News & Reviews
28th Jul


The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

An Evening of Celebration Bill Pearson Award

Desperately Seeking Singers

Two fun ways of raising the funds to take POPCORN to Edinburgh

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Nomad News: March 1999

Stories in this Issue:
Audio Description Service for the Blind
The launch of our New Facilities for the blind and deaf.
Thanks to BT
Butterflies Are Free
Wyrd Sisters - Terry Pratchett: Who He?
Prompt Corners
Theatre Bar
Audio description


Audio Description Service for the Blind
The installation of the infrared system to provide play commentaries for the blind has almost been completed. The system which has been most generously sponsored by British Telecom, will be launched during the production of When Did You Last See Your Trousers?
 


The launch of our New Facilities for the blind and deaf.

The new facilities in the theatre for visually impaired people and those with hearing difficulties were officially launched on 12th March by Lord Ashley of Stoke, formerly Jack Ashley, the MP who championed the cause of disabilities for many years.

He and the theatre's good friend Roger Broad of British Telecom spoke to our audience before the performance of When Did You Last See Your Trousers? They emphasised the uniqueness of the facilities that have been installed in the theatre.

 


Thanks to BT

Thanks to the very generous support of British Telecom we now have:

* An audio description unit enabling us to provide a commentary for visually impaired people. We have six headsets for them.

* An infra red system for people with hearing difficulties. We have five receivers for them.

* A unit in the foyer where the users of the receivers can adjust them with the aid of an information message.

* Hearing loops in our Box Office and Committee Room

BT has done us proud.

 


Butterflies Are Free
Rehearsals for Bill Pearson's Studio production are going nicely, with a strong cast working well together. The set is now complete, thanks to the hard work of Tom Thomas and Gordon Hilliker. Everyone involved thinks it is a loverly play. There are only a few days to go and already half the 32 seats per night have been sold - so get booking!
 


Wyrd Sisters - Terry Pratchett: Who He?

In case you don't know about him, the author of the Young Nomads' April production is one of the most successful writers Britain has every produced, and one of the funniest.

He happens to write fantasy novels, so he is not as well known as your Booker or Whitbread winners, but he outsells them many times over, and more often. His books aren't just for the young, either, but rather for the young at heart; some of his fans are on their tenth bus pass.

He tends to produce a couple of novels a year - with not a dud amongst them - and he has been compared to P G Wodehouse, Dickens and Tolkein amongst others. He is one of those rare writers who can make you shout with laughter in an empty room.

Discworld, an imaginary planet, is the setting for most of his books. Anything can happen there, and usually does. In Wyrd Sisters threee witches happen. Sound familiar? Come and see if it is.

 


Prompt Corners

The Prompt Corner special matinee of Butterflies Are Free on 24th March is booked out, but you can still come and have lunch that day. Please call Eva Pearson on 01306 730582 if you want to do that.

On 21st April we welcome back to the theatre as a speaker Jenny Agnew, a Nomad way back (some of those present will have acted with her) who turned professional and did some of her work in the West End. She will be discussing the differences between amateur and professional theatre.

On 19th May our speaker will be Ken Master, the Production and Technical Director of the Epsom Playhouse, a really active local venue which as been very successful in getting in both amateur and professional shows to fill the theatre.

 


Theatre Bar

Because we want members to be able to use the theatre building as fully as possible we have decided to leave the bar room open more often, so that it can be used to better advantage.

Please feel free to use it, but remember - if you want to book the room for a particular event you must let Ted Yates know so that he can mark it down on the planner.

Saturday Mornings
Because of the ever increasing popularity of the Nomes Workshops on Saturday mornings and the more frequent Box Office opening times the bar room will be open from 10.30am to 12.15pm Coffee and soft drinks will be available at very modest prices so that Nome parents, and anyone else can have some refreshments while they wait to pick up and drop off their children. Children under 14 are welcome in the bar room between those hours.

Between 12.15pm and 1.30pm we will open the bar itself for those who would like something a little more fortifying. Please note however, that children under fourteen cannot come into the Bar while alcoholic beverages are available.

We hope that these arrangements will be more pleasant for Nome parents than milling around the stage door.

Young Nomads:
Friday evenings
The bar will be open on Friday evenings between 9.30pm and 11.00pm to provide a venue for the Young Nomads to meet after their weekly sessions. This has proved very popular in the past and of course all other members are welcome to pop in. Please note, though, that we must observe the age limits, so we ask for co-operation.

Sunday Mornings
It has been suggested that the bar is opened on some sunday mornings so that members can have a meeting place. We propose to try one Sunday a month to see if this proves popular. No dates have been fixed as yet so watch out in future Newsletters for details.

Bar Help
To make all this work, though, we need to help of more of the membership to work behind the bar. If you would like to try your hand as a Bar Person (and wear a nice white Nomad sweat shirt) please get in touch with a member of the Bar Committee, or of the Nomad Council, or Margaret Yates (on 01372 454314), who will be waiting, pen in hand, to add your name to her list of helpers.

The bar should also be included in the weekend cleaning rota, so if the door is unlocked please allow the Hoover and some dusters to find their way in.

Finally, and for the record, our permitted licensing hours are:

Mon - Sat: 11am - 2.30pm, 6.30pm - 11pm
Sunday: 12noon - 2pm, 7pm - 10:30pm

At these times, and if the bar shutters are open then children under 14 cannot come into the bar, even if drinks are not being sold.. Also children between 14 and 16 must be accompanied.

 


Audio description
Our audio description team was thoroughly blooded during Trousers, with two blind persons in the audience on the Wednesday and six on the Friday, when the service is inaugurated by Lord Ashley of Stoke.

The describers do an act apiece, and there is a stand-by in case of indisposition. During Trousers the describers were new member Rachel Mold and Deb Nurse on Wednesday and Deb and Dorite Anderson a Nome Mum on the Friday. Eva Pearson, John Tweedale and Chris Brooks have also trained as describers.

After some guidance from the audio description team at Chichester Theatre our describers prepared the script themselves, including an introduction to the Nomads and the theatre building.

We expect this service, which is not available even in professional theatres in the area, to be a regular feature during our shows.

The job of the describer involves reading the play, watching run-throughs, preparing and testing the script and describing the action on stage with the help of a monitor in the Committee Room. The aim in preparing the script is to place the commentary in such a way as to avoid a clash with the stage dialogue - not an easy task during a farce.

If anyone is interested in joining the team they should get in touch with Bill Pearson on 01306 730582.

If you are booking tickets for someone who needs to use the aids for hearing or sight please make this clear to the Box Office.
 


1999 Newsletters:
January February
March April
May June
July August
September October
November December

Yearly Archive: 1999, 2001, 2002,


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