KIDDERMINSTER PLAYHOUSE
1946 - 1968 A Souvenir

History

Contents

FOURTEEN WEEKS 1955-1956

With the theatre open for only 14 weeks the Nonentities helped fill the gap with an additional play and, a new departure, three rehearsed play-readings.

The result was a reduction of the debt by £l,304 - but then a new blow fell. The Rural Council, pleading "financial stringency" discontinued its annual grant of £142, leaving the theatre entirely without subsidy.

The old boiler chose this moment to give up and an appeal was launched for a general overhaul of the heating system. Within a year the whole cost, £550, had been raised, including a £50 gift from the Town Council.

The year was occupied in making the best of things but it was not what the Nonentities had saved and struggled for. There was no joy in rehearsing in the Greenroom when the theatre next door was "dark".

The society opened its programme with its first "off the card" production For Better, For Worse, followed by Major Barbara, Pink String and Sealing Wax and Interference, which had a powerful role for John Pell.

The joint societies' musical, Huckleberry Finn, was voted a triumph by the Press, both for the composer, Kenneth Rose and for Dorothy Bird in the title role. The final show was a stylish Book of the Month.

The pantomime was Aladdin, the KAOS played The Belle of New York and Carpet Trades Zip Goes a Million.