Setting the scene for the next season of theatre in Phuket

Sometimes we also turn to thoughts of how to improve on what we’ve already done. Now, as the 2019/2020 Theatrix season bursts out of the starting box, Theatrix will com­bine old, as in improved, with new, as in previously untried.

I’m very excited about what lies ahead this year, and in this month’s The Play’s The Thing!, I want to give you a small peek behind the scenes of what we hope to offer Phuket over the next nine or ten months.

If you read my last three articles, you know I spent most of June, July and Au­gust out of Thailand. First, I was in the USA and got to see great theatre in both Oregon and Texas – two Shakespeare plays, two musicals and a great original play starring an old friend of mine. After a two-day stopover in Phuket, I was off to Dubai to work at Enana Ballet Acad­emy with a delightful bunch of kids on Juha stories in a story theatre format. All these experiences served as inspira­tion, respiration and stimulation for the upcoming season.

What lies ahead? Here are a few things that I am personally involved in:

If you remember The 39 Steps, our final play of last season, a spoof on Hitchcock and the spy/murder/innocent-man-fleeing-for-his-life genre, well, we’re bringing it back in November! We filled up the Underwood Art Factory for two nights in June and the response was so enthusiastic that we felt more people needed to see this delightful play in which Hitchcock meets Monty Python, so to speak. If you missed it in June, mark your calendar and come see it on November 15 and 16. Same venue, same cast. And we need behind-the-scenes people to help us with costumes, makeup, lights and sound since some of our crew from last time have moved on. The story of our lives here in Phuket, isn’t it? Anyone out there wanna help? Contact us if you do.

The following is not Theatrix news exactly, but more a theatre-viewing op­portunity. At HeadStart International School, where I also work, the secondary Creative and Performing Arts depart­ment hasn’t wasted any time following up on last year’s extravaganza, A Night At The Movies. Fame: The Musical is this year’s offering, and the cast is busy dancing, singing, acting, drilling and rehearsing its way to performance dates on November 22 and 23. From what we’ve seen so far, these talented second­ary students are not going to disappoint. So don’t miss that either.

This will be followed up by The Little Mermaid performed by the HeadStart primary students. If anyone saw the HeadStart production of The Amazing Adventures Of Super Stan, then you know the kind of talent the primary school at HeadStart has. So look for The Little Mermaid in February 2020.

Over the last two seasons Theatrix has performed Love Bites, a dinner thea­tre evening of comic plays on love and marriage, at various venues, and we will be bringing this back again with some new talent and an added play or two.

Dinner theatre is a popular form of theatre that was started in the USA in the 1940s and ’50s. The price of a ticket includes a meal, usually with drinks and appetizers before the first part of the evening, the main meal in the inter­val/intermission, and dessert and more drinks at the end.

We started performing dinner thea­tre in Phuket with interactive murder mysteries and then diversified to short plays on love and marriage. In one of these Love Bites evenings you will ex­perience a couple’s entire love life from youth to old age via the Post-its they stuck on the fridge over the years. In another, two strangers make timorous and humorous contact in a psychiatric ward’s waiting room. And there’s also the disastrous last date of a feisty lady and a young man who is psychic but only two minutes in advance. Now we are adding Check, Please, in which a man and a lady, unbeknownst to each other, search for their perfect match separately through one blind date after another with hilarious results.

We are open for invitations to per­form Love Bites at various restaurant venues all around the island. You can also contact Theatrix if you would like an evening of comedy improv from our Outta the Box improv team.

In May or June, we will present an­other full-length play at the Underwood Art Factory. Some of the plays under consideration are Death Trap, Black Comedy and The Real Inspector Hound. We are open to suggestions and to those who would like to audition or help.

And there are several more plans cooking that I won’t divulge right now, but if you like Theatrix Group on Face­book and follow our posts, you will be kept up to date and won’t miss anything.

They sing that old song There’s no business like show business, and it’s really true. One of the great joys of thea­tre for me is that we are always being challenged to learn something new, try something new, take risks, make ven­tures and have adventures. To tackle a new play is like conceiving a baby and the performance is its birth. The sad thing is that every play runs its course and then gets laid to rest, and I have seen actors crying backstage after the final performance of a play because they are saying goodbye to a wonder­ful friend. That’s one of the reasons we are bringing The 39 Steps back; we just weren’t ready to say goodbye, we love that play so much.

If you’d like to join the Theatrix fam­ily in any capacity and would like to help bring good theatre and lots of fun to this island we love, as an actor, a technician, a sponsor, a supporter, a crew member or as part of our growing and wonderful audience, you are more than welcome. Write or call us and see how you can get involved. Here’s to an unforgettable sea­son that lies before us!

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Joel Adams is building a vibrant thea­tre community right here in Phuket. You can contact him at theatrixphuket@gmail.com or by phone on 093 6490066. Facebook: Theatrix Group