Artistic Director Chris Monks.
  • 30 September: Platform talk with Richard Eyre, former director of the National Theatre, and Alan Ayckbourn.
  • 21 September: The 25th anniversary of Alan Ayckbourn's Bedroom Farce is marked with a revival in The Round, marking the first time the playwright has directed the play in-the-round as was originally intended in 1975. *
  • 16 - 17 November: First visit to the SJT of Graeae Theatre Company with The Changeling by Middleton & Rowley.
  • 19 December: Bedroom Farce is re-directed for The McCarthy as an end-stage production (as was commissioned by the National Theatre in 1975) prior to touring. It is the only play at the SJT to have been performed in both The Round and The McCarthy. *
  • Date TBC: The SJT is nominated for Theatre Of The Year at the Barclays Theatre Awards and Larkin With Women wins Best New Play at same awards.
* Somewhat confusingly, Alan Ayckbourn was commissioned to write Bedroom Farce by the National Theatre for the end-stage Lyttelton Theatre in 1975. Alan's one proviso was the play premiere at Theatre in the Round at the Library Theatre where he intended to stage it in-the-round but subsequently had to direct it three-sided due to issues with the size of the beds.
Article by and copyright of Simon Murgatroyd. Please do not reproduce this article without permission of the copyright holder.