Well, it seems we will be staging in Discworld's Fortieth Year!
Forty Years of Discworld - and Thirty-Four Years of the STC and Discworld!
It seemed an easy job… After all, how difficult could it be to make sure that a servant girl doesn’t marry a prince?
But for the witches Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick, travelling to the distant city of Genua, things are never that simple…
Servant girls have to marry the prince. That’s what life is all about. You can’t fight a Happy Ending.
At least – up until now…
THE POSTER
Discworld artist Stephen Player generously offered to design our poster.
TERRY PRATCHETT & THE S.T.C.
The Studio Theatre Club first performed at Abingdon’s Unicorn Theatre in 1991 with the world’s first-ever dramatization of the work of Terry Pratchett – Wyrd Sisters.
That script was written by STC member Stephen Briggs; he went on to write (and publish) more than twenty more dramatisations of Terry’s wonderful books. He and Terry became friends and went on to collaborate on a small raft of other publishing projects.
The Unicorn Theatre is now expected to close for a period, to undergo a major reconstruction. It seemed appropriate that our - potentially - last play there (for now) should also be a Discworld play.
Casting Readthrough - Mon 8 July. The selected cast will also need to attend the Table Read on Thu 11 Juy
THE CAST and REHEARSAL PLANS
I've tidied the info so you don't need to keep driving over to DropBox to see stuff. Now, the expected cast list (& some info about the main characters) is HERE, and I've loaded a copy of the 'doubling chart' HERE - this gives an idea of who's on when. I've also added a copy of the - provisional rehearsal schedule HERE.
HOW WILL IT LOOK?
There are some of my early thoughts on how it'll look HERE.
CASTING THE PLAY
Please note: No roles are pre-cast - not even for me, and I know which part I’d like.
And - a reminder: just as, in Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead, only three people get to play the lead roles, only four people can play the main protagonists in Witches Abroad.
The rest of us will just have to put up with having fun being the people they meet along the way (assuming I don't cast myself as one of the four witches!).
Will I be too old/tall/heavy? (in my case, probably yes) I will be hoping to get the look of the key characters right (as we did in Murder in Ankh-Morpork) — BUT - I won’t allow visual appearance to distract from the overarching requirement: to have good, reliable people in all the key roles.
And finally: All the roles, on and off stage, will be vital to the success of the show.)
THE SCRIPT
I've also attached a copy of the draft script. (This one is a DropBox link) It's not the final version, but it's getting pretty close.
TICKETS
Our Discworld shows have (so far) been very popular, and hopefully the Estate's promotion of this as the 40th Year of Discworld will keep people's interest up. The two Pratchett plays we've staged since we gained an online ticket site both sold out completely within two days of the box office opening. Fingers crossed this may happen again.
BADGES
Will there be badges...? Oh, yes.
