~ Previous Productions ~

1996 - The Taming of the Shrew

1998 - The Merchant of Venice

1997 - Romeo and Juliet

Quenington Old Rectory

 

1997 was The Year of The Young; and it was to Director Oliver Clauson that fell the unenviable task of assembling and manipulating large numbers of Teens-and-Twenties into Capulet and Montague gangs for a Shakespearian period Romeo and Juliet. James Harpham produced another original musical score; and frighteningly realistic sword fights, with real stage swords, were created under the direction of Paul Benzing from the National. The secret to such realism is, of course, expert tuition followed by lots of practice, and no one was actually wounded by a sword; but we did have one casualty — Tybalt had to play the last three nights with a badly sprained ankle. The universal opinion was, however, that The Young really did convince; and Central TV also did a nice piece on the show.