Catalogue

Durham Dramatic Society

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• Durham Dramatic Society
  • Production (Ref: D/DDS 1/2/)
  • Scripts (Ref: D/DDS 1/2/1-7,84)
  • Wardrobe (Ref: D/DDS 1/2/8-12)
  • Publicity (Ref: D/DDS 1/2/13-33,36-38)

Catalogue Description

Durham Dramatic Society

The first recorded meeting of the Amateur Dramatic Society (the Amateur was dropped later to take advantage of more favourable terms when performing plays by G.B. Shaw), was held on 15 November 1928. Membership was to be open to members of the Health Department of Shire Hall, Old Elvet and also to any gentlemen outside the department. There were thirty members of whom seventeen took acting parts. The annual subscription was 2s.6d., later raised to 5s. with travelling expenses paid from the funds. Rehearsals were held in the Nalgo Club Hut, or a room at the Garden House or in members' homes. For fifty years the booking of seats was organised through Donkins, the tobacconist in the Market Place.

In the early years there were close links with the Shire Hall music society, who provided interval music and also shared in joint productions 1934-1936. Members also took part in the Shakespearean productions of Eric Barber on behalf of the Durham House Settlement.

The Society joined the British Drama League in 1929 and competed regularly in its festivals with considerable success, reaching the National Finals in the 1950s coming second in 1955 with the production 'Ye Gods'. It was during this period that the society had over four hundred members of whom fifty took acting parts. The competitive tradition is successfully maintained by award-winning productions like 'Zoo Story' at Sedgefield Festival in 1991.

In the 1930s a variety of activities developed including the tradition of annual dinners, news bulletins, play reading circle, library (discontinued in 1931), wireless group to listen on Monday evenings to weekly talks on drama and a concert party in October 1939. The war had a decisive effect on the Society.

Initially membership was affected by call up and civil defence requirements, so the monthly social meeting was started in order to retain members. However, the Society's producer, Mrs. Margaret Marshall, was made head of the Durham Area of Voluntary Entertainment Service. This was the start of a very hectic period when plays and concerts were performed on a variety of stages, sometimes under fire and once before an unresponsive audience who turned out to be newly arrived Polish airmen who knew no English. The war years also saw the establishment of a Junior Section in 1944.

Meetings were to be held once a month, prior to the monthly meeting, and to be spent teaching the art of stagecraft. Then, when the standard was good enough they would perform short curtain-raisers before the Society's main plays. This tradition was extended in 1953 when, at the request of the County Drama Organiser, Miss D.P.W. Carr, the Society gave performances of Theatre for Children.

After the war, in 1946, the Society became a limited company. Difficulties with rehearsal and storage led to the purchase of the old British Restaurant in Back Silver Street. [This was built around 1800 and had been used as a printing works with printing machines in the basement and the first floor specially strengthened by two extra pillars in the basement so that rolls of paper could be stored]. This was used as club and rehearsal rooms but difficulties remained with productions. Initially productions were held in St. Margaret's Hall, Crossgate, then in the hall of Whinney Hill School which necessitated sets being taken down each night. From 1968 use of the Assembly Rooms restricted productions to dates outside university terms. The dream of their own theatre met with various setbacks until the proposal to alter the club rooms was accepted. The development of the theatre [see: D/DDS/1/3/106] culminated in the opening of the City Theatre by Mrs Margaret Marshall in November 1986. The first production was 'Seasons Greetings' by Alan Ayckbourn which heralded an active and successful period in the history of the society.

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