St
Mary's Players in the 70' and 80's
In the '70's the big
Broadway musicals were introduced into the Players repertoire with shows like
"Annie Get Your Gun", "Oklahoma!", "Carousel",
"South Pacific", "Hello Dolly" and "Calamity Jane"
being successfully presented on the Parish Hall stage. For 26 years all our
main productions had been at St Mary's Parish Hall, but our 1985 production
of "Showboat" proved to be the last to be performed there. The Hall's
sudden totally unexpected closure resulted in the biggest upheaval in the club's
history.
We lost our performance
venue, rehearsal base and clubrooms virtually overnight. We were, in effect,
homeless.
Our move to the Redgrave
Theatre in Clifton at last gave us a chance to perform in a real theatre and,
following an uncertain few months in the church vestry and Purdown Hospital,
a new base was established at the Page Community Association premises at Staple
Hill in Bristol, where we have remained ever since.
The down side of the move was that the Redgrave Theatre was on the other side
of the city, which meant that inevitably we lost a good proportion of the audiences
who had supported us for years at Fishponds.
Nevertheless, the club continued to function successfully and we have enjoyed
working and progressing under the leadership of a wide selection of talented
Directors, Musical Directors and Choreographers at our present home at Page
Community Association.